Claiming to be a media watchdog, Cliff Kincaid is an unrepentant conspiracy propagandist for hard-right causes. Among his pronouncements when he served as director of Accuracy in Media (AIM) were claims that global warming is a scam perpetrated by the “religious left,”1 that former President Barack Obama is a socialist Muslim, and that Marxist elements have hijacked the Roman Catholic Church in order to facilitate a one-world government.2 But Kincaid reserves a special vehemence for attacking the LGBTQ+ community, which he says is destroying the media,3 the military,4 the government5 and the American way of life.
Serving up far-right propaganda for more than 40 years, Kincaid served for decades as director of investigative journalism for AIM, a conservative self-proclaimed media watchdog, and now writes for RenewAmerica.6 He plays to his audience by condemning typical rightist foes such as liberals, Obama,7 Muslims,8 immigrants9 and, especially, the LGBTQ+ community.
Kincaid also started and runs an antigovernment organization called America’s Survival Inc. that is dedicated to rooting out the perceived influence of global institutions, such as the United Nations.10 Over the years, the group’s website has trafficked in conspiracy theories ranging from the U.N. pursuing global government,11 to a seemingly unlimited number targeting Obama,12 and up through the current theories about the Jeffrey Epstein files.13
In his own words
“As we approach another anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on New York City, the threat of radical Islam has returned in a big way to America’s financial capital and largest city. Zohran Kwame Mamdani is a young Marxist Shia Muslim linked to the Islamic zealots running Iran who has won the Democratic Party nomination for mayor of New York City. We call this the ‘Red Jihad,’ a combination of Marxism and radical Islam that threatens to ignite another 9/11 on American soil.” — Column for RenewAmerica, “Stop Islamic Terrorism in New York City,” September 202514
“So eliminating the name ‘Redskins’ isn’t the end of this movement. What it means is that our ancestors and their descendants must pay the ultimate price — in money and our own place and situation in America today. We are the targets. Exposing this Marxist movement, which is the next phase of Obama’s Permanent Revolution, is our challenge … So-called ‘nation-building’ worked in America. We owe the Indians nothing.” — Column for News with Views, “The Next Phase of Communist Revolution in America,” November 202315
“There is no such thing as a ‘gay conservative,’ unless the term ‘conservative’ has lost all meaning. But there is a homosexual movement that has its roots in Marxism and is characterized by anti-Americanism and hatred of Christian values.” — Column for AIM, “CPAC and the Conservatives,” March 201316
“In addition to [newly elected New York City Mayor Bill] De Blasio’s support for communist regimes in Cuba and Nicaragua and embrace of ‘progressive’ elements of global Islam, his wife is a former lesbian and former member of a Marxist collective opposed to capitalism and freedom.” — Column for RenewAmerica, “Obama-Backed ‘Progressive’ Candidate Linked to International Communism, Terrorism, and Global Islam,” October 201317
“Why do Catholic officials want to encourage illegal immigration? The answer is quite simple. Most of the illegal aliens are Catholics. Plus, the church makes lots of government money by hosting and serving the immigrants.” — Column for AIM, “Catholic Church Facilitates Foreign Invasion,” April 201018
Background
Born in Kansas City, Missouri, in 1954, Kincaid received a bachelor’s degree in journalism and communications from the University of Toledo.19 After graduating, he moved to Washington, D.C., for an internship sponsored by conservative author M. Stanton Evans’ National Journalism Center.20 Kincaid then moved on to a writing job at the conservative publication Human Events. After several years at Human Events, he joined Freedom Alliance, founded by Iran-Contra scandal figure Oliver North, as a researcher and newsletter editor.21
In 1978, Kincaid moved to AIM.22 Founded as a nonprofit in 1969 by economist Reed Irvine, AIM bills itself as using “investigative journalism and citizen-led activism to expose government corruption, public policy failures, and radical activists” with the goal being “to change laws, shift culture, and hold bad actors accountable.”23 It is almost exclusively concerned with discrediting “liberal” media stories and political figures with whom it disagrees.
In addition to his attacks on political figures, Kincaid leans heavily on producing anti-LGBTQ+ material. He has expressed that sexual orientation indicates the validity of a person’s opinions, including potential conservative allies. During an August 2013 National Press Club presentation, Kincaid decried the inclusion of Fox commentator Shepard Smith on Out magazine’s “Power List.” “I don’t know about you,” Kincaid said, “but if I was listed as one of the most powerful homosexuals in the media I would first demand a retraction and probably sue for defamation and collect a lot of money. Shepard Smith, according to my information, has never asked that that be taken down.”24
Through America’s Survival, Kincaid released a lengthy report by longtime anti-LGBTQ+ activist Peter LaBarbera claiming that Fox News has “become pro-homosexual propaganda” because of “radical changes at Fox News that should cause great concern to pro-family conservatives.”25 The report cited positive statements about LGBTQ+ people by Smith and other Fox personalities, including Bill O’Reilly and Megyn Kelly.26
Among other problems with the media, Kincaid complained it created the false perception of support for repealing the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. He predicted that straight soldiers would “probably leave in disgust and dismay” if the policy were rescinded (which it eventually was), while others would “choose never to sign up.” The military would be in “shambles,” the war on terrorism “jeopardized,” and a draft required “with soldiers reporting to the male homosexuals already there and in command positions.” Kincaid also posited that those LGBTQ+ commanders would “demand sexual favors to rise in the ranks. … [I]t is a recipe for national suicide.”27
Back in 2010, America’s Survival published a press release by Scott Lively, a pastor who runs the anti-LGBTQ+ hate group Abiding Truth Ministries and cofounded another one, Watchmen on the Walls.28 Lively coauthored The Pink Swastika: Homosexuality in the Nazi Party, which falsely claims that “the Nazi party was entirely controlled by militaristic male homosexuals throughout its short history.”29
The press release discussed Lively’s support for the Ugandan “Kill the Gays” act, which passed in 2013 and included a life sentence for “aggravated” homosexuality.30 Kincaid also supported the law, which initially proposed a death penalty. He said the bill seemed to be “designed to save lives by restricting dangerous homosexual practices,” and it was mostly “foreign homosexuals” who were “clamoring for the bill to be withdrawn.”31 Kincaid was still citing Lively’s work in 2025.32
Following the 2016 mass shooting at Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida, Kincaid authored “Why Obama Gets Emotional Talking About Islam,” which attempted to explain the importance of “radical Islam.”33 Kincaid claimed President Obama gave the impression that “the religion of a suspect is NOT to be judged or pursued when questions emerge about Muslims having links to terrorism.”34 Because of this, he claimed, “the FBI let a faithful follower of Islam, who regularly attended a mosque, murder 49 people at a gay club in Orlando.”35
Kincaid equated Marxism, the LGBTQ+ community, anti-Americanism and anti-Christianity in a March 2013 AIM column titled “CPAC and the Conservatives.” “There is no such thing as a ‘gay conservative,’ unless the term ‘conservative’ has lost all meaning,” he wrote. “But there is a homosexual movement that has its roots in Marxism and is characterized by anti-Americanism and hatred of Christian values.”36
A variation of Kincaid’s tactic of using LGBTQ+ slurs to discredit an opponent was his attack on Department of Education official Kevin Jennings, who founded the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) to protect students from bullying, regardless of gender identity or sexual orientation. When President Obama appointed him to a position in the federal Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools in 2009, Kincaid and AIM launched a series of vicious attacks in a campaign to get Jennings fired.
Kincaid’s primary charge was that GLSEN had praised a “communist pervert,” referring to Harry Hay, who Jennings once said inspired him.37 Kincaid erroneously claimed that Hay, an LGBTQ+ rights pioneer, had supported the North American Man/Boy Love Association (NAMBLA), and he identified Hay as a communist.38 The smear campaign quickly unraveled after an AIM intern wrote a piece describing Jennings as “President Obama’s favorite pedophile.”39 AIM quickly removed the article and offered a half-hearted apology, conceding that it had no evidence of Jennings “being a pedophile and personally teaching perverted sexual practices to young people.”40
Kincaid has also targeted conservationists. Despite fact-based reports from climatologists that theEarth is warming due to human activity, he presents climate change as a scam perpetrated by the “religious left,” among others. In a December 2009 column, he tried to buttress this allegation by quoting from a book by James Wanliss, a physics professor at tiny Presbyterian College in South Carolina.41 Kincaid approvingly quoted Wanliss’ description of the environmental movement:
“[It] is a religion with a vision of sin and repentance, heaven and hell. Its communion is organic food. Its sacraments are sex, abortion, and when all else fails, sterilization. Its saints are Al Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Both professing Protestants and Roman Catholics bear a burden of guilt for the current political mess we are in with the global warming and other hysterias.”42
Kincaid also charged the Catholic Church with being “an agent of the government in facilitating a foreign invasion of the United States.” In 2010, when then-Cardinal Roger Mahony voiced his opposition to Arizona’s restrictive Proposition 200 anti-immigrant legislation, Kincaid saw nefarious motives.43
“Why do Catholic officials want to encourage illegal immigration?” Kincaid asked in an April 2010 AIM column. “The answer is quite simple. Most of the illegal aliens are Catholics. Plus, the church makes lots of government money by hosting and serving the immigrants.”44 The latter assertion refers to government grants to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops “to provide specialized services to particularly vulnerable migrants, such as unaccompanied minors and victims of human trafficking.”45
In May 2013, Kincaid was one of 60 national conservative leaders who signed a letter protesting an immigration reform bill, along with Brigitte Gabriel (ACT for America), Frank Gaffney (Center for Security Policy), Mark Krikorian (Center for Immigration Studies) and Tim Wildmon (American Family Association). They protested that the bill was so bloated it would be better to start over from scratch, and they numbered among their concerns that the bill “cedes excessive control over immigration law to an administration that has repeatedly proven itself to be untrustworthy, even duplicitous.”46
Kincaid’s hostility toward immigrants predates his targeting of Obama. “It was the issue the presidential candidates and the major media didn’t want to talk about — immigration,” Kincaid wrote on the America’s Survival site following the 2000 election. “And yet immigrants, many of them illegal, may have provided Al Gore with millions of votes on November 7th. Indeed, Gore was the administration official who engineered the fraudulent ‘Citizenship USA’ program that brought illegal aliens with criminal backgrounds and potential terrorists into the U.S. as citizens.”47
Nor was President George W. Bush spared the wrath of Kincaid. In May 2007, Kincaid wrote an AIM column titled “Last Stand for American Sovereignty” about the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, world federalists, immigration and the rumored North American Union. (Kincaid has tirelessly plugged the conspiracy theory that elites in Mexico, the United States and Canada are secretly planning to merge their three countries.)48
“The Bush White House, Democrats and the media currently work in concert to promote amnesty for illegal aliens as ‘comprehensive immigration reform,’” Kincaid wrote. “House Republicans like Reps. Edward Royce, Tom Tancredo and Duncan Hunter see through it. And illegal aliens, of course, don’t even exist in the world of politically correct journalism.” 49
Kincaid has expended enormous amounts of vitriol on Obama, usually in the form of name-calling and discrediting accusations, rather than discussions of issues. He regularly called Obama a Marxist, a socialist and a communist, using the terms interchangeably. A typical example is from a December 2012 column titled “American Reds Still Backing Obama”: “The communist resurgence under Obama is not surprising, since he has consistently waged a Marxist class warfare campaign as President and was influenced as a young man by Communist Party member Frank Marshall Davis.”50
Over the years, Kincaid has authored and coauthored several books, including Red Star Rising: The Making of Barack Hussein Obama and the Transformation of America; Global Bondage: The U.N. Plan to Rule the World; and Red Jihad: Moscow’s Final Solution for America and Israel.
Kincaid has opposed efforts to recognize Indigenous people in the United States. He has oversimplified reparations and land acknowledgments to claim they mean “we must give the land back to the Indians and pay them for it.” He also believes that calls to change the names of sports teams such as the Washington Redskins are about “whitewashing the brutality of the Indian and demonizing the white man.”51
Into the 2020s, Kincaid remains a vocal critic of what he describes as communist and Marxist influences in U.S. domestic and foreign affairs, echoing long-standing themes in his work that suggest left-wing and globalist actors are systematically undermining American freedom and traditional values. This has included public presentations and speeches Kincaid has given to conservative audiences warning of communist infiltration of federal agencies.52
Kincaid continues to produce commentary and organizational communications through America’s Survival Inc., advancing familiar conspiratorial and extremist themes. He publishes opinion pieces attacking perceived ideological enemies, including criticism of artificial intelligence as a threat to American society and claims of left-wing efforts to impose authoritarian control. In a 2025 article titled “The New ‘Gods’ of Artificial Intelligence,” Kincaid warned that artificial intelligence could undermine traditional political structures and usher in a “socialist dictatorship.”53
In 2025, Kincaid also weighed in on contemporary political violence, asserting that the FBI had failed to protect right-wing activist Charlie Kirk from being assassinated, framing the incident as evidence of government incompetence and partisan bias.54 In his column distributed by America’s Survival Inc., Kincaid characterized the FBI’s actions as another example of “gross incompetence” in protecting conservative figures, blending factual events with his long-standing distrust of federal institutions.55
Citations
1 Cliff Kincaid, “ClimateGate, the Green Dragon, and the End of Christianity,” Accuracy in Media, December 2009.
2 Janet Allon, “Ten Outrages and Crazy Statements by Right-Wingers This Week: Pope Provokes Free-Market Freakout,” Truthout, December 2, 2013.
3 C-SPAN, “Media Coverage of Gay & Lesbian Issues,” May 17, 1993.
4 Larry Keller, “Cliff Kincaid Takes on ‘Liberal Media,’ Gays,” Southern Poverty Law Center, February 23, 2011.
5 Cliff Kincaid, “Covert Network of GOP Homosexuals seen as ‘the Real Scandal’ in D.C.,” Backgrounder, July 10, 1989.
6 Media Matters, “Cliff Kincaid,” RenewAmerica, “Cliff Kincaid column.”
7 Larry Keller, “Cliff Kincaid Takes on ‘Liberal Media,’ Gays,” Southern Poverty Law Center, February 23, 2011.
8 Cliff Kincaid, “Al Jazeera and the Global Jihad in America,” News with Views, February 8, 2013.
9 Cliff Kincaid, “This Land is OUR Land,” Conservative Truth, February 9, 2026.
10 America’s Survival, Inc., “Mission” and “About Us,” April 8, 2010.
11 America’s Survival, Inc., “Homepage,” April 3, 2010.
12 America’s Survival, Inc., “Freedom, Independence, and Sovereignty,” April 10, 2010.
13 Cliff Kincaid, “A Conspiracy Bigger Than Epstein,” February 8, 2026, America’s Survival.
14 Cliff Kincaid, “Stop Islamic Terrorism in New York City,” RenewAmerica, September 11, 2025.
15 Cliff Kincaid, “The Next Phase of Communist Revolution in America,” News with Views, November 25, 2023.
16 Cliff Kincaid, “CPAC and the Conservatives,” Accuracy in Media, March 6, 2013.
17 Cliff Kincaid, “Obama-Backed ‘Progressive’ Candidate Linked to International Communism, Terrorism, and Global Islam,” RenewAmerica, October 23, 2013.
18 Cliff Kincaid, “Catholic Church Facilitates Foreign Invasion,” Free Republic, April 29, 2010.
19 Dana Lerner, “Accuracy GOOD, Bias BAD,” Recount, November 18, 2004. Financial Sense, “Cliff Kincaid,” Financial Sense.
20 Financial Sense, “Cliff Kincaid,” Financial Sense. Martin Morse Wooster, “The Legacy of Stan Evans,” Philanthropy Daily, March 16, 2015.
21 Financial Sense, “Cliff Kincaid,” Financial Sense.
22 Ibid.
23 Accuracy in Media, “About Accuracy in Media,” February 11, 2026.
24 James Nichols, “Cliff Kincaid, Anti-Gay Conservative Pundit, Calls On Shepard Smith To Come Out,” Huffington Post, February 2, 2016.
25 America’s Survival, “Homepage,” August 28, 2013. Peter LaBarbera, “Unfair, Unbalanced and Afraid: Fox News’ Growing Pro-Homosexual Bias and the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association,” America’s Survival, August 2013.
26 Ibid.
27 Media Matters, “In Homophobic Column About Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, Kincaid Invokes Cross-Dressing Cpl. Klinger,” Media Matters, May 25, 2010.
28 Scott Lively, “Defend The Family Intl Endorses Revised Uganda Bill,” America’s Survival, January 9, 2010
29 Jacob Anderson-Minshall, “New Book Debunks the Pink Swastika Myth,” The Advocate, February 3, 2016.
30 Kapya Kaoma, “Uganda President Museveni Will Likely Sign Anti-Homosexuality Law,” Political Research Associates, January 28, 2014.
31 Cliff Kincaid, “Homosexual Imperialists Target Uganda,” Accuracy in Media, January 15, 2010.
32 Cliff Kincaid, “Teaching Kids Violence and Perversion,” America’s Survival, September 18, 2025.
33 Cliff Kincaid, “Why Obama Gets Emotional Talking About Islam,” Trevor Loudon Presents New Zeal, June 15, 2016.
34 Ibid.
35 Ibid.
36 Cliff Kincaid, “CPAC and the Conservatives,” Accuracy in Media, March 6, 2013.
37 Cliff Kincaid, “NAMBLA-gate: The Strange Case of Kevin Jennings, Part Two,” Accuracy in Media, January 5, 2010.
38 Cliff Kincaid, “NAMBLA-gate: The Strange Case of Kevin Jennings, Part Three,” Accuracy in Media, January 6, 2010.
39 Trent Krepel, “Accuracy in Media’s Smear of Kevin Jennings Backfires,” Huffington Post, December 15, 2009.
40 Ibid.
41 Cliff Kincaid, “ClimateGate, the Green Dragon, and the End of Christianity,” Accuracy in Media, December 9, 2009.
42 Ibid.
43 Cliff Kincaid, “Catholic Church Facilitates Foreign Invasion,” Accuracy in Media, April 29, 2010.
44 Ibid.
45 Ibid.
46 Caroline May, “Over 150 Conservative Leaders, Groups Sign Letter Opposing Gang of 8 Bill,” Daily Caller, May 21, 2013.
47 Cliff Kincaid, “Gore, Hillary Implicated in Vote Scam,” America’s Survival, February 2, 2001.
48 Cliff Kincaid, “Last Stand for American Sovereignty,” Accuracy in Media, May 21, 2007.
49 Ibid.
50 Cliff Kincaid, “American Reds Still Backing Obama,” News With Views, December 4, 2012.
51 Cliff Kincaid, “The Next Phase of Communist Revolution in America,” News With Views, November 25, 2023.
52 Cliff Kincaid, “Presentation to Frederick County Conservative Club,” America’s Survival, March 18, 2023.
53 Cliff Kincaid, “The New ‘Gods’ of Artificial Intelligence,” America’s Survival, November 23, 2005.
54 Cliff Kincaid, “The FBI Failed to Protect Charlie Kirk,” America’s Survival, September 11, 2005.
55 America’s Survival, “More Incompetence from the FBI,” Christian News Wire, September 11, 2025.