Nick Adams' various appearances on Fox News (Image: Nick Adams)
Nick Adams' various appearances on Fox News (Image: Nick Adams)

Even for the MAGA crowd, Nick Adams stands out as ridiculous. The Republican political commentator, author and self-described “alpha male” has become an internet celebrity for his boastful tweets that walk the line between self-promotion and self-parody. 

Adams frequently tweets about his love of Hooters, America, Kid Rock, God and, of course, Trump (who once returned the love and endorsed his book), as well as his hatred of “woke” and “communist” symbols like oat milk, M&Ms and Fortnite.

These posts, seemingly shared more by disbelieving users dunking on Adams for his absurd takes than earnest fans, have increased his audience to more than 480,000 Twitter followers.

But many who’ve seen his tweets rage-shared into their feeds may not realise that Adams — born Nicholas Adamopoulos — is an Australian former deputy mayor who immigrated to the US just over a decade ago.

Inner West Councillor Mark Drury has served on local councils for nearly two decades, including a stint on the since-amalgamated Ashfield Council alongside a young Adams.

He remembered when he first heard of Adams’ transformation into a Fox News pundit: “A couple of years ago someone sent me something to do with Adams saying, ‘Can you fucking believe this?’ I had a look and said, yeah, I can partly believe it.”

Another fellow former Ashfield councillor, Marc Rerceretnam, described their first meeting with bemusement. It was the induction of the new Ashfield councillors soon after their election in September 2004. Adams brought his family — “I’m not just talking about his mum and dad. He brought cousins, uncles, at least 10 to 15 people” — to the meeting.

There wasn’t typically much fanfare about councillors’ elections, but Adams asked to do a maiden speech. The council voted to give him three minutes to speak. Throughout the meeting, Adams repeatedly mentioned that he was a first-year law student at the University of Sydney.

“He spoke of it as if it was a very important proposition on his part,” Rerceretnam said. “That was an introduction to Nick Adams, his arrogance and false sense of being something he isn’t.”

As one of the few Liberals on the council, Adams was typically on the losing side of its decisions. Drury said this dynamic meant Adams rarely contributed much to debate or even turned up to many council meetings. Instead, he said, Adams spent his time on populist causes. 

Adams’ “fatwa against pigeons” was a plan to kill all of the pigeons in Ashfield to combat bird flu. (Rerceretnam noted it was unlikely to do much as birds do not typically pay much attention to council jurisdictions.)

Other ill-fated Adams proposals included banning leaf blowers operating before his typical wake-up time of 10am, DNA-testing dog poo to catch owners who weren’t cleaning up after their pets, overturning a decision to take down a picture of the queen from council chambers, and trying to ban Germaine Greer from the area.

Beyond the stunts, Adams’ stint on the council had darker moments. He repeatedly publicly attacked multiculturalism despite his Greek heritage, and Rerceretnam said he was frequently “racially” attacked by Adams. Drury also claimed that Adams promised to smear the council if he didn’t get what he wanted.

“He demanded to be deputy mayor again on the basis that he could increase our popularity,” Drury said. “If we didn’t, he said he would seek to decrease the popularity of the council and so he popularised ‘Trashfield’ in retribution for not being reelected.”

Adams was also formally condemned by his colleagues for spending thousands of dollars on phone calls and Cabcharges that he claimed were for council functions, but which were, in fact, for personal use. Adams subsequently repaid the debt.

Drury said he remembered Adams using the photocopier and Cabcharges more than anything else. He said these resources were used as part of Adams’ networking.

“He was very ambitious. Curiously so, because there wasn’t much behind the ambition,” he said.

Rerceretnam said he sees a throughline from Adams’ time on council to his new career as a professional Trump booster: “People don’t change.”

Adams did not respond to a request for comment.