Who Follows This Racist X Account with BC Roots? JD Vance for One

A Christian liberal arts university in the heart of B.C.’s Bible Belt has responded to allegations that the son of its president runs an influential white supremacist X account.

“Today, I want to make something crystal clear: regardless of its source, I have always and will continue to stand against racism in every form,” Todd Martin, the president of Trinity Western University, said in a statement published on the university’s website on Thursday.

“I reject white supremacy and any ideology that elevates one group of people over another. I denounce the use of derogatory and disparaging labels and language and any attempts to dehumanize another individual or group. I strongly oppose the use of social media for spreading such harmful ideas. And I do this not just because it’s the right thing to do but because it is what God expects of us and how His Spirit compels us to live.”

On Tuesday, U.S. reporters Steven Monacelli and Kyle Phalen published an in-depth investigation into the identity of the person behind @captivedreamer7, an influential far-right X account that has taken credit for bringing the racist and untrue story about Haitian immigrants eating pets to Vice-President JD Vance’s attention during the 2024 election campaign.

The account has over 73,000 followers and both Vance and Elon Musk, a tech billionaire who is deeply involved in U.S. President Donald Trump’s White House, have interacted with the account.

Monacelli and Phalen identified the anonymous account owner as Geoff Martin, the son of TWU president Todd F. Martin, and highlighted his ties to the Lower Mainland, including graduating from the University of British Columbia in 2012.

The Tyee attempted to contact the @captivedreamer7 account and Geoff Martin through an email associated with him but did not get any reply.

The Tyee has replicated some of Monacelli and Phalen’s reporting, running an email associated with @captivedreamer7’s Substack account through the website OSINT.industries.

That search returned a Dropbox account that uses the same email as the one associated with the Substack account and is registered to Geoffrey Martin.

After reaching out to TWU for comment on Tuesday, The Tyee received an initial response from the university. “We are aware of allegations against an anonymous social media account unrelated to the University,” it said.

The Tyee followed up with questions about whether any of the Daily Dot reporting concerning the relationship between Geoff and Todd Martin was inaccurate but did not receive a response.

A website called Wiza.co that purports to pull information from sources like LinkedIn lists Geoffrey Martin as an employee of TWU. The Tyee asked TWU whether Geoffrey Martin had ever been a current or former employee of the university, but we did not get a response.

Posting late on Tuesday evening, the @captivedreamer7 account said he was American and spent his “formative years” in the Midwest.

But Monacelli and Phalen’s reporting, which included an exhaustive search through current and deleted X posts and other social media posts, found @captivedreamer7 talking about living in Washington state, having dual Canadian and American citizenship and visiting Abbotsford. Readers can visit Monacelli and Phalen’s story on the Daily Dot to verify those links.

X posts reviewed by the Tyee included posts about @captivedreamer7’s Canadian relatives, finding a certain kind of cheese on a visit to Canada and frequently commenting about political issues in the Lower Mainland and Canada.

The account’s posts about Vancouver, B.C., and Canada almost always focus on complaining that immigration is leading to too many non-white people in communities like Richmond and Toronto, often showing video clips of groups of non-white people in malls or on transit as examples of a supposed problem with too much immigration.

Multiple posts also call residential school grave investigations in Canada a “hoax,” another common focus of the far right in Canada.

Monacelli and Phalen also found a now-deleted post from @captivedreamer7 saying the account holder believes “in Hitler, in National Socialism, in Total N****r death. They win about how I talk but that’s because I’m Aryan, confident and not a fucking MEXICAN F****t like they are.”

The account’s photo is an image of cult leader David Koresh wearing a photoshopped red Make America Great Again hat. Since 76 people were killed in a botched federal attack on the cult’s Waco, Texas, headquarters, Koresh has been celebrated as a hero by the far right and conspiracy theorists.

Carmen Celestini, a lecturer at the University of Waterloo who studies religion, extremism, conspiracy theories and politics in North America, said it’s important to highlight how common these views have become in Canada, especially among a cohort of younger men.

“We have this growing male group, attached to religion, who are engaging in anger towards immigration, towards Judaism, towards Islam,” Celestini said.

“We do have this issue here, we have growing Christian nationalism — it is absolutely attached to younger males who feel that they are disenfranchised, that they are being oppressed and are victims to progressiveness in society.”

When it comes to U.S. politics, @captivedreamer7 often amplifies the far-right issue of the day, whether it’s the false story about Haitian immigrants or more recent calls to pardon Derek Chauvin, the police officer convicted of murdering George Floyd.

His posts about Canada attack immigration by non-white people, often referencing the Great Replacement theory — “a white nationalist conspiracy theory that says the white population of Western countries are being deliberately replaced through immigration,” according to the Canadian Anti-Hate Network.

The account also frequently posts denigrating messages about women. Several posts talk about a predilection for teenage girls and Japanese anime depictions of women. One post says date rape is “predominantly fake,” while another says women becoming the majority of law students is a problem because it will lead to a “marriage crisis” because women don’t want to “marry down.”

Several posts mockingly refer to @captivedreamer7 being an incel. One shows a man with a sword with the caption “Women made me who I am. I am a ‘violent virgin’ who has spent years studying the blade.”

Celestini notes that the reach of Geoff Martin's account, read and responded to by powerful figures like Vance and Musk, reflects the growing influence of Christian nationalism. Christian nationalism is the belief that countries like England and the United States are inherently Christian in their national character, and it can be used to exclude or marginalize non-Christians or non-white people.

“Christian nationalism can be attached to all of the fears that [@captivedreamer7 has voiced], and the incel idea. It can be attached to denigrating or designating who is a Canadian or who is not a Canadian, based on this religious idea. It also puts them in a position where they are seen as being oppressed or being seen as being harmed by the things that are happening.”

Celestini acknowledges that parents don’t have control over what their adult children do, and Todd Martin, in his public statement, has denounced his son's views.

Not all evangelical Christians are Christian nationalists, but Celestini said there are overlaps in deeply held socially conservative views. “There's a huge narrative of Christian persecution within the religion itself, that they’re always being harmed for what they believe in,” said Celestini.

When it comes to attitudes about women, evangelical Christian teachings often emphasize traditional gender roles, casting women in the role of helpmates to male partners, and men in the role of protectors of women.

Trinity Western University has faced scrutiny for its covenant that requires students to adhere to a code of conduct that includes abstinence from sex outside of heterosexual marriage.

In 2018, the university was denied accreditation for its law school over concerns the covenant discriminated against LGBTQ2S+ students.

Todd Martin is a pastor with Grace Communion International, a ministry that was once known as the Worldwide Church of God. The church at one time published a highly circulated book called The United States and Britain in Prophecy, which taught “that Great Britain and the United States of America descended from two of the lost 10 tribes of Israel.” The church withdrew the book from circulation in 1990 and no longer teaches the doctrine, according to Grace Communion International’s website.

“While it may be an interesting theory, there is a lack of credible evidence, either in the biblical account or the historical record, to support a conclusion regarding the modern identity of the lost tribes of Israel,” the church states.

Celestini said there is a link between British Israelism and white nationalism.

“A lot of white nationalists use British Israel as part of their foundation,” Celestini said.

“And it’s morphed over time, but white nationalists use it to say that contemporary Jewish individuals are not truly part of the tribes. And so it can help ‘prove’ antisemitic ideas, but it can also strengthen [the belief] that they have this covenant with God, and God is protecting them as white Anglo-Saxon individuals.”

In some posts, @captivedreamer7 has claimed to be Jewish; in others, he says he’s Christian.

In his statement, Todd Martin said his reading of the Bible underpins his belief that one ethnic group should not be elevated above another.

“Ephesians 2 gives us a powerful reminder of who we are in Christ,” he says in a video message.

“The Apostle Paul speaks to a divided world: Jews and Gentiles, two groups that saw each other as enemies. But Paul describes something radical: Jesus has destroyed the barrier that separates us. ‘For he himself is our peace, who has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility.’”

Despite the scrutiny on his account, @captivedreamer7 has continued to post on X dozens of times since the Daily Dot story was published on Tuesday.

On Thursday, @captivedreamer7 posted a clip of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and wrote, “Bizarre to see these Western politicians declaring themselves ‘Zionists’ as they insist on replacing their own population with throngs of foreigners.

“For thee, not for me.”