Aaron Smith-Levin is a popular anti-scientology YouTuber. He is also the Vice President and Vice Chair of the Aftermath Foundation, a group that offers support and services to former members of the cult who have left or even had to escape in a clandestine way. The Aftermath Foundation is a 501(c)(3) organization, and donations are tax deductible. This is not an article about The Aftermath Foundation really though. Nobody here is suggesting that you not give them money if you choose to donate to charitable causes, either. We’ve found no reason to believe the charity does anything but good work.
This is an article about a man who ran for Clearwater City Council. A man who lost. His behavior while running for city council very likely contributed to his loss. The incident that everyone in Clearwater was talking about is pretty wild. On September 17th 2021 Smith-Levin called the Clearwater Police he was punched in the face at a cigar bar while he was out collecting signatures to get on the ballot. Aside from the fact that getting punched in the face while collecting signatures is pretty out of the ordinary, the rest of the story just doesn’t really scream “would be good as a public servant” either. The reason he was punched in the face is that he was repeatedly calling a woman at the cigar lounge a cunt according to staff at the business. This isn’t Australia, and that’s not a term of endearment here. Smith-Levin claims that he knew the woman from his time in Scientology. Smith-Levin admits to having sent her Facebook messages, apparently hitting on her, 18 months before. He told the police he had done it because “she’s super hot”. You can see some video of his interaction with Clearwater Police in this article.
The next month, October 2021, Smith-Levin REALLY stepped in it. This has not been publicized as much as the event at the cigar lounge, but it speaks to judgment and character even more in our opinion. Smith-Levin appeared on TruNews. Don’t know what TruNews is? Well you probably know who Rick Wiles is. Here’s a super cut. You probably don’t want to browse around Bitchute though, it’s a cesspool.
Yep, just straight up anti-semitism. Over and over again. Synagogue Of Satan? Yikes. Aaron claimed that he didn’t know that Rick Wiles’ content was anti-semitic and racist. This is a very tough claim to swallow. A quick google search of Rick Wiles would give anyone a pretty clear impression of who and what Rick Wiles is. Rick was far more prominent and prolific in 2021 than he is at the time we’re writing this article, too. Rick Wiles has a history of anti-LGBTQ+ propaganda and all out hatred as well… which brings us to the present.
Aaron has a history of criticizing Scientology for being anti-gay. The basic cruxt of it is that there’s a thing in the cult called the tone scale. The higher up the tone scale you go, the better you are essentially. The tone of 1:1 is “covert hostility”. L Ron Hubbard included gay and bisexual people in this category. Mike Rinder does a pretty good job explaining it here. This is all pretty well known to people with even a passing interest in Scientology. Leah Remini puts it a bit, okay a lot, more bluntly here.
You can find this stuff all over Aaron’s channel actually. This is because Aaron really has a problem with the anti-LGBTQ+ stance of Scientology. Or at least that’s what we thought. I mean, the criticisms about Scientology here are valid. And they’re well documented. Then we saw this.
We thought maybe it was nothing, maybe he just saw that 50 cent tweeted out a video. But then we watched the video. The video was full of praise for other work that Alex Stein has done. The thing is, we have to assume that Aaron, who has made videos criticizing Scientology for being anti-gay would certainly eventually figure out that Alex Stein is a raging anti-queer bigot. You know, because after the embarrassing incident with Rick Wiles, a guy definitely does his homework.
Well, no such video or post criticizing Stein for his bigoted antics was forthcoming. Actually, if you look, Aaron did several more videos praising Alex Stein. And people had in fact told Aaron about Alex Stein’s other work, as if he didn’t know about it, which is highly doubtful. Then Aaron had Alex on for a very cordial and praiseful interview, during which, shockingly enough, Scientology’s anti-gay stance, which Aaron has pointed out over and over again in his videos in the past, simply did not come up. For, you know, whatever reason.
Oh and we haven’t watched this yet (you may see it on The Intellectual Dollar Tree soon) but knowing what kinds of people Lex gives an uncritical platform to, we can make a fairly good guess that’s what’s happening here. Aaron may very well be trying to break out of the anti-scientology shell, break a sort of glass ceiling so to speak. To find a much larger audience, an audience that we believe Chris Shelton tried to court. More on that another day, maybe. The galaxy brain intellectual dark web type audience. The so-called IDW is full of race and IQ weirdos, misogynists, antivaxxers, podcasters engaged in hiv/aids denial, and even a few people who literally still believe that you can measure a skull as part of the method by which you determine someone’s intelligence.
For fuck’s sake, anti-scientology community. TAKE. OUT. YOUR. TRASH. Appearing on Rick Wiles’ show. Getting beat up at a bar for repeatedly harassing some woman who he’d previously drunk texted with inappropriate shit because “she’s hot”. And then cozying up to Alex Stein after having done video after video about how bad it is that Scientology is bigoted against queer people? He’s not just some guy. He’s the vice president and vice chair of one of the most well known organizations offering help and support to former Scientologists.
Remove Aaron Smith-Levin from his leadership positions at Aftermath. And to the rest of the anti-Scientology community, you’d be best to distance yourself from Smith-Levin as well.
And on a more personal level, something I’ve been talking about on stream, on our podcasts, and occasionally here on The Defamation Times. I am pretty tired of people using my queer identity and the queer identity of others as a prop in their fuckin crusade. I have no doubt that Aaron is just another one of these assholes who is oh so happy to use the fact that someone or some group is anti-queer as a hammer against them when it suits him but then when it comes down to it, he’ll cast all that aside if it means getting access to someone like Lex Fridman or Alex Stein. After all, most of us are covertly hostile. I on the other hand am overtly hostile.
