Fergie's Pub Bans Conservative Columnist

News Philadelphia Bar Bans Conservative Columnist Over Offensive Comments People who post "all lives splatter" are apparently not welcome at Fergie's Pub. By Victor Fiorillo· 2/13/2026, 4:18 p.m. Left: Fergie's Pub owner Fergus "Fergie" Carey (photo by Steve Chris) | Right: Conservative columnist Thom Nickels, who posted "all lives splatter" among other memes on the Fergie's Pub Facebook page, earning him a ban from the bar (image via LaSalle TV) Left: Fergie’s Pub owner Fergus “Fergie” Carey (photo by Steve Chris) | Right: Conservative columnist Thom Nickels, who posted “all lives splatter” among other memes on the Fergie’s Pub Facebook page, earning him a ban from the bar (image via LaSalle TV video)

Late in January, in response to the killings of Renée Good and Alex Pretti at the hands of ICE agents in Minneapolis, protesters called for a general strike scheduled for January 30th. Business owners around the country were confronted with questions from their workers about whether they would participate, as was the case at Fergie’s Pub, the popular Irish bar in Philadelphia. Owner Fergus “Fergie” Carey considered the matter and decided to open that day, posting the following on social media: We remain open today. However, we are in support of the strike and want to make it clear that we believe that America is a diverse, beautiful patchwork and we are stronger together. Between Fergie’s and The Jim, we have donated thousands of dollars over various events to @vamos_juntos_ and will continue to support them – they are an excellent community resource and are doing amazing work. Please check out their page and support their efforts as well, if you like. #iceout Facebook being Facebook and 2026 being 2026, comments (many of which no longer appear) were swift to follow, some standing in solidarity with Fergie’s and the ICE protesters and some not so much. Falling decidedly into the latter category was longtime Philadelphia columnist Thom Nickels, who these days writes for the conservative Philadelphia outlet Broad & Liberty. Nickels posted a series of memes that made light of the situation in Minneapolis and the killings of Good and Pretti. Some examples that Philly Mag has reviewed, as provided by Carey from posts that his social media manager was quick to delete: A photo of Alex Pretti with the message “Staying Home Saves Lives” An image of a monkey labeled Renée Good approaching a sleeping lion labeled ICE with the message “Everything happens for a reason: Sometimes the reason is you’re stupid and make bad decisions.” A cartoon of an SUV hitting people on a road with the message “All Lives Splatter: Nobody Cares About Your Protest. Keep Your Ass Out of the Road.”

“I just very quickly tapped into my photo gallery and posted some conservative memes,” Nickels tells Philly Mag. “As I was doing it, I noticed that they kept disappearing. I thought, oh well, they don’t like them.” They sure didn’t. The social media manager alerted Carey to the Nickels comments, wondering who Nickels was. It turned out that Carey and Nickels met, as far as Carey remembers it, long ago when Nickels wrote for The Philadelphia Irish Edition and interviewed Carey for a story. He patronized the bar occasionally over the years, and was a regular for a bit. The name rung a bell to Carey, so he looked in his cell phone and, sure enough, “Thom Nickels – Philadelphia Irish Edition” was in there. Carey dialed the number but Nickels didn’t pick up. It went to voicemail, so Carey left him a message, which Nickels later deleted. Both men agree that the point of the message was: You’re not welcome at Fergie’s Pub anymore. “I couldn’t believe it,” says Nickels. “I always liked Fergie. But we’re so polarized as a society. People want to turn everything into a federal case, as if I committed a horrible sacrilege.” Nickels wrote about the conflict with Fergie’s – not naming the bar – at the bottom of a Broad & Liberty column he wrote on February 8th about the local conservative influencer Frank Scales: Last week I came across a Facebook post from a certain bar in the city, condemning ICE and calling for its abolition. I posted my opposition with a few colorful memes from my photo gallery, all in support of ICE. This is something a zillion people do on a daily basis when it comes to debates about ICE. Now, I’ve always liked this bar. I’ve read a few poems there at sponsored gatherings, and I’ve interviewed the owner for a number of publications over the years. He has always been a fine gentleman. A day after my post I received a phone voicemail message from the bar telling me the staff no longer wishes to serve me, and that I should not have posted such “hate.” Hate? I love the hamburgers there, yet I confess the pub’s interior has always made me think of Mary Queen of Scots imprisoned in the Tower of London. But “hate” in this day and age course is anything they – the left – doesn’t agree with. As Hitler said, “I want fanatics.” Earlier this week, Carey alerted me to the Nickels column and identified the bar in question as his own. “I don’t want him in my fucking bar,” Carey insists. “Things are too serious now for that kind of stuff. Unfollow, unfriend, fuck off.” I asked Nickels about the “All Lives Splatter” meme, clearly a takeoff on Black Lives Matter and the post that Carey told me had him the most riled up. “I think that’s taken out of context,” Nickels says of the reaction to the post. “All lives splatter when you put yourself in the face of ICE… The two people who were tragically killed, which was a, you know, horrible thing, um, they still interfered with ICE… It seems to me that if you interfere with ICE, if you go into the road and try to get in their face, you’re asking for the worst.” Nickels also wondered if Fergie’s was going to start interrogating customers when they show ID: Do you support ICE? Do you support Trump? But Carey insists that all sorts of people come into Fergie’s and that he doesn’t disrespect customers because they believe differently than he does. Posting offensive memes about dead people on his social media page, though, is different, he argues. “If Donald Trump posted that image of the Obamas as apes on my Facebook page, I would call him and tell him to fuck off too,” Carey says. “I’m sick of all this.”

The Theological Battle of the Sexes

For the past two years, the liberal New York Times has been reporting on the cultural phenomenon of young men converting to traditional forms of Christianity, namely Eastern Orthodoxy and Catholicism. The keywords here are “young men,” not young women. That’s because young women are not converting to traditional Christianity en masse. Young women, in fact, are not converting to anything labeled “traditional” because most of them are steeped in the secular culture’s embrace of feminism and political wokeism. This sad state of affairs is reflected in the relations between the sexes. Relations between young men and women have been on the decline for a while, but they’ve reached new lows in 2026. Some of that division can be blamed on the abuses of the #MeToo movement, but the big split can be traced to the fact that young single men have been moving to the political right, while young women have moved to the left. This impossible divide has created major compatibility issues. From Reddit to the most innocuous Facebook post, liberal women exclaim with pride: “I will not date a Trump supporter or any Republican man.” In other words, “I’ve opted to cancel out the sexiest men on the planet.” A 2024 Newsweek report found that, “Roughly 77 percent of female users [of dating apps] said they wouldn’t date someone who supports Trump.” The report continues: “Generally, left-leaning singles were more likely to prioritize political alignment than conservatives. Roughly 89 percent of left-leaning users said political alignment is at least ‘somewhat important,’ while 68 percent of right-leaning singles felt the same.” This raises the question: Why are conservatives more open-minded than left-leaning singles whose views border on fanaticism? Trump Derangement Syndrome, plus the fact that leftists, who generally have no religious beliefs, have turned progressive politics into a kind of replacement church (orthodoxy) where wokeism is dogma and any deviation from that dogma is considered apostasy. Liberal women, preoccupied as they are with “reproductive rights” (abortion) have become the foot soldiers in the movement to transform the United States into an Islamist-socialist empire. Whether it is challenging ICE agents in the street, attending every No Kings protest known to man, or campaigning for Islamist candidates in Michigan, sometimes the fanaticism they demonstrate borders on mental illness. The corruption of the female sex can be traced to gender studies in universities. City Journal’s Heather MacDonald notes this fact and termed this corruption, “the Great Feminization of the American university.” She argued that this “traumification of everyday life, like other academic trends, is fast spreading outside the campus.” It has already spread to cultural institutions like art museums, philosophical societies, the theater world and even the way your local Barnes and Noble bookstore arranges author events (no conservative author need apply). MacDonald goes on to explain that women account for 80 percent of gender studies graduates in the U.S., and that gender studies programs are essentially “boot camps on gender ideology.” This is the reason why women disproportionately “end up as DEI administrators in universities.” In 2024, Ann Coulter did a podcast interview with UPenn law professor Amy Wax (please also see the current Thom Nickels Curious Culture podcast #4 interview with Amy Wax) where the conservative, persecuted Penn Law professor stated that the Republican Party will vanish if something isn’t done to correct the nation’s educational system from grades K through 12, because the system is nothing but a leftwing propaganda machine.

Meanwhile, on the heterosexual dating front, new research has revealed that 63% of women say they prefer a partner who is supportive and emotionally available who will allow them to take the lead in relationships. Why the lead? Somehow this taps into that old stereotype: “She wears the pants in the family!” Softer, empathetic men who listen are preferred over men who embody more traditional masculine roles. This certainly goes against that infamous Sylvia Plath quote, “Every woman loves a fascist,” meaning women want a strong masculine (sexy) patriarchal type as opposed to a soft soy boy vegan who agrees with James Talarico that “God is non-binary.” Of course, masculine men are capable of being emotionally supportive and “emotionally available” without giving up wearing the trousers. To a certain extent, the stay-at-home husband currently in vogue is certainly indicative of the effects of toxic feminism. While the alpha male has been demonized by feminists as products of toxic masculinity, the toxic, woke female has caused armies of men to bow out of the dating game altogether. They’ve simply had it. The Survey Center on American Life published a research piece in 2023 on why young men are turning against feminism. One of the reasons: woke culture is feminist culture.

This is not hyperbole, as a 2024 Newsweek survey discovered that the majority of American women won’t date a Trump supporter. If this is truly the case, where do these men go? Do they disappear into the world of multiple hookups? Do they suppress their desires and funnel them into workouts at Planet Fitness? Do they find some sort of down-low refuge in LGBT communities? There was a time when periodicals like Psychology Today were publishing articles like, “Feminists Think Sexist Men Are Sexier Than ‘Woke’ Men: Women like bad boys.” (Psychology Today, 2018). Even the Objectivist philosopher and novelist, Ayn Rand, made it a point to condemn the dangers of feminism in a 1971 essay, “The Age of Envy,” in which she trashed the Women’s Liberation movement. Rand was hero-oriented in her fiction and in her personal love life. She found glory and satisfaction in obeisance to strong, masculine men. Rand’s hostility to the feminist movement inspired her to declare that she would never vote for a woman president. Some conservatives fear what might happen if all the gender studies women get every woman on the planet to think as they do.

This is unlikely to happen. While today’s politics is a powerful motivator in keeping many men and women apart, it will prove to be a temporary dividing line. The more powerful motivator, human passion, will eventually triumph unless, in a sci-fi way, all woke women opt to become lesbians, or find soy boy husband lovers with man buns who want to keep house. The American Enterprise Institute summed it up this way: “People are getting married at the lowest rate in American history and the birth rate remains depressed. The longer people stay single, and perhaps never marry, the better things will be for the Democrats.”