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Unlike most established political gurus, Bonnell has no academic background (not even a college degree) and no experience in journalism, or writing, or business and is not affiliated with any political party or ideology. In a field completely dominated by high-pedigree individuals, he is as blue-collar as it gets. A college drop-out who worked in a casino and a carpet laundry before taking up professional gaming as a full-time occupation under the name "Destiny". Soon, he started to engage in debates on various topics while simultaneously playing video games on the screen. That was in the early 2010s. Gamergate triggered the emergence of a large number of streamer-commentators among whom Destiny stood out as a left-leaning (in the American sense) personality in a crowd that largely stretches from conservatives to the far-right, but he really started to gain recognition in tandem with the rising of Trump.
The video-gaming part has been dropped by now, but Destiny is as present as ever, with his 24/7 14-hours daily online presence making Lex Friedman look like a slouch. He debates anyone and everyone on current issues and general topics in politics and economy (and sometimes in philosophy and science) from Nick Fuentes-like neo-nazis to die-hard communists, radical feminists and Andrew Tate fanboys, Hamas-sympathizers and Zionists, social justice warriors and election deniers, anti-vaxxers, radical libertarians, and anyone in- or wildly outside the Overton-window.
Regarding his own views, he began as a "pull up yourself by your own bootstraps"-type conservative and over the years evolved into what he describes as a social democrat. I'd rather call him a centrist, but in the States, the political categories don't exactly mean the same as in Europe (as almost all Americans misuse the words "liberal" and "socialist"). In a nutshell, he is a social liberal and an economic centrist. To draw the general contours: he believes in liberal values (rule of law, democratic institutions, individual freedom) and in free markets buttressed by a welfare state. He is absolutely pro-Ukraine, pro-vaccine, strongly pro-Israel, strongly pro-Biden (and anti-Trump), left-of-center on trans issues, and regards the US as an altogether positive geopolitical force.
He is also unideological in a refreshing way, who tries to build his argument on empirical data instead of on some moral basis. As he once put it, if the evidence showed that central planning is superior to free markets, he would be open to be convinced by it, as opposed to most rightwing commentators for whom it's not so much a question of economics, but of identity.
His atypical background aside, his views - which are fairly aligned with the mainstream - wouldn't make him stand out from the crowd. His uniqueness lies in his personality, skills, and content-incontinence. But most of all, his personality. He has one skill few people possess in sufficient amount and which is indispensable if one wants to stay in this business long. His skin is not so much thick as literally impenetrable. Destiny is impossible to be triggered by personal insults or condescension. In one on-premise debate, the right-wing degenerate Milo Yiannopoulos tried to crawl under his skin by telling the audience how Destiny parades his wife around as the town-whore (until his recent divorce, Destiny lived in an open relationship), then went a step further and made remarks on his 9-year old son. All this in the context of arguing for 12th-century Christian values. Destiny simply ignored him then offhandedly shot back with a joke Milo did not get. He came across as the piece of shit he is, and that was the end of his desired career comeback effort.
The source of this resilience is the result of both nature and nurture. At the core is something Destiny must have been born with instead of having learned because in an interview with Alex O'Connor (formerly known as Cosmic Skeptic), he admitted that he sometimes doesn't understand the emotional state of others. As a side note, he also doesn't think animals are anything more than consciousness-less biological machines, and repeated attempts from Alex failed to disabuse him of this disturbing view. The nurture part comes from growing up in the gamer culture where depraved talk (in his words) is the norm and people think it's funny because it's so bad and not taken seriously at the same time. Anyone who stays long there will grow insensitive to the most graphic death threats and obscene verbal abuses that are thrown around all the time. In the world of normal human beings, Destiny is just impossible to rattle. It doesn't mean that he is some Spock-like character who is immune to emotions. He loses his temper quite often and tells his opinion in a very vulgar manner if he runs out of patience with what he perceives as stupidity.
Another thing he must have been born with is the obsession with which he dives into any topic that piqued his interest. When learning about a new thing - let's say the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict he started studying after Oct 7 - he famously starts from Wikipedia (which was mocked recently by Joe Rogan, which is funny, regarding how much time Rogan spends spreading misinformation about things he knows little about), then follows the links all the way to reading history books and UN resolutions if needed. A good observation he often makes is that if you actually read full articles instead of just their headlines, regardless of the source (let it be Fox News or CNN), you will be better informed than 90% of the people. Taking it a step further, Destiny often demonstrates the surprising fact that if you start from the level of a layman but completely dedicate yourself to studying a political/historical topic for a couple of months and you know how to discern the most important facts from the details, your judgment on major points can be as well-informed as the judgment of any expert of the topic.
On top of his natural abilities, Destiny has 10+ years behind him as an online debater. He is just superb at what he does. He has a very quick wit, can think on his feet, and adapt to his opponent's style on the fly. He knows how to let buffoons like Milo undermine themselves while appearing professional and polite, can be extremely confrontative and engage in a shouting match if needed, but can also shine in a good-faith argument with very smart but ideologically blinkered opponents. But to be frank, he is the best when he loses his patience: he still doesn't respond to ad hominems in kind, but instead dials up the speech speed and launches barrages of perfectly reasonable arguments laden with expletives (a must-watch).
He knows his limits as well and how much skills can matter over logical arguments. Once he said that the smartest flat-earther in the world would probably wipe the floor with him in a debate.
The quality is matched by the quantity. His output is inhuman. Despite having become a millionaire, he still spends 14 hours a day online, jumping from one debate to another, with no signs of exhaustion. When not, he goes to campuses to debate libertarians and trans-activists, and Trump rallies to interview those who turn up there. And still in a T-shirt, hoody, or tracksuit like a 20-year-old Gamer. It's an unusual way to spend your life.
Even with all those attributes working in his favor, as recently as a year ago, I was sure that he would never break into the mainstream. The people he is associated with contain Marxist hardliners, white supremacists, Andrew Tate-worshipping misogynists, and some of the lowest scum the space can produce. If you'd like to venture into the dark underbelly of American political forums in any direction, you'll hardly find a better guide than Destiny. You can also be genuinely surprised by the difference in human quality between individuals even there. If I was forced to have a chat with a Nazi, I would choose Richard Spencer over Nick Fuentes without hesitation.
The content is dicey, but the style isn't helpful either, to put it mildly. As mentioned above, Destiny comes from the gamer culture. Old habits linger on, and he can still be extremely vulgar, either on purpose or just for fun. Once he was discussing the concept of marginal utility in an online conversation and said something like "$10,000 could be a life-changing for someone in the bottom 10 percentile, but I would probably spend it in a couple of days just by fucking your mother a thousand times." There are thousands of hours of videos of him to cut out 10 seconds from to make him look like anything from a serial killer to a pedophile. In 2022, he got banned from Twitch for "hateful conduct".
Nevertheless, on his eternal C-league status, I am happy to have been proven wrong. In the past year, he has appeared on debate panels, was invited to give speeches at universities, appeared on Lex Friedman's podcast, then on Within Reason with Alex O'Connor, and finally, on Piers Morgan. He sat across the table with Alex Jones, Ben Shapiro, Norman Finkelstein, Jordan Peterson from the "real world", and basically debated everyone in the Youtube sphere. He worked his way up from the sewers and made his entry to the top tier. Until he gets bored with it, I think he is there to stay.
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