On Jan. 30, 2022, Rep. Thomas Massie posted a graphic aimed at Dr. Anthony Fauci: “To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize.” The image credited the line to Voltaire, giving a modern political jab the borrowed authority of an Enlightenment philosopher.[2][3]
Voltaire did not write the “who rules over you” quote. Fact-checkers have traced the line to Kevin Alfred Strom, an American neo-Nazi and white nationalist, who used a longer version of the idea in 1993.
Massie’s post was not the first time the sentence had worn Voltaire’s name. Snopes found early examples of the false attribution in a 2007 post on the neo-Nazi internet forum Vanguard News Network, and reported that the line later moved through forums, letters, tweets, and memes.[2]
The older wording was not as tidy as the viral version. Strom wrote, according to Snopes: “To determine the true rulers of any society, all you must do is ask yourself this question: Who is it that I am not permitted to criticize?”[2] PolitiFact also traced the saying to Strom, describing it as something he said during an antisemitic radio broadcast in 1993.[3]
The Name Behind the Quote
Kevin Alfred Strom was born in 1956 in Washington, D.C., and became associated with the National Alliance, a neo-Nazi group once led by William Luther Pierce.[1] He edited National Vanguard magazine beginning in the 1980s, and in 2005 founded another neo-Nazi organization, also called National Vanguard, after a split inside the National Alliance.[1]
His extremist work was tied closely to broadcasting. In the 1980s, Strom created a neo-Nazi pirate radio station called Voice of Tomorrow, which drew controversy among radio hobbyists.[1] He later created a legal radio show for the National Alliance called American Dissident Voices.[1] That background matters because the famous sentence did not emerge from a salon, a philosophy text, or Voltaire’s correspondence. It came from the world of white supremacist propaganda.
Voltaire’s own writings and correspondence do not contain the quote, PolitiFact reported.[3] The appeal of attaching his name is obvious. Voltaire has become a convenient symbol of free speech, especially online, where a sentence looks more serious if it appears under a dead thinker’s portrait. The attribution makes the line feel old, polished, and respectable.
How the False Credit Spread
By 2013, the quote had appeared in a reader letter to an Illinois newspaper criticizing “politically correct” attacks on free speech.[2] In 2015, an Australian senator deleted tweets after learning he had shared a neo-Nazi quotation wrongly credited to Voltaire.[2][3] Actor John Cusack apologized in 2018 after making the same mistake.[2] In 2021, Snopes reported, memes pairing the line with images of Voltaire circulated widely online.[2]
Massie’s 2022 tweet pushed the mistake back into the news. PolitiFact rated the Voltaire claim false, and the Associated Press reported that a U.S. congressman had shared a neo-Nazi’s quote wrongly attributed to Voltaire.[3][4]
Strom’s biography also followed the fact-checks for a reason. In 2007, he was arrested for possession of child pornography. He pleaded guilty, was convicted in April 2008, received a 23-month prison sentence, and was released after less than five months.[1] Snopes and PolitiFact both noted that conviction while explaining the quotation’s origin.[2][3]
The trick is simple: remove the author, keep the grievance, add Voltaire. What remains is a clean-looking quote card, with an old philosopher’s face doing work that Kevin Alfred Strom’s name could not.
