By the time he arrived at the Montgomery County Courthouse on May 13, carrying a selfie stick and a gun, the online streamer known as Chud the Builder had already developed a large internet following among the racist right.
The 28-year-old, whose real name is Dalton Eatherly, was getting increasingly famous for livestreaming himself walking around Clarksville or downtown Nashville, proudly calling Black passersby the N-word and using other racial slurs. If his targets got visibly upset, he would declare that they were “chimping out,” a favorite catchphrase for him and his followers. Clips of his streams produced and posted by other social media users have upwards of a million views.
But since his arrest that day for shooting a Black man named Joshua Fox after an altercation outside the courthouse, Eatherly’s case has become a cause célèbre for white nationalists, January 6 defendants and self-proclaimed “free speech absolutists.” While Eatherly remains jailed in Clarksville for attempted murder, his page on the Christian crowdfunding site GiveSendGo — which allows people to register prayers along with sending money — has brought in hundreds of thousands of dollars in support of his legal defense and currently has a total of more than $300,000. A GoFundMe created by Fox’s family has collected nearly $271,000…