When Jubilee Media uploaded its now viral Surrounded Mehdi Hasan Jubilee Debate debate episode, “1 Progressive vs 20 Far‑Right Conservatives,” on 20 July 2025, the premise seemed simple: place the sharp‑tongued progressive journalist Mehdi Hasan in a room with 20 young conservatives and let them test their arguments. What millions of viewers witnessed was more than a debate; it became a case study in the mainstreaming of extremist ideologies and the dangers of turning politics into viral entertainment.
Extremists in the Room
Hasan admits that he accepted Jubilee’s invitation because the show has a massive Gen Z audience. In his own town‑hall debrief on Zeteo, he said he was initially excited to debate “arguments about good faith” and saw the platform as a way to reach teenagers who may not otherwise encounter his work. Hasan is one of the most accomplished debaters on television, yet he is clear that he generally refuses to debate fascists and racists. He thought he would face “ordinary” conservatives but instead found himself confronted by participants who openly embraced fascism and white nationalism. “When the quote‑unquote Trump supporters around me basically just came out and said, ‘No, no, we’re fascists, we’re racists,’ it was kind of unpretty,” he later told Tim Miller on the Bulwark podcast.
Another participant, Richard Black, initially less prominent than Estelle, was later unmasked by The Guardian as the organiser of violent far‑right protests in Berkeley in 2017. The paper reported that Black had arranged rallies where Proud Boys and white‑supremacist groups attacked anti‑fascist demonstrators. During the Jubilee debate Black declined to condemn violence against police, described his own politics as “white nativist” and claimed that mainstream conservatives “might as well be leftists to me”. The Guardian’s reporting underscored critics’ suspicions that Jubilee’s producers either failed to vet participants or deliberately stacked the panel with extremists.
A Debate or a “Low‑key KKK Rally”?
On the Bulwark podcast, Hasan recounted how the in‑studio atmosphere felt nothing like a conventional debate. “People who know me know it takes a lot for me not to talk,” he said. After filming, a colleague remarked: “That was not a TV recording. That felt more like a low‑key KKK rally. Hasan said the experience was a “masks‑off, hoods‑on moment” when overtly racist sentiments were expressed openly for clicks. He noted that some participants made white‑genocide and Great Replacement arguments and that many of them “were white nationalist, Christian nationalist, fascist, fascist adjacent”. The only non‑white participant, a tattooed immigrant, volunteered that he “covered in tattoos” and was prepared to deport friends, prompting Hasan to remark that he felt like the immigrant “was sitting across the table from people who would deport him.
Hasan added that he initially hoped to discuss policy issues—crime, the economy, immigration and Gaza—but discovered that most participants cared only about immigration. He described the show’s dynamic as “fascists, fascists, fascists” with a sprinkling of standard Trump supporters. The spectacle left him torn; on one hand he felt it was necessary to expose extremist ideas, yet he also worried that by engaging he inadvertently elevated them. “Maybe it’s time to show up and mock these people and tell them to their faces how dumb they are,” he told Miller. But he conceded that such exchanges risk amplifying fringe ideologues, because in our algorithmic media environment “you destroy them but they still think they won”.
Jubilee’s Business Model and the Memeification of Politics
Jubilee Media markets itself as a platform that fosters “human connection” by bringing people with opposing views into conversation. Its Surrounded series has become a staple of viral video culture, posting debates like “Can 25 Liberal College Students Outsmart 1 Conservative?” or “Can 1 Cop Defend Himself Against 20 Criminals?. According to founder Jason Y. Lee, the goal is to “promote open dialogue” and be as unbiased as possible. Yet critics argue that the series is designed more for incendiary content than for dialogue. Media reporter Julia Alexander wrote that Jubilee “takes 20 people with extremist views and puts them into a 90‑minute video knowing that they’ll say extreme things and get an extreme amount of attention,” effectively monetizing outrage. Disability‑rights advocate Imani Barbarin called the show “senseless conversation purely for views” and noted that clips are edited to make it seem as though participants like Hasan lost, even when the raw video showed the opposite.
TIME magazine, summarizing the controversy, observed that Hasan’s appearance contradicted his own 2023 advice that “there are certain people who there is no point arguing with. The article noted that Hasan was both shocked and unsurprised by the extreme views: he thought it would be “interesting to understand what genuine far‑right conservatives think” but was disturbed by people who believed in “white genocide” and insisted he was not a citizen. Hasan reiterated that he prefers to avoid bad‑faith interlocutors and criticized Jubilee for giving a platform to people who “don’t agree in human equality”. He warned that “open authoritarianism… is being normalized and mainstreamed in our country”.
Should Fascists be Debated?
Mehdi Hasan’s Jubilee Debate have reignited long‑running arguments about whether to platform extremists. Within progressive circles there is a strong “no platform” principle aimed at denying fascists the oxygen of publicity. Hasan acknowledged this tension. On his Zeteo town hall, he emphasized that he does not debate fascists for fun; instead he sees value in “exposing them” and reaching young audiences who might otherwise mistake far‑right ideas for mainstream conservatism. During his Bulwark appearance, he admitted he is torn between denying fascists a platform and confronting them head‑on. His final conclusion was measured: not engaging at all allows extremist ideas to fester unseen, but engaging without careful context risks legitimizing them.
Those concerns gain urgency when participants like Richard Black have documented histories of organizing violent protests. Devin Burghart, president of the Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights, suggested to The Guardian that there were three explanations for Jubilee’s choice to include such figures: incompetence, a cynical chase for viral engagement, or an attempt to warn viewers by letting Hasan expose the extremists. None reflect well on the platform.
The Bigger Picture: Beyond Mehdi Hasan Viral Jubilee Debate
The Jubilee episode and its aftermath illustrate how online platforms can serve as incubators for far‑right ideology. In the span of a single week, viewers watched a self‑declared fascist smile at being labelled one, saw him lose his job and raise money by complaining about “cancel culture,” and learned that another participant was linked to violent street brawls. Hasan’s performance was masterful—he dismantled talking points with facts and humour—but the spectacle also highlighted the limitations of debate as a tool against authoritarianism. As Hasan quoted Martin Luther King Jr., the arc of the moral universe bends toward justice only when people act to bend it. The lesson from this viral moment is that simply exposing fascists is not enough. Audiences, producers and journalists must think critically about how debates are framed and whose voices they elevate. Otherwise, we risk turning politics into a circus where extremists are rewarded with notoriety and the rest of us are left debating whether to participate at all.
