Beck 3 blaze TV
merri ok
SEE DENIAL
primary on ~ women suffrage}:
beck faded/retired for while?
rww tag: Glenn Beck
now big ~ESG 8 22
SEE CRM 4
see big lie fake electors
JRNL FAIL 5 JAN6 PIPE BOMB
see satan spiritual war
7 22 sparked by
infowars
horowitz
SEE DEACE
misogyny? POC?
see low motive
bak 7 25
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MMA 11 26
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MMA REPT WH CONTACT MIDDLING
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8 24 m4l putting his teen bk in libraries?
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Laura Ingraham claims there is a leftist “plan” to “overthrow” the government. What in the world is she talking about?
Written by Matt Gertz
Published 10/22/26
Republicans are panicking and right-wing media are desperately churning out “fear porn” as polls continue to point to a devastating midterm environment for their party with less than two weeks remaining before election day. From presidential rallies to Fox News primetime, MAGA stalwarts are trying to bolster their party’s turnout by warning Republican voters that if they do not go to the polls, their freedom and very lives may be at stake.
That increasingly deranged environment is generating a level of demagoguery that at times becomes simply absurd.
Fox host Laura Ingraham, for example, announced on her show Wednesday that if Democrats win control of the U.S. House and Senate, a leftist cabal of activists, journalists, “top former staffers” in the Obama and Biden administrations, and even Democratic governors will carry out a plot to force President Donald Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act as a mechanism to “dissolve” the U.S. Constitution and “crush their enemies.”
The argument that the left is planning to destroy the federal government if and only if Democrats triumph in the midterms makes a lot of sense as an attempt to scare Republicans to the polls but none at all as a plot in its own right.
Questions abound: Why in the world is this plan only enacted after Democrats achieve actual congressional power for the first time in Trump's second term? If there is clear evidence of a sweeping plot including “top” Obama and Biden officials, why is the best example Ingraham can point to former Obama White House ethics lawyer Norm Eisen talking about protecting the Constitution with legal action? Why does the plan revolve around getting Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act — an outcome MAGA pundits like Ingraham herself have been lobbying for and Democrats have publicly opposed?
Lastly, why does Ingraham think this grand conspiracy is underway? We don’t really know — she cited no direct evidence for what on-screen Fox graphics described as “The Left’s Plan To Overthrow The U.S. Gov’t.”
But Ingraham’s claims align with a conspiracy theory that Jennica Pounds, a right-wing influencer who goes by the pseudonym DataRepublican and briefly worked for the Defense Department this year, floated over the weekend based on videos of activist meetings she obtained. Pounds’ claim of a leftist “operational plan” seems to be much less than advertised — but has nonetheless been trumpeted this week by prominent MAGA figures like Glenn Beck, Vince Coglianese, Jesse Kelly, and podcaster-turned-deputy-FBI-director-turned-podcaster Dan Bongino.
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odd to join sinking ship?
rww 9 26
Finally, even though it was entirely predictable, it's nonetheless amazing to watch Glenn Beck's transformation into an obsequious mouthpiece for Trump, especially since he spent all of 2016 warning, among other things, that "there's pretty strong evidence that he's a psychopath."
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RWW VID
09/23/2026
Pathetic Trump sellout Glenn Beck grows emotional talking about the "silver coin from the time of the crucifixion" that he keeps on his desk at all times "to remind me: Don't sell out. Doesn't matter if you go broke, don't sell out."
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RWW 6 26
Glenn Beck Shamelessly Praises Trump's Gaudy UFC Fight As 'A Celebration Of America' | People For
rww
05/07/2026
by
- Rick Green wants the Tennessee House of Representatives to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom for eliminating the state's only majority-black Democratic district.
- Dale Partridge claims that Americans are having "increased gut issues" because of "third-world immigration": "When you import millions from the parasite and diarrhea capital of the world, they bring their diseases with them."
- Steve Deace declares that "the closest displays of apostolic giftedness that I've ever witnessed is the comprehensive giftedness and discernment that Charlie [Kirk] brought to the table."
- Glenn Beck loves nothing more than spreading fake Christian nationalist history.
- Ché Ahn asserts that "God calling me to run for governor is another sign that we're entering into revival and reformation."
- Finally, Nick Fuentes displays an interesting interpretation of Jesus's Parable of the Talents by insulting his followers who are "too stupid and lazy" to be rich: "You were chosen by God to be poor. Those that have shall have more; those that have less, even what little they have, it will be taken from them."
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RWW 5 26
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AN 4 26
President Donald Trump’s media ecosystem for a long time depended on major online brands like The Daily Wire and Blaze Media, but as one of their fellow conservative publications pointed out, Trump’s coalition is dissolving — and with it, the base of support upon which many of these media outlets once stood firm.
“Ben Shapiro’s Daily Wire is in trouble on YouTube, losing significant numbers of subscribers—with Shapiro himself down a whopping 80,000 in the first quarter of the year, according to a new survey of political channels by researcher Kyle Tharp,” wrote The Bulwark’s Will Sommer on Monday. “It’s more proof that dissident and increasingly anti-Trump voices like Candace Owens and Tucker Carlson have the energy in right-wing media. Shapiro, by contrast, is stuck defending an unpopular war with Iran.”
Sommer noted that even Shapiro’s attempts to offset losses to his political brand by crafting mainstream motion pictures has failed.
“Deadline reports that the set of the Daily Wire’s upcoming film Run Hide Fight Infidels is in chaos, with black mold on the site, a tree branch hitting a crew member, and actor Jonathan Majors falling out of a window during a recent shoot,” Sommer wrote. “Undeterred by crew complaints, producers say they won’t negotiate on safety ‘with communists.’ By communist, they mean unionized crew members.”
Sommer also took shots at Blaze Media, an outlet owned by Glenn Beck, which is facing problems because of a journalist associated with them who spread an incorrect story about the January 6th coup attempt.
“Back in November, the conservative media outlet the Blaze claimed that reporter Steve Baker had the scoop of the century: compelling evidence that the pipe bombs planted outside Republican and Democratic headquarters on January 6th were laid by a Capitol Police officer,” Sommer wrote. “Blaze founder Glenn Beck declared it would be ‘the biggest scandal of my lifetime, maybe in the last hundred years.’ Republican members of Congress like Anna Paulina Luna and Thomas Massie championed the story, saying it was proof the deep state was behind January 6th.”
Yet the story proved not to be true, with Blaze Media retracting it in December, and Sommer wrote that Baker “was fired on Wednesday morning, as the publication faces the possibility of a massive libel judgment over the story.”
Beck has a long history of extravagant behavior, perhaps becoming most famous for dramatically crying during many of his speeches. Beck remains a stalwart in the conservative movement, although Shapiro has wavered somewhat at times. In a recent interview with the New Yorker, Shapiro admitted to David Remnick that he does not believe Trump is entirely honest and that he has concerns about the Trump family’s involvement in cryptocurrency schemes.
"I raised red flags on my show, consistently, about how I thought this was wrong. If the name were Biden instead of Trump, people would be screaming bloody murder," Shapiro told Remnick. "And this was not beneficial to President Trump’s agenda, either. So, sure, that concerns me."
Speaking with this journalist for Salon Magazine in 2019, Shapiro also admitted that he has been singled out for hate by some of his own far right supporters because of his Jewish background.
“I’ve gotten enormous amounts of hatred from the alt-right, and while folks on the far left try to lump me in with the alt-right, that is the height of absurdity on every possible level,” Shapiro said. “I mean, it’s honestly one of the most reprehensible things that I’ve experienced personally, people trying to lump me in with people who have legitimately threatened to kill my children … so that’s always a party.”
12/08/2025 rww
by
Oh good, Glenn Beck has created an AI George Washington. You will be shocked to learn that the AI George Washington created by Glenn Beck sounds exactly like what would happen if Glenn Beck built an AI George Washington to sound exactly like Glenn Beck.
Video URL 
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rww
12/05/2025
by
- The recent arrest of the suspected Jan. 6 pipe bomber has forced The Blaze to retract its own recent article wrongly identifying a different, completely innocent person as the prime suspect.
- Joshua Haymes declares that "foreigners should NEVER be permitted to serve as an American civil magistrate": "Biblically, we shouldn’t even permit citizenship until a person‘s family has been here for at least three generations."
- Rick Green says that if you let your children play outside, it will lead to better brain development and "then they'll vote Republican."
- Nick Fuentes has "Candace Owens fatigue" because she's "a total loudmouth, fucking Black female narcissist ret*rded idiot."
- Finally, Joel Webbon wants to remind people that he is not just antisemitic, but also homophobic and sexist: "I've got other great qualities too."
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11/13/2025 RWW
by
- Michigan state Rep. Josh Schriver is introducing a resolution to designate Nov. 23 as “Christ the King Sunday."
- Mario Murillo says that conservatives must not turn against President Donald Trump: "I know what Satan is doing, he's trying to make Trump's effectiveness be undermined."
- Glenn Beck proclaims that "we're already in World War III," which is something he's been saying for more than a decade.
- Jackson Lahmeyer believes that the Rapture is imminent and "we will soon hear a trumpet blast and the sky will open up and we, his church—like John [The Revelator]—will be taken up."
- Finally, Ryan Helfenbein declares that "50 years from now, our children will thank us" for overturning Obergefell, thereby ensuring that "civilization [is] not dead from the gay rot."
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rww
11/12/2025
by
- Jesse Leon Rogers declares that the election of Zohran Mamdani as mayor of New York City is "a tragedy" and warns that Mamdani is "a covert jihadi."
- Jack Hibbs proclaims that Mamdani's election is a sign that "God's plan is unfolding upon a Christ-rejecting nation."
- Ché Ahn believes that he will be elected governor of California by winning "conservative Democrats over because I'm an Asian immigrant."
- Ryan Helfenbein says that "God did create man in his own image to live in a material world and to steward that material world," therefore "owning a home isn't merely a material ambition, it's fulfilling a creation mandate we see in Genesis 1 and 2."
- Finally, the fact that Glenn Beck thinks that Nick Fuentes should be ignored by the conservative movement because he's just engaging in "performance art" and "says the most outrageous things for attention" shows just how uninformed Beck is and why nobody should rely on his analysis for anything.
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// FALSE FLAG
an 11 25 try to build on antifa bs?
A right-wing media outlet's exposé on what it claimed was the likely identity of the January 6th pipe bomber has been proven to be more of a bomb than a bombshell, reports The Bulwark.
The Blaze, founded by conservative commentator Glenn Beck, reported that "a female former Capitol Police officer who joined the CIA shortly after January 6th was 'a forensic match' for the individual caught on camera footage the night before."
The report said that they used "gait analysis" to compare the walk of the ex-officer to the alleged bomber.
Loyalists of President Donald Trump immediately picked up on the report, including Rep. Anna Paulina Luna(R-FL), who wrote on X that “a capitol police officer placed a pipe bomb at the RNC on J6,” adding that the Blaze story was proof that Republicans would “all be in the gulag” if it wasn't for Trump.
“This woman was the Capitol Hill pipe bomber,” wrote Women for Trump co-founder and January 6 Ellipse rally organizer Amy Kremer on X.
The Justice Department, however, remained uncharacteristically silent about the report, The Bulwark notes, and Rep. Luna deleted her post.
"Instead of uncovering the likely identity of the pipe bomb-dropping suspect, the Blaze may have a legal mess on its hands," The Bulwark says.
"The mystery has loomed especially large for conservatives, who see the FBI’s failure to catch the perpetrator as proof that the laying of the bombs — and perhaps the Capitol riot itself — was an inside job orchestrated by federal law enforcement to entrap Trump supporters," they write.
Like the promised release of the Epstein files, when Trump took office, MAGA expected answers on the pipe-bomber, but "frustratingly for the right, the installation of Trump diehards like Kash Patel and Dan Bongino as the leaders of the FBI hasn’t turned up any more information," they note.
For the Blaze founder Beck, the story represents “the biggest scandal of my lifetime, maybe in the last hundred years,” he exclaimed a few days before the story ran.
The pipe-bomb suspect, according to Beck, was “at the highest levels of government.”
Steve Baker, one of the story's reporters, posted on X that the investigation had uncovered “the biggest scandal and conspiracy in American history.”
The Bulwark points out that Baker "was himself a January 6th defendant; he pleaded guilty to his role in the riot late last year."
"Perhaps more important, though, is that right-wing media outlets have gotten more gun-shy about implicating non-public people of crimes," they write, pointing to lawsuits resulting in rulings against InfoWars and Fox News.
And while Baker named and published photos of a specific person, giving "the impression that he might actually have the goods," The Bulwark says, "the actual reporting was not definitive."
Baker and his co-author Joseph M. Hanneman apparently used "years-old footage" of their accused bomber playing soccer to compare to the footage from January 5, 2021.
"Instead of using suspect footage released by the FBI, however, the Blaze claims it used footage 'from another source' the article doesn’t name," The Bulwark notes.
The Blaze didn't release the video to prove their claims, instead citing the work of a “video sleuth,” whom The Bulwark deems "a little-known X user named Armitas whose online profile image is a picture from the 1998 role-playing video game Xenogears."
The woman who was identified by the Blaze "was already a target of the MAGA right," photographed as one of the officers firing pepper balls at January 6th rioters, and later testified against January 6th participants in at least two cases, according to court records, The Bulwark says.
As the article started to gain traction, it suffered "an immediate blow to its credibility," they report.
"While the article initially claimed that the woman now works on CIA director John Ratcliffe’s security detail, the article was corrected after the CIA clarified that she worked as a security guard on CIA property," they write.
Julie Kelly, "a right-wing media figure who has become the dean of the MAGA January 6th counternarrative," has investigated the pipe bomber herself, and slammed The Blaze's story.
“I am shocked at the weak evidence cited in The Blaze article and nonexistent evidence contained in the piece itself,” Kelly tweeted.
"High-ranking Justice Department official Ed Martin appeared to support the article before it came out, tweeting sequentially 'P' 'I' 'P' 'E?' before deleting the posts containing the letters. At the same time, Martin tweeted out that neither he nor the FBI had made a determination of the pipe-bomb suspect’s identity," The Bulwark notes.
Following the story, the FBI put out a statement saying they are still investigating the case, and right-wing podcaster Benny Johnson used it to quash the story on his show.
“There’s no other way to accept this statement, other than they’re saying the Blaze has it wrong," he said.
Even Beck seems to be walking away from the story, The Bulwark says.
"Despite the Blaze publishing the officer’s name on Saturday, Beck refused to name the woman on his podcast, saying 'a match is not guilt.'"
“This person of interest is still a citizen whose life carries the same dignity and presumption of innocence as yours and mine,” Beck said. “I can’t tell you what is true in this story yet.”
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MMA
Glenn Beck says the FBI sought his advice on how to target antifa — here's who he wants them to go after
Written by Matt Gertz
Published 10/16/25
Glenn Beck has spent a decade and a half trying to make the case that various progressive organizations, activists, and funders are radicals bent on destroying the country. The right-wing commentator is a constant font of conspiracy theories who famously illustrates purported connections — often extraordinarily tenuous — between various entities on his chalkboard. But now, according to Beck, his rantings against longtime enemies are garnering attention from federal law enforcement.
“The FBI showed up to my house to discuss my TV show exposing Antifa's network,” Beck posted to social media on Monday, referencing the umbrella term for a broad and decentralized grouping of militant far-left activists who say they oppose fascism. “If you are a member of Antifa or providing material or financial support for Antifa, I might be a little concerned because the FBI is DEADASS serious about investigating you.”
Beck appended a clip from his radio show in which he said that he had met for two hours on Saturday with agents sent at the behest of extremely online FBI Director Kash Patel.
“This is information that I first gave on Fox years ago,” he added. “Let me just say this: Finally, we have an administration and an FBI director that is willing to go in deep.”
Beck’s claim of FBI interest in his antifa report comes as President Donald Trump and his administration are attempting to reframe the concept of antifa as a framework to target their political enemies. Trump responded to the September killing of MAGA activist Charlie Kirk by seeking to implicate as many of his political opponents as possible, and he has ordered federal law enforcement, including the FBI and its Joint Terrorism Task Forces, to target nebulously defined “organized political violence.” In recent days, Republican officials have sought to blur the distinction between antifa activists and protesters who plan to participate in Saturday’s “No Kings” rallies.
On October 8, at Trump’s White House roundtable on antifa, Patel promised that his bureau would “find every single seed money, donor organization and funding mechanism that we have.”
That same day, Beck published to YouTube his “off the cuff” review of what he mocked as “ANTIFA’s ‘De-centralized’ Network.” He explicitly pitched his work as “a starting point for people at the FBI or Justice Department as they begin investigating leads.”
Beck’s list of purportedly antifa-linked organizations worthy of federal investigation meshed well with reports about the administration’s targets of interest, including Democratic megadonor George Soros’ Open Society Foundations and ActBlue, the platform Democratic candidates and affiliated organizations use to marshall small-donor fundraising.
Video file
Video
Citation
From an October 8, 2025,
posted to Glenn Beck's YouTube account
Beck claimed to have “split antifa up into three different categories: street groups and soldiers, support groups, and funding sources.” He said that the first category had caused “carnage,” but that any investigation into antifa must go further.
Among antifa “support groups,” Beck included the National Lawyers Guild, which he identified as the “legal arm for antifa” because its members monitor the law enforcement response to protests for abuses, and the Community Justice Exchange, which he criticized for “bailing people out” in 2020 during the “George Floyd riots.”
Based on those extraordinarily tenuous claims linking the National Lawyers Guild and Community Justice Exchange to antifa, Beck went on to identify organizations that fund those two groups as antifa “funding sources.” Those included Beck’s old enemy the Tides Foundationfor having a relationship with the Community Justice Exchange; the Alliance for Global Justice, in large part for giving the National Lawyers Guild “over a million dollars from 2018 to 2019 alone”; and Soros’ Open Society Foundations on the grounds that it funded the Alliance for Global Justice.
Beck also listed the Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund and Schwab Charitable Fund. These are both donor-advised funds that allow individuals to donate their own money to charities using an online portal managed by a financial institution — though Beck suggested that the financial institutions themselves were financing antifa in some way, saying, “If I had my money in Schwab or Fidelity, I don't know if I would have it. They’re giving to the people who are supporting these people.”
Beck further listed crowdfunding platforms including ActBlue, Patreon, and others, but he did not indicate the channels by which money had moved through those platforms or to whom.
“I’m not accusing anyone here. I’m just saying. This is pretty much off the top of my head. I’m just showing the connections that have a very strong odor attached to them,” Beck concluded. He added, “This one chalkboard alone is enough for the Trump administration just to start.”
And the Trump administration, according to Beck, was apparently interested.
The FBI calling on Beck’s expertise is both a comical revelation about the ineptitude of Kash Patel’s bureau — and a five-alarm fire for civil liberties. The Trump administration’s methods may be unserious, but its leaders are extremely focused on punishing their political opponents at all costs.
//
10/15/25 10:35 AM EDT
06/30/11 4:06 PM EDT
07/23/10
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RWW
10/21/2025
by
- Glenn Beck says that the recent "No Kings" protests were "a deep state operation."
- White nationalist Lauren Witzke claims that she has "partnered with" Megyn Kelly to give away tickets to Kelly's upcoming tour.
- Janet Porter is still trying to turn her life story into a movie.
- Milo Yiannopoulos reports that "doctor thinks I have a brain tumor."
- Finally, Oklahoma state Sen. Shane Jett declares that "if you want to look at what a government looks like when it builds its foundation on the Hebrew republic and acknowledges God Almighty as its foundation, then look no further than the government that was created by we the people."
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MMA
Right-wing media personalities seize on arson charge to falsely deny the role of climate change in Palisades Fire
:{SpecialPrograms Climate & Energy:(style="font-family:Merriweather"):}:
Written by Allison Fisher
Research contributions from Ilana Berger
Published10/10/25
Right-wing media personalities are using the arrest of a man charged with igniting the Palisades fire in Los Angeles — a blaze that killed a dozen people and destroyed nearly 7,000 structures in January — to deny climate change.
For example, Fox News host Jesse Watters claimed that the finding that arson started the Palisades Fire “put the final nail in the climate change coffin.”
*As the Palisades fire and the nearby Eaton fire were raging in LA, many right-wing media figures attacked those who were connecting the intensity of the blaze to climate change. The arson charge is now serving as a baffling “gotcha” moment for right-wing media figures who are misrepresenting the scientific finding that climate change contributes to, not causes, wildfires.
By attacking a claim no one is making these figures advance their campaign to undermine climate science and decouple the impacts of increasingly destructive extreme weather events from our warming planet.
- ## Climate change didn’t start the LA fires; it created conditions that intensified them
- While the fires were burning, UCLA climate scientist and Southern California climate expert Daniel Swain explained on MSNBC that “the level of vegetation and landscape scale dryness” was at “highly anomalous, even record-breaking levels.” Swain continued: “This year, there has been virtually no rainfall at all in the LA region, even as we head towards mid-January. And that is extremely unusual.” On top of that, “the extreme heat waves that we saw in the same region this past autumn” set the stage for intense winds to cause extensive damage. MSNBC, *Chris Jansing Reports*, [1/8/25]
- :{:{A 2023 attribution study found that “nearly all of the observed increase in” burned area in California over the past 50 years is “attributable” to human-caused climate change. Attribution studies “calculate whether, and by how much, climate change affected the intensity, frequency or impact of extremes,” according to Carbon Brief, which covers climate science. Carbon Brief, [11/18/24; The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 6/12/23]}:
- As Yale Climate Connections reported, the Palisades and Eaton fires were “intensified by severe drought and driven by winds gusting up to 100 mph (161 km/hr) from a severe Santa Ana wind event.”The report explained that “the main way that climate change worsens wildfires is by drying out vegetation. Prolonged heat turns forests and grasslands into tinder, fueling faster, more intense burns.” And in the case of the LA fires, “vegetation growth in early 2024 was enhanced by a wetter-than-average winter in Southern California. But during the summer of 2024, California experienced its hottest summer on record. This record heat, combined with near-record dryness, dried out the plentiful vegetation that grew in response to the wet winter.” Yale Climate Connections, [1/9/25]
- An attribution study of the LA fires found that climate change made them 35% more likely. As reported by NBC, “The hot, dry and windy conditions that preceded the fires were about 35% more likely because of human-caused global warming, according to a new report from the World Weather Attribution group, which analyzes the influence of global warming on extreme events. … In the case of the recent California fires, the report's authors found that although climate change played a role, it was not the sole factor.” NBC, [1/28/25]
- ## Right-wing media claimed arrest of alleged arsonist disproved link between climate change and the LA fires
- Newsmax host Greg Kelly played a montage of reporting connecting climate change to the LA wildfires to suggest that the alleged arson charge negates that point.Above the chyron “Many blamed L.A. fires on ‘climate change’” Kelly noted, “Yeah, well, it turned out that the guy who started that great big Palisades fire was some nut with a lighter, some liberal nut.” Newsmax, *Greg Kelly Reports*, [10/8/25]
- Newsmax host Carl Higbie undermined his argument that climate change didn’t cause the Palisades Fire by pointing out that National Geographic reported that “the fires were 35% more likely because of climate change.” Higbie went on to say, “Gavin Newsom sold us the same bill of goods about extremes. … It's not climate change. It's: One, you guys not maintaining your forest. And two, some allegedly, at this point, deranged arsonist who then called 911 to stroke his own ego to report himself.” Newsmax, *Carl Higbie Frontlines*, [10/8/25]
- Fox News host Jesse Watters similarly showed a montage of people correctly discussing climate as a contributing factor in intensifying fires before he concluded that “it wasn't global warming; it was an arsonist. And not just any arsonist — a Biden donor.” “This year, Los Angeles burned to the ground,” he said. “A dozen killed, billions in damage. The leadership was too clueless to tame the blaze. … No one took responsibility. They just kept saying, oh, it's not our fault, it's climate change. … We just found out what really sparked the fire. … It wasn't global warming; it was an arsonist. And not just any arsonist — a Biden donor.” Fox News, *Jesse Watters Primetime*, [10/8/25]
- Fox News host Laura Ingraham mocked Democrats for making the link between climate change and the fires, saying, “Climate change caused the devastating fires that ravaged LA, said the Democrats.” She continued, “Well, today, a 29-year-old Uber driver has been arrested in connection to starting those fires.” Fox News, *The Ingraham Angle*, [10/8/25]
- Right-wing influencer Robby Starbuck took aim at California Gov. Gavin Newsom, writing on X, “Didn’t you blame the fire on climate change? Stop lying.”Twitter/X, [10/9/25]
FLOYD BROWN WJC
- Right-wing news site The Western Journal wrote, “Democrats and their left-wing media lapdogs beclowned themselves after their manufactured outrage claiming ‘climate change’ had caused the Pacific Palisades fire earlier this year turned out to be a big, fat lie.”The Western Journal, [10/9/25;The New York Times,8/22/19]
- After news of the arrest came out, former MTV star Spencer Pratt, who has attracted right-wing fans for railing against Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, attacked the New York Times for reporting earlier this month that he “dismisses climate change as a major factor in the fires and instead seems to be looking for someone to blame.”Pratt wrote, “What was the @nytimes saying about me not believing ‘climate change’ was cause of the palisades fire?” Twitter/X, [10/9/25; The New York Times, 10/1/25]
- Bonchie, a writer for the right-wing site Red State, said on X that “we got months of ‘climate change’ crap from the left, and yet again the fire turned out to be set by a human.”“And they’ll do the same thing the next time because climate change is a religion, not an observation of evidence,” he also wrote. Twitter/X, [10/8/25; Red State, accessed 10/9/25]
- CJ Pearson, former co-chair of the Republican National Committee Youth Advisory Council, wrote on X: “BREAKING: The DOJ just announced the arrest of an arsonist responsible for the Palisades fire. Remember when the left assured us for months that climate change was to blame?” Twitter/X, [10/8/25]
- Bongino Inc., the media company founded by former right-wing pundit and current FBI deputy director Dan Bongino, posted:“BREAKING: Police have arrested the ‘climate change’ responsible for the deadly Palisades Fire in Los Angeles. His name is Jonathan Rinderknecht.” Facebook, [10/8/25]
- Blaze Media founder Glenn Beck wrote on Facebook, “Palisades Fire ‘climate change’ narrative crumbles after arson arrest.” Facebook, [10/8/25]
- Climate change denier Steve Milloy complained on X that “WaPo still tags the story as ‘Climate.’”Twitter/X, [10/8/25, AAP Factcheck, 1/23/23]
- Right-wing podcaster Eric Matheny wrote on X: “Weren’t we told that the Palisades fire was the result of climate change? No. It was an arsonist.” Twitter/X, [10/8/25]
//
01/10/25 1:47 PM EST
01/15/25 8:04 PM EST
01/09/25
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RWW
VID
09/15/2025
by
Glenn Beck declares that "Charlie Kirk was as much a civil rights leader as Martin Luther King": "[If] there's a Martin Luther King Boulevard, there should be a Charlie King Boulevard."
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RWW
Glenn Beck claims that he went from being one of the most admired people in America to widely hated because the press was dishonest.
Media Matters
- Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk called pictures of starving children in Gaza “propaganda” and “emotional, visual, optical warfare” and claimed the “lies against Israel are relentless,” showing The New York Times’ picture of the 18-month-old suffering from malnutrition and emphasizing his “muscular disorder.”Kirk’s guest Rabbi Pesach Wolicki also claimed Palestinians in Gaza are “not emaciated. They're not starving. The people of Gaza are not starving. But Hamas needs to perpetuate this narrative.” Real America’s Voice, *The Charlie Kirk Show*, [7/28/25]
- Right-wing podcaster and self-described “proud Islamophobe” Laura Loomer called claims of starvation in Gaza “insane Pallywood Propaganda,” adding, “There is no starvation in Gaza. It’s a big lie.”She posted: “When the leftists try to make you feel bad over fake starvation in Gaza, ask them if they also cry for the children of cops killed by free Palestine protestors. I’m kind of tired of seeing fake stories about starvation when my tax dollars are going toward feeding terrorists via the World Food Program which is managed by CINDY MCCAIN. … There is no starvation in Gaza. It’s a big lie. … This insane Pallywood Propaganda has to end. If it doesn’t end, Trump should shut down the World Food Program. Let’s see the audit. Penny for penny.” Twitter/X, [7/28/25; Media Matters, 7/29/25]
- Conservative personality Dinesh D’Souza commented, “Does this look like the behavior of people who are starving?” in response to a story about Palestinians speaking out about having to chase aid airdropped into Gaza. Twitter/X, [7/29/25]
- As a guest on Washington Watch with Tony Perkins*, Jewish News Syndicate’s Ruthie Blum said, “Let me just set the record straight — there is no famine in Gaza.”She continued, “The accusation that Israel is purposely starving people is absolutely outrageous. It's a lie. It's a blood libel, and Hamas spread it.” Twitter/X, [7/28/25]
- TheBlaze’s Glenn Beck asked, “Have you seen the pictures of mom or dad holding the babies that are supposedly starving and they seem perfectly healthy? Does that seem reasonable to you? There’s no critical thinking here at all.” Beck then went on to add, “I’m sure there’s hunger there, real hunger. … I’m not dismissing that there’s not real hunger there, and we should do everything that we can. But, you know, let’s put some of the onus on Hamas as well. And then, can we stop listening to the people of Hamas tell us by showing these babies, who now we know have problems from birth.” Twitter/X, [7/29/25]
- Right-wing podcaster Stephen L. Miller posted, “If Gaza wants to convince anyone other than Western media that we are truly at the brink of a genocidal famine, they should stop putting healthy well fed adults in front of cameras.”Twitter/X, [7/30/25]
- ## Many right-wing figures blamed Hamas or the UN, claiming they are “purposely starving the population as a PR strategy against Israel” and Hamas is “stealing the aid”
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AN 7 25
POlitical operative David Barton held up a thick Bible with years of wear on its dark brown cover and proclaimed its pages put Protestant Christianity at the center of the country’s very foundation.
*This story first appeared at The 74, a nonprofit news site covering education. Sign up for free newsletters from The 74 to get more like this in your inbox.
“This is actually printed by the official printer of Congress,” said Barton, a best-selling author and influential far-right Christian nationalist. Barton has spent the last 40 years arguing that the separation of church and state is a myth — and has built a multimillion-dollar media and lobbying operation to influence public opinion and shape laws around the belief that the United States was founded as a Judeo-Christian nation.
At [VID] in April, Barton appeared before the Texas House education committee and testified in favor of legislation, since signed into law, requiring that posters of the Ten Commandments be placed inside every classroom in the state’s nearly 9,100 public schools by September. With him, Barton brought a small collection of books he claims were foundational to the country’s public education system until the 20th Century.
Barton isn’t just a primary pitchman for the Ten Commandments law in Texas, his home state, an investigation by The 74 reveals. His fingerprints appear on 28 bills that have cropped up before the legislatures in 18 states this year. A data analysis of the bills exposes how their language, structure and requirements are inherently identical. In dozens of instances, they match model legislation pitched by Barton verbatim.
At the Texas hearing, Barton’s eyes fixated on the cover of the rare 1782 Aitken Bible.
“It also says it’s ‘a neat Edition of the Holy Scriptures for the use of schools,’” he continued. “It has the Ten Commandments.”
In actuality, Barton lifted language from Philadelphia printer Robert Aitken calling on Congress to sanction a Bible that could also be for “the use of schools.” Christian nationalists have for years falsely claimed the Revolutionary-era printing includes a government promotion of Christianity. Barton has long been accused of taking historical quotes out of context, and in 2012, the Christian publisher of his bestselling book on Thomas Jefferson ceased its production because “basic truths just were not there.”
Texas is one of three states in the last two years to pass a law requiring that the Ten Commandments be posted in public schools. The mandates are part of a coordinated nationwide effort to overturn a 1980 Supreme Court ruling forbidding Kentucky from requiring Ten Commandments displays in classrooms.
As the influence of Barton and the burgeoning Christian nationalist movement find favor in state legislatures, the White House and with U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson — who cites Barton as a “profound influence” — the lobbyists and lawmakers behind the state Ten Commandments bills told The 74 they’re confident the current Supreme Court’s conservative super-majority is on their side, too.
The analysis by The 74 reveals how language in virtually every state bill matches model legislation created by Project Blitz, a Barton-steered Christian “bill mill” that’s long flooded statehouseswith legislative templates that promote Christianity in public schools, legalize discrimination against LGBTQ+ people and restrict abortion.
A dozen bills specify, for example, that the Ten Commandments displays must be hung in a “conspicuous” location. Another 11 specify they should be at least 11-by-14 inches in size. Nearly all of the bills — 25 — mandate a Christian version of the religious and ethical directives be displayed as a “poster or framed.” The 74 tallied 96 instances where bills introduced this year match Project Blitz’s model legislation, including template bills to require the Ten Commandments or the phrase “In God We Trust” in public schools.
Among the architects of Project Blitz is the Barton-founded influence machine, WallBuilders. The flurry of state bills were introduced after WallBuilders — the name is an Old Testament reference to rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem — convened its annual national conference of state legislators in November where the model legislation was promoted.
After Louisiana passed its first-in-the-nation Ten Commandments law last year, new mandates approved in Arkansas and Texas this year follow the same Project Blitz template.
‘No such thing as separation of God and government’
Texas state Sen. Mayes Middleton is the joint author of the state’s new Ten Commandments law and the author of another new law permitting a daily prayer period and Bible readings in public schools statewide. Republican Gov. Greg Abbott signed both in June.
Middleton, whose district southeast of Houston includes his hometown of Galveston, acknowledged Barton’s influence over not just his own legislative agenda, but Texas’ broader conservative movement. Barton previously served as vice chair of the state Republican Party.
“Of course, WallBuilders is very supportive of the bill,” Middleton told The 74, as were the conservative legal groups Alliance Defending Freedom and the First Liberty Institute. “And, of course, all of their missions is to advance religious liberties, especially in the public realm where there is no such thing as separation of God and government.”
Founded by Barton in 1988, WallBuilders promotes theories — discredited by serious scholars — about Christianity’s central role in the formation of the United States through its podcasts, books and a museum with “one of the largest private collections of United States historical documents.”
Through WallBuilders’ lobbying arm, the Pro-Family Legislative Network, Barton leads direct outreach to lawmakers and educators at its annual conferences at a four-star waterfront resort in suburban Dallas. It was at this gathering where Indiana Rep. J.D. Prescott, a Republican, got the idea for Ten Commandments legislation in his state, he told The 74.
Prescott proposed a bill requiring a “durable poster or framed picture” of the commandments in each library and classroom at all public schools statewide. The legislation ultimately failed to garner support. Bills in other states also failed to gain traction, including in South Dakota where the bill’s critics — including some Republicans — said a government mandate was the wrong way to spread Christianity and ran afoul of the Constitution.
“Our early common school system was really designed to teach biblical principles in the Bible, so it’s just getting back to that point,” said Prescott, who described himself as a “student of history.”
The Pro-Family Legislative conference offers lawmakers scholarships and discounted hotel rates to attend the event. In at least one instance, a New Hampshire state lawmakerfiled a disclosure form reporting that he had received $859.47 from the Pro-Family Legislative Network, including $500 reimbursing him for air fare, to attend the November 2024 conference.
Prescott told The 74, “I learned a lot of it at a WallBuilders conference hosted by David Barton. They’ve got a great conference for legislators down in Texas every November. I did look at the WallBuilders model legislation and it’s a good place to start.”
Not everyone’s Ten Commandments
Experts said the bills seek to do more than require “durable” Ten Commandments posters in every public school classroom. The campaign is part of a broader, well-organized and deep-pocketed assault, they argue, on the separation of church and state.
Although WallBuilders isn’t required to disclose its donors, the nonprofit Center for Media and Democracy analyzed federal tax filings with the Internal Revenue Service to bring its finances into focus. In 2021, WallBuilders reported $5.9 million in revenue and $6.3 million in total assets.
The group relies heavily on donor-advised giving, a tax loophole that allows anonymous supporters across the political spectrum to contribute to contentious causes without scrutiny. For example, donor-advised funds have been exploited by far-right activists to leverage global campaigns against the civil rights of women and the LGBTQ+ community, according to a 2023 investigation by openDemocracy.
Mercury One, a nonprofit founded by high-profile conservative pundit and media personality Glenn Beck, is both a WallBuilders donor and primary sponsor of Barton’s annual Pro-Family Legislative Conference to brief elected officials “on pressing issues from a constitutional perspective.”
Barton, who didn’t respond to multiple requests for comment, describes himself as a self-taught historian and the owner of the largest private collection of historical documents about the Founding Fathers. His critics pan the graduate of the Oral Roberts University as a discredited pseudohistorian and propagandist.
Barton is “the granddaddy of Christian nationalist disinformation,” constitutional attorney Andrew Seidel, who serves as vice president of strategic communications at Americans United for Separation of Church and State, told The 74.
John Fea, an American history professor and history department chair at Messiah University, a private evangelical Christian institution in Pennsylvania, accused Barton of cherry-picking historical information to present a misleading portrayal of the past, one that bolsters his own present-day political agenda.
“This is clearly an attempt by Christian nationalists to try to advance their own version of what America should be,” Fea said, noting that even as historians challenge Barton, he’s amassed influence among Republican lawmakers interested in leveraging a distorted accounting of history for political gain.
“Barton provides that history for these lawmakers. It adds a certain depth, even though it’s hollow.”
Darcy Hirsh, the senior director of government relations and advocacy at the nonprofit National Council for Jewish Women, said the Ten Commandments laws present an attack on “the strict wall of separation” between church and state.
“Any efforts to perpetuate the falsehood that the United States is a Christian nation is something that we find deeply alarming,” Hirsh said. Requiring a protestant Christian version of the Ten Commandments in schools, she said, is “exclusionary and coercive” to children from diverse backgrounds.
“A Protestant interpretation of the Ten Commandments is different than the Jewish interpretation of the Ten Commandments, in fact, they are numbered differently,” she said. Constitutional protections separating church and state, she said, are critical to the country’s democratic society.
“It’s that protection that has really allowed the Jewish community and other minority faith communities to flourish in the U.S.”
The laws successfully passed in Louisiana, Arkansas and Texas now face lawsuits from parents alleging they violate the separation of church and state. The issue could soon appear again before the nation’s highest court. In June, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans, among the nation’s most conservative, struck down Louisiana’s Ten Commandments display mandate, finding it “plainly unconstitutional.”
Parents with diverse religious identities are being backed by the American Civil Liberties Union and Americans United for Separation of Church and State in challenging the laws. In a complaint filed in Arkansas, parents allege students will be “unconstitutionally coerced into religious observance” and “pressured to suppress their personal religious beliefs.”
Fea, the evangelical historian, told The 74 the far-right campaign isn’t about the Ten Commandments’ place in the nation’s founding but about advancing the influence of Christianity in society.
“They’re using this historical argument to disguise the fact that they believe that somehow — and I don’t know how this happens, by osmosis or whatever — a student sitting in a classroom where the Ten Commandments is displayed will somehow buy into those ideals and values and become more Christian,” he said.
‘The hostility is gone’
At the Texas House education committee hearing in April, Barton held up a second book. This one was much smaller than the first, but just as old and, Barton testified, just as significant.
Barton lectured the Republican-controlled state legislature on The New England Primer, a widely used Colonial-era reading text. The book, he said, drilled first graders with 43 questions about the Ten Commandments.
Then he introduced a third book, and a fourth.
“The courts have pointed to the Ten Commandments as the reason we have all types of laws,” Barton testified. “So there’s a lot of history and tradition for that document that’s not there for other documents.”
Barton’s prop-focused presentation isn’t just scripted — it’s well rehearsed. This year, the 71-year-old has traveled across the country with his books and a small team of collaborators to spread the gospel of Christian nationalism. Like the bills before the state legislatures, Barton’s speech was replicated again and again.
As Barton testified on the Ten Commandment bills nationally, legislative sponsors routinely parroted his talking points, not just about Christianity’s role in the country’s origin, but the Supreme Court’s support for their movement.
During his recent appearances in Nebraska and other states, Barton’s testimonies invoked the court’s 2022 opinion upholding the rights of a Washington state high school football coach to lead prayers with his team on the 50-yard line after games.
Prescott, the Indiana lawmaker, said he became interested in introducing his bill after learning of the implications of the coach’s Supreme Court victory.
To Barton and other members of his coalition, the court’s opinion in Kennedy v. Bremerton School District creates a clear path to require Ten Commandments in schools — and inject Christianity into other facets of public life — by proving they’re part of a longstanding traditional practice.
In finding for Coach Kennedy, the Supreme Court abandoned its 1971 opinion ruling that religious displays don’t violate the Constitution if they have significant secular or nonreligious purposes. The court’s new standard revolves around whether the religious displays are part of historical practices. In other words, the heart of Barton’s pitch.
“That is the new standard, so the hostility is gone,” he testified. “Showing that this is something that is longstanding practice, you go back to The New England Primer.”
Bought and paid for — according to specs
Even as bill proponents championed states’ rights as one legal justification for their Ten Commandments display mandates, Middleton, the Texas legislative leader, said there is a key benefit to the near-identical requirements in the bills across the 18 states.
“We just wanted uniformity in these displays. We thought that was important,” the oil company president and cattle rancher told The 74. “Obviously, these are primarily going to be donated as well, so it’s probably going to be primarily private funds funding these.”
Project Blitz model legislation devises a funding scheme that revolves around donated displays without the reliance on public funds — a provision that appears in 16 states’ bills. Others invoke the model legislation by encouraging donated displays, but broaden the mandate so schools are also free to spend taxpayer dollars to comply.
Mirroring the Project Blitz model legislation, the new Arkansas law requires the Ten Commandments display be composed of a “durable poster or framed copy” of the document and that it be “prominently” positioned in each public classroom and library across the state. The law also stipulates that the posters should be donated by outside groups, meaning the same private entities who had a hand in crafting the specifications, supporting the bills and getting them on legislators’ radars, will also be the ones buying the versions of the Ten Commandments that wind up in schools.
Even as the Louisiana law is caught up in federal court, religious groups who lobbied for the law’s passage and have close ties to the WallBuilders have plans to donate the displays set to appear in classrooms across the state.
In April, First Liberty Institute and The Louisiana Family Forum announced that Patriot Mobile, which describes itself as “America’s ONLY Christian conservative wireless provider,” had donated 3,000 Ten Commandments displays “as part of a project to provide, at no cost to the Louisiana taxpayer, displays in schools throughout Louisiana.”[CHART]
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ed fucking martin blaze tv why left fears
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rww
“Let Him Cook': Glenn Beck And Kevin Roberts Flack For Trump's Tariff Policy
04/07/2025
by
Over the weekend, Glenn Beck posted a podcast with Heritage Foundation president Kevin Roberts, focused on the global tariffs that have been unilaterally imposed by President Donald Trump.
With those tariffs rattling the international economy and tanking the stock market, Beck and Roberts agreed that they support Trump simply because they want to "let him cook" even as they admitted that they are fielding panicked calls from friends and acquaintances who are actively seeing their businesses destroyed by Trump's policy.
Beck, who spent the entire 2016 presidential campaign warning that Trump is a psychopath, a narcissist, and a "the biggest flaming ass that you could possibly imagine" only to become a MAGA cultist the moment Trump took office, said that while he has always opposed tariffs, he is now willing to support them because Trump "loves America as much as me."
"On election day, we all walked out of the office going, 'OK. You're the boss,'" Beck said. "He's the best negotiator I've ever seen. He's a businessman, and he's one of the first presidents—in fact, I think the first president since Reagan—that I actually trust loves America as much as me, [who's] not in it for himself [but] in it for the country."
"I'm not going to give him a pass forever," Beck continued. "I mean, a year from now, if we are really struggling because of this, I'm not going to be saying the same thing. But I think we have to let the chef cook the meal. We came into the restaurant; we came because we knew he was the chef. Let him cook the meal."
Roberts, who turned the Heritage Foundation into a MAGA think tank that was the source of the infamous Project 2025 which Trump disingenuously disavowed on the campaign trail only to immediately implement upon taking office, agreed with Beck.
"You just summarized exactly where we are," Roberts said. "The larger thing is what you explained, which is Donald Trump's great love for this country [and] a cabinet that I think is the best assembled in modern history."
"I think maybe since [Abraham] Lincoln," Beck replied. "The first time I saw the cabinet altogether, I said, 'Look at the brains. I haven't seen this since the founding era.'"
"I think you're right," Roberts responded. "I think only [George] Washington's and Lincoln's rival them."
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rww
04/04/2025
by
- Tim Barton reports that he and his father, Christian nationalist pseudo-historian David Barton, "might be part of helping what the president does" in planning the celebration for the nation's 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence next year.
- Ali Alexander says that "if we have a society where minority groups don't get mouthy, we can once against have a universal monoculture that everyone can fit respectfully into." That is an interesting statement coming from someone whom many on the right would likely classify as a mouthy minority.
- Bianca Gracia declares that "the Democrat Party is officially the party of Satan which is clearly Anti American, Anti God, and Anti Children."
- Glenn Beck claims that President Donald Trump is "the guy I’ve always wanted in office," which is a blatant rewriting of his own history.
- Finally, Nick Fuentes wants to clarify something: "I am a white nationalist. ... I think we need to start arresting these black people. I'm anti-feminist. I think women need to shut up. I think Jews are running our society, it should be Christians instead. But I am not part of the freak show."
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rww
01/07/2025
by
- After Congress certified the results of the 2024 presidential election, Rick Green thanked God that "there wasn't the same chaos as four years ago" when "the election was stolen" and "the Constitution was violated."
- Joel Webbon asserts that "Jan. 6 was not that bad and, in fact, there were a lot of things that were honorable and should be esteemed."
- Lance Wallnau declares that far-right British activist Tommy Robinson is "very courageous" and "a folk hero."
- Mark Meckler wants to see Washington, D.C., literally eliminated as a city and instead made a part of Maryland. If that doesn't happen, Meckler hopes that Congress will completely take over the city "and run it correctly."
- Finally, Glenn Beck hates Daylight Savings Time largely because it was implemented during World War I by the Woodrow Wilson administration, which Beck claimed "pushed [America] into socialism." If Wilson was a socialist, he certainly had an odd way of showing it.
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10/15/2024
by
Kyle Mantyla rww
jesse dollemore 
predicted osama, housing crisis, caliphate last call 3x 2012, 2016
trump is opposite of gt leader, arrogant...dangerous psychopath
2020 battle ~ satan, pro trump, spiritual battle evil unleashed
2024 crit juncture if we lose, we lose cty; last free election in am we have understood 250 yrs
What do you imagine that Glenn Beck from 2016, who said that Donald Tump is evil and could not justify to God the idea of voting for someone like him, would say if he saw Glenn Beck in 2024 speaking at a Trump campaign rally?
- Speaking of Beck, just a reminder that he has a
of being wrong about nearly everything.
- John Guandolo claims that Tim Walz is a "flat out card carrying Communist Party member" and so, probably, is Kamala Harris.
- Ben Zeisloft declares that "blasphemy against the Triune God should be a criminal offense once more in our nation."
- Jackson Lahmeyer asserts that "if you remove all the political stuff out of the Bible, you don't have anything left."
- Finally, a former assistant to Kanye West claims that she was drugged and raped by the musician. Dalton Clodfelter claims that West "did nothing wrong": "She was clearly asking for it."
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mma
“Your time is coming when Trump wins": MAGA media figures claim FEMA committed treason
One commentator said: “Hang them by the necks till they're dead ... I believe it's way past time for an armed revolution.”
Written by Eric Hananoki
Published 10/15/24 4:45 PM EDT
Numerous Trump-aligned media figures have accused the Federal Emergency Management Agency and its officials of committing treason over its handling of Hurricane Helene.
Those right-wing figures have said that “whoever is running FEMA is guilty of treason your time is coming when Trump wins”; that Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas “should be in prison for the treason he has perpetrated against this country”; and that someone should “hang” government officials “by the necks till they're dead and let their dead bodies rot while people see what is done to treasonous government. ... I believe it's way past time for an armed revolution.”
This kind of rhetoric is part of a larger theme: Former President Donald Trump and his media allies have repeatedly promised retribution against government officials and the media if he wins a second term in office.
Media Matters has been documenting the spread of conspiracy theories in the wake of Hurricanes Helene and Milton. Pro-Trump allies, including those who are scheduled to appear at Trump-affiliated events in North Carolina, have been pushing the conspiracy theory that weather manipulation caused the recent hurricanes.
Vitriol against FEMA has already resulted in real-world consequences. A North Carolina man was arrested for allegedly making an anti-FEMA threats, and The Washington Post reported that “threats against federal emergency response personnel have hampered relief work in parts of western North Carolina hard hit by Hurricane Helene, prompting disaster workers to relocate because of safety concerns and feeding a cycle of fear and anxiety.”
Numerous right-wing media figures, including those linked to Trump, have claimed that FEMA and its officials are guilty of “treason,” with some suggesting that they should be killed.
The Hodgetwins are a podcasting duo that promotes false claims and anti-trans vitriol. They have been by now-Republican National Committee co-chair Lara Trump and have met Trump, who has promoted them online.
They wrote: “Whoever is running FEMA is guilty of treason Your time is coming when Trump wins.”
Charlie Kirk is a right-wing podcaster who frequently pushes toxic rhetoric and conspiracy theories. He is a key Trump ally who heads a group that’s been tasked with helping Trump’s get-out-the-vote efforts.
He ran a segment that he headlined “Hurricane Helene Aid Withheld? FEMA Whistleblowers Expose A Treasonous Misuse of Taxpayer Money” and said of the alleged misuse: “It is treason.”
SGT Report is a far-right show that promotes conspiracy theories, including QAnon. Trump administration officials Kash Patel, Peter Navarro, and Mike Flynn have appeared on the show.
The show ran an episode that included the description: “Chaos, death and destruction brought to you by the criminal and treasonous Biden-Harris administration. The official tally of the dead from hurricane Helene currently stands at 227 but thousands of Americans are missing and presumed dead and FEMA under Biden-Harris is doing LESS THAN NOTHING, in fact, FEMA is standing in the way of search and recovery. Brent Johnson believes these corrupt politicians should be tried and hanged from the neck until dead for their treason. LISTEN!”
During the program, the host began by claiming: “It is treason. In fact, friends, it's worse than treason. I want you to think about this. If you planned a war against the people over which you rule using their own money and resources, isn't this just exactly how you would do it?”
Brent Johnson, a fringe commentator and author, said: “My solution, though, is considered to be a bit too radical. I would haul them all out. I would have the militia come in, pick them up, OK? Whisk them away someplace, try them, convict them and execute them, hang them by the necks till they're dead and let their dead bodies rot while people see what is done to treasonous government thugs. But, hey, that's just me, you know? And people would say, ‘I'm being outrageous. I'm being, I'm being too radical. I'm being, you know, I want war.’ I don't want war. I'm actually one of the most peace loving people around. But these people are vicious and evil.” He later added: “I believe it's way past time for an armed revolution.”
Stew Peters is a Hitler-praising antisemite who has promoted numerous conspiracy theories and calls for violence. Numerous Trump-linked officials have appeared on his show, including Republican National Committee lawyer Christina Bobb; and Trump administration officials Kash Patel and Peter Navarro.
He wrote on social media: “Alejandro Mayorkas is a lying subversive parasite and should be tried for TREASON” followed by the rat emoji and the skull and crossbones emoji.
Wayne Allyn Root is a radio host and conspiracy theorist. He at a Trump rally and has
Trump, who has in turn frequently promoted Root online.
Root said on his radio show on October 7 of Hurricane Helene: “But even if you don't believe that's what someone's purposely doing, even if this is just nature and it's just pure bad luck right before an election, hmm, strange. But even if you don't believe that — the response to Helene is the worst response in history, everyone involved should be tried for treason. Kamala, Mayorkas, they all should be tried for treason, what they've done to the people of North Carolina.”
Sean Davis is the CEO and co-founder of the right-wing publication The Federalist. He has repeatedly promoted conspiracy theories, including claiming that “Democrats are preparing to use the military to steal the 2024 election and prevent their opponents from lawfully taking power.”
He wrote in response to a clip of Mayorkas discussing FEMA funding: “He should be in prison for the treason he has perpetrated against this country.”
Jane Ruby is a health misinformer who has pushed the conspiracy theory that Hurricane Helene was the result of weather manipulation. She is scheduled to speak in North Carolina on the ReAwaken America tour with Trump’s “inner circle.”
She wrote on social media: “Time For States NC, TN, FL, GA To KICK OUT FED GOVT/FEMA The fed govt is shutting down roads, blocking civilian rescue missions, and confiscating donations This is more than overreach, it is an ACT OF TREASON.”
Glenn Beck is a right-wing radio host who became a household name for his conspiracy theories on his now-defunct Fox News program. He was recently part of a Trump campaign event.
His website recently wrote of a rant on his program:
Glenn was and still is disgusted by the flippancy of the organization that should be at the forefront of meeting the needs of Americans, whose taxpayer dollars fund the agency.
The second time he saw FEMA agents, they were building showers — not for displaced victims but rather for volunteers.
“FEMA is despicable,” says Glenn in disgust. “I don’t like calling people traitors, and I won’t today, but I will tell you — a case could be made that there are a lot of people that are bordering on the line of treason.”
The people running FEMA are included on that list.
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- Trump-loving right-wing activist Jim Garlow watched the DNC and he’s “never ever seen so much deceit, so many blatant, intentional lies. Frankly, it saddens me. I really care for these people. But, SO much delusion.”
- Mario Murillo also watched the convention and says that Kamala Harris “must be exposed”: “That is the solemn duty of every decent person. Four more years of this? Truly, my friends, that will be the end of us. Do not condemn your children to this nameless horror!”
- Jason Rapert warns that “America will not long survive or prosper if Kamala ‘Commie’ Harris is allowed to become president”: “Every God fearing American must vote for Donald Trump to stop this leftist march into the pits of hell.”
- Todd Coconato declares that “they’re trying to put Jezebel in the White House”: “This is a Jezebel spirit, a demonic woman, she’s given herself over to a demonic agenda.”
- Lance Wallnau thinks that that former President Donald Trump will do very well with minority voters because they don’t want to be governed by “whining, lecturing female liberals.”
- Finally, Glenn Beck asserts that preventing a Kamala Harris presidency represents the “last chance” for America’s hope of survival, which is kind of confusing since that’s literally the same warning he issued in 2012 about a Barack Obama presidency.
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July 18, 2024 rww
- Glenn Beck is teaming up with Moms For Liberty to get his new novel placed in school libraries across the country.
- Oklahoma state Sen. Dusty Deevers fumes over “the removal of Christian morality from the RNC platform”: “We must look forward, continue to minimize Neo-Cons, and influence the New Right with abolitionist and Christian Nationalist principles.”
- Stew Peters is equally outraged about the “Hindu prayer, Satanic seance, demonic oppression nonsense” that took place at the RNC.
- White nationalist Vincent James says the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump will help him with Black voters because “if anything is gonna get the Black vote, it’s getting shot at right after you just got convicted of multiple felonies.”
- Finally, Matt Shea claims that the U.S. had “less casualties than every other country” during World War II because of prayer. (We’d argue that the fact that the war took place almost entirely overseas and raged for years before the U.S. even joined probably had something to do with that.)
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- Angry White Men: BlazeTV Host Jason Whitlock Heaps Praise On Antisemitic Author.
On the latest episode of his show, Fearless, BlazeTV host Jason Whitlock interviewed antisemitic author E. Michael Jones. During the interview, Jones claimed that Jewish people control the porn industry, founded the NAACP, and used the Harlem Renaissance to enslave Black people. Whitlock said that Jones was “speaking facts” and lauded him as “fearless.”
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mma 12 23 the blaze
JASON WHITLOCK: They have recreated this history that oh God, it was all just sexism, and we didn’t have the right to vote until Susan B. Anthony and the women’s suffrage movement and I will defend life before suffrage. Because a vote used to represent the family. When we were a culture that really valued family and really understood the natural order that God intended, man serving God, woman following man who serves God, man and woman developing and nurturing children.
You only needed one vote per household because that vote was about the entire family as they have destroyed our family structure and made this all an individual pursuit. Not everybody has to have a vote and everybody has to have an agenda that a lot of times has nothing to do with family.
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mma 12 23
December 1, 2023, edition of BlazeTV's *The Steve Deace Show
STEVE DEACE (HOST): Well, let's go back to 9/11 and reset a research point that I pointed out on this show a few months ago. Since 9/11, we -- if you took the total amount of people that we have imported from Islamist-dominated countries, that we have -- for not even illegally, we just agreed to accept either legally or as refugees or asylum seekers, because I'm sure -- I'm sure we vetted them all, right? Right? Sure.
If you took the total population of those people from Islamist-dominated countries that we have imported, it would be the 36th most populous state in the union, the 36th most populous state. Now, let's -- let's say 99 percent of them were completely and totally vetted -- they weren't -- and we have a pretty good read on their character and caliber and qualifications -- we don't -- but let's say we do, and it's one percent - you'd be looking at a standing army in the tens of thousands. Let's say it's point one - you'd be looking at a standing army way beyond the size and scope of the 20 -- what was it, 20, 21 people pulled off 9/11, something like that?
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TODD ERZEN (CO-HOST): My goodness, the Democrats are running on jabbing you with poison, trans-ing your kids, and kill the Jews. This is actually their platform, and we still can't find --
STEVE DEACE (HOST): Don't forget bankrupt America.
ERZEN: Yeah, and that --
DEACE: Don't sell them short, Todd.
ERZEN: Lie to your face --
DEACE: And they're winning -- and they're winning --
ERZEN: Yes, that's right, and they're winning. And we don't have a better closed hand set of principles. We're as guilty as anybody else. More than ever.
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BlazeTV co-host: The 19th Amendment "should be repealed" | Media Matters for America
AARON MCINTIRE (CO-HOST): Next, we go to Fetitigator, the recent pro-abortion win in Ohio and the Democrat takeover of the Virginia legislature to protect abortion and trans rights is yet another reason why the 19th Amendment should be repealed.
TODD ERZEN (CO-HOST): Sell. I mean, yes, it should be repealed. But like, honestly, this is -- we're so far past -- like, this is --
MCINTIRE: We're talking about this, we've got much bigger problems.
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Since Hamas' October 7 attack on Israelis, Islamophobic rhetoric has thrived in right-wing media spaces}:
- Hamas launched its attack against Israel on October 7, with militants from the Gaza Strip targeting both civilians and Israeli military personnel. Since then, Israel has promised to eradicate Hamas, leading the Israeli military to target Gaza in an ongoing conflict that has left more than 1,400 Israelis and nearly 3,800 Palestinians dead. Al Jazeera, [10/20/23]
- Right-wing media figures fearmongered about a supposed “global day of jihad” transpiring on October 13.The notion of a “day of jihad,” in which Islamic extremists would launch Hamas-inspired attacks around the world, seemed to come in part from the mistranslation of a statement from former Hamas political leader Khaled Meshaal. Without a “specific and credible threat” to the U.S., this day failed to materialize. The rhetoric nonetheless sparked increased fears of violence during a time when anti-Muslim violence is already expected to rise. Media Matters, [10/16/23; The Guardian, 10/17/23]
- An Illinois man who “‘listens to conservative talk radio on a regular basis’ and became obsessed with the war between Hamas and Israel” allegedly stabbed his 6-year-old Palestinian tenant to death in what is being investigated as a hate crime. NBC News, [10/16/23]
- ## Radio hosts and guests fearmongered about Islamic extremists attacking the U.S.
- Charlie Kirk told people to carry a gun to defend themselves in case sleeper cells are “activated” in the U.S. The Turning Point USA founder told his audience, “This needs to be a wake up call. They are here, they mean harm to the American homeland and I pray that they are not activated. Make sure you have a gun on you.” Salem Media Group, *The Charlie Kirk Show*, [10/11/23]
- According to Kirk, “We have imported the dynamite right into our country.” Kirk claimed that “we have invited some of the most disgusting people on the planet into the West,” including “Third World Muslims,” and now “we shouldn’t be surprised” to see a “global day of jihad.” Media Matters, [10/16/23; Salem Media Group, The Charlie Kirk Show, 10/12/23]
- Kirk claimed that “millions of young, fighting-age Muslim men in America” have the potential to be “activated” as terrorists. Kirk said, “You have tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions of young, fighting-age Muslim men in America. All it takes is for a couple of them to be activated in this country.” Salem Media Group, *The Charlie Kirk Show*, [10/12/23]
- Kirk fearmongered about the potential of Islamic terrorists crossing the U.S.-Mexico border and “shooting up a public place in the name of Allah.” Kirk said, “What's to prevent one of these Muslims that came across the border … from getting their hands on a firearm and going and shooting up a public place in the name of Allah?” Salem Media Group, *The Charlie Kirk Show*, [10/10/23]
- Sean Hannity told his audience to take the “global day of jihad” seriously despite a lack of evidence. He proclaimed, “Hamas has now called for their supporters to make tomorrow, Friday the 13, a global day of jihad. Now I care about everyone in my audience. I'm gonna urge all of you: Take this seriously.” He added, “You know, it’s a holy war, and they want it worldwide.” Premiere Radio Networks, *The Sean Hannity Show*, [10/12/23]
- Hannity claimed there are terrorist cells in the U.S. that have already entered the country illegally and are planning attacks.He said, “I guarantee you that among the 8 million, by the end of this year, of illegal immigrants, I guarantee you people that have connections to terrorism have entered this country and that there are terror cells plotting, planning, and scheming another attack.” Premiere Radio Networks, *The Sean Hannity Show,* [10/17/23]
- On right-wing pundit Eric Metaxas’ show, a guest spread the conspiracy theory that the Biden administration is allowing men from “Muslim countries” into America to be later used to cause chaos. Appearing on The Eric Metaxas Show, The Stream senior editor John Zmirak claimed, “They were letting in thousands of military-age men from Muslim countries and spreading them all over the country. Why? My theory, my conclusion is this is the next army of political police, of political thugs whom the Democrats will send out onto the streets to riot, to burn, to threaten, to intimidate, to pillage the next time it suits their political advantage.” Salem Media Group, *The Eric Metaxas Show*, [10/11/23]
- ## Right-wing radio hosts spread blatant Islamophobia
- Steve Deace claimed that Islam has “no compunction or reservation at all about using women and children as human shields.” “Hey, I lose a wife. I've got seven more,” Deace said, mocking Muslims. “I lose a kid, I'll make another kid with the other seven wives. And that kid, you know, was just welcomed by Allah into heaven as a hero.“ Blaze Radio, *Steve Deace Show*, [10/16/23]
- Charlie Kirk maintained that the “vast majority of Muslims” live “in the 1300s” and hold a “medieval worldview.” Kirk framed the Israel-Hamas conflict as “civilization, aka Western values, versus barbarism.” Salem Media Group, *The Charlie Kirk Show*, [10/11/23]
- Kirk claimed Muslims are going to kidnap people “across the world.”According to Kirk, “People are going to start getting kidnapped all across the world if we mishandle this. You’re going to see a string of kidnappings,” Kirk said. “Americans don’t travel internationally nearly as much as Europeans, but we travel internationally a lot, and there's a lot of Muslims out there.” Salem Media Group, *The Charlie Kirk Show*, [10/11/23]
- Kirk falsely claimed that Islamic law justifies killing children. “It's perfectly acceptable in Islamic law to go kill kids — perfectly fine,” Kirk said. Salem Media Group, *The Charlie Kirk Show*, [10/12/23]
- Shapiro claimed that the United Nations is “despicable and vile” and “filled with Islamist countries that support the death of Jews.” Westwood One, *The Ben Shapiro Show*, [10/10/23]
- ## Right-wing radio hosts dehumanized Palestinians
- Charlie Kirk claimed Palestinians in Gaza are “savage animals.” The TPUSA founder and Salem Media Group radio host stated, “To be clear, they will — they'll take you out of the car and cut your head off and parade you through the streets. They're really nice people we got dealing with here. And I'll never forget — as soon as they see an Israeli license plate, they're savage animals, they’ll come after you.” Salem Media Group, *The Charlie Kirk Show*, [10/11/23]
- Mark Levin declared, “The Israelis are up against these animals — they’re not even animals,” before calling Palestinians “subhumans.” On his Westwood One radio show, Levin also questioned why the safety of Palestinian civilians should be considered, “particularly when the enemy wants its own civilians killed.” Westwood One, *The Mark Levin Show*, [10/13/23]
- Levin: “And I'm supposed to, what, shed crocodile tears, for what's going to happen to these people?”Levin also called people in Gaza “barbarians” and said that their deaths are not Israel’s responsibility. Levin continued, “I'm not. Maybe I'm the only one who will voice it, but I'm not. Israel has every right to throw every damn thing it has at barbarians. And if there are innocent people, quote-unquote ‘civilians’ who are killed, then maybe they ought to organize to take out the government they elected, but it's not Israel's responsibility." Westwood One, *The Mark Levin Show*, [10/10/23]
- Levin implied that all Palestinians are evil and said that if “there's collateral damage” when Israel attacks Gaza, “so be it.” According to Levin, “One side is immoral and evil. The other side is moral and good. It's that simple.” Westwood One, *The Mark Levin Show*, [10/17/23]
- Steve Deace claimed that Palestinians are “basically Arab squatters, people who were kicked out of countries like Jordan, who didn't want them.” The Blaze Radio host said, “There’s no such thing as a Palestinian. It’s a people group that does not exist. They’re basically Arab squatters, people who were kicked out of countries like Jordan, who didn’t want them.” Blaze Radio, *The Steve Deace Show*, [10/13/23]
- Blaze Radio producer Aaron McIntire claimed that Palestinian civilians “don’t exist” and also called them “squatters.”McIntire said, “What you do with the Palestinian civilians — that don’t exist — what you do with the people, the squatters, who live in the area known as Gaza Strip: Make Egypt take them, make the Arab nations, Arab neighbors take them.” Blaze Radio, *The Steve Deace Show*, [10/13/23]
- Deace also said, “There is no such thing as a Palestinian people as a people group.”He stated, “The people identifying as Palestinians — and they're not all Muslims, they're not all, you know, Hamas crazies, and every one of them's made in the image of God. Nevertheless, there is no such thing as a Palestinian people as a people group. These are folks from other Arab countries, a lot of them, a legacy like in Jordan that were kicked out of those countries, and there's a reason why these Arab countries like Jordan and Egypt are closing their borders to them now. They don't want them back.” Blaze Radio, *Steve Deace Show*,[10/16/23]
- Charlie Kirk claimed Palestinians are all antisemitic to justify attacking them: “The reality is Hamas and the Arab world, they just hate Jews. They just want Jews dead.” Salem Media Group, T*he Charlie Kirk Show*, [10/12/23]
- ## Right-wing radio figures tried to justify withholding aid to Palestinians
- Sean Hannity said any humanitarian aid to Palestine will help Hamas. Hannity stated, “Any humanitarian aid you want to give the innocent people in Gaza — I don't know what the percentage is because I don't know how deep their indoctrination is — will not go to the civilians. Innocents won't see this aid. It will go to Hamas, and they will build out their terror network.” Premiere Radio Networks, *The Sean Hannity Show*, [10/18/23]
- Ben Shapiro said “turning off water and electricity in military areas is normal” and emphasized that Israel is trying to avoid targeting civilians. Westwood One, *The Ben Shapiro Show*, [10/16/23]
- Shapiro claimed that the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, a humanitarian organization, allows for “Jew hatred” and should not be supported. According to Shapiro, “The UNRWA, the U.N. refugees administration, which is an agency that is specifically dedicated only to the Palestinians, it’s amazing. It’s a garbage administration run internationally that allows for full indoctrination in Jew hatred at UNRWA schools and the hiding of weaponry beneath UNRWA schools. They admitted yesterday on Twitter, briefly, that Hamas was literally stealing aid and then they deleted it because they’re afraid that Hamas might get mad at them.” Westwood One, T*he Ben Shapiro Show*, [10/17/23]
- On The Mark Levin Show, the president of the Zionist Organization of America declared: “The civilians are not innocent.”ZOA National President Mort Klein said that the U.S. should withhold aid because Palestinian civilians were also guilty for Hamas’ October 7 attack, saying, “In any war, do you do something against the civilians there? Do we do anything for the Vietnam civilians? For the Iraqi civilians? For the German civilians? No. It is a war. And yet strangely enough when it's Israel fighting Hamas Nazis, we want to aid the civilians. And I must add, the civilians are not innocent.” Westwood One, *The Mark Levin Show*, [10/18/23]
- ## Right-wing radio figures defended or downplayed civilian casualties in Gaza
- Mark Levin complained that asking Israel not to bomb schools or cut off food and medication to Gazan civilians constitutes too many “conditions.”Levin said: “Urban battle: It’s going to be very hard. Of course it is, but the Israelis are being told by our government, ‘Make sure your feed the population, make sure you medicate the population, make sure you don’t hit a mosque, a hospital, a school, don’t hit any of those. Now go for it.’ Look at all these conditions. All these conditions.” Westwood One, *The Mark Levin Show*, [10/16/23]
- Brian Kilmeade suggested civilians should not be let out of Gaza because terrorists might escape. According to the Fox News and radio host, “Word is — there’s some word that we are pressuring — the U.S. is pressuring Israel to hold off on the invasion so that more civilians get out. But you know who else gets out? The terrorists! Who are going to plot and plan another day and be treated like heroes when the red carpet comes out with a lot of these evil regimes or the Muslim Brotherhood affiliates around the world around the globe. “ Fox News Radio, *The Brian Kilmeade Show*, [10/16/23]
- Shapiro excused civilian casualties as necessary to achieve Israeli military objectives, saying, “This notion, that it is incumbent on Israel not to achieve its military objectives in order to prevent civilian casualties caused by Hamas, is absurd on its face.” Westwood One, *The Ben Shapiro Show*, [10/17/23]
- Shapiro also said that Palestinian civilians should not be prioritized over “the first rule of war: winning.” According to Shapiro, “Yes, of course, those of moral bent ought to work to minimize civilian casualties. Yes, of course, those of moral bent ought to work to find a place for civilians to escape from the line of fire. But neither of those rules can be prioritized over the first rule of war: winning. War is ugly by nature. Nearly the ugliest thing. As it turns out, there’s only one thing uglier: losing to those who don’t care about morality or decency at all.” Westwood One, *The Ben Shapiro Show*, [10/16/23]
- Sean Hannity claimed Hamas and Iran, not Israel, are to blame for civilian deaths in Gaza. According to the Fox News and radio host, “The people of Palestine — those that have been killed and will be killed — you can only blame one group, and that would be the terrorist group Hamas. Well, you can blame another group too — the No. 1 state sponsor of terror that helped, apparently, organize, foment these attacks against Israel. That would be Iran.” Premiere Radio Networks, *The Sean Hannity Show*, [10/16/23]
- Kilmeade said it’s “not Israel’s problem” that civilians are collateral damage in eradicating Hamas.According to Kilmeade, “They say go by the rules of war, and — the best you can — but if Hamas is going to use these people as human shields, prevent them from leaving, or going south, or leaving their building — even though it’s gonna be targeted — that’s not Israel’s problem, it’s their problem.” Fox News Radio, *The Brian Kilmeade Show*, [10/16/23]
- Beck claimed there are “no Israeli war crimes” and said that “every innocent harmed in Gaza is on Hamas.” Beck dismissed the number of casualties caused by Israel, arguing, “Every piece of human suffering in Gaza is on Hamas. Want more peace? Have less Hamas.” Blaze Radio, *The Glenn Beck Program*, [10/17/23]
- ## Right-wing radio figures tried to justify the complete elimination of Palestinian people from the Gaza Strip
- Blaze Radio founder Glenn Beck said Israel should make Gaza into a “parking lot,” claiming the over 2 million Palestinians who live there are simply the tools of “people who just want to kill Jews.”Beck stated, “I think Israel should park their car there. You know what I mean? Park a lot of cars there. It could be, you know, some sort of a parking lot that they make it. … The Palestinian people have been used over and over again by people who just want to kill Jews. That's it. That's — that's been the thing from the very beginning." Blaze Radio, *The Glenn Beck Program*, [10/16/23]
- Salem radio guest: “I’m OK” with an ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.During an appearance on Salem Media’s The Charlie Kirk Show, Breitbart writer Joel Pollak stated, “I don’t think it’s going to be something people consider, but it's there. It's a possibility, and frankly I'm OK with it. I say that at the risk of being accused of all kinds of stuff, but, you know, if it comes down to ethnic cleansing, if you want to cleanse my people, I'll cleanse yours first. I mean, that’s where we are.” Salem Media Group, *The Charlie Kirk Show*, [10/9/23]
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https://www.mediamatters.org/steve-deace/blazetv-host-trumps-fake-electors-scheme-joan-arcs-hero-today-time-she-was-burned-stake
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Satan created a “woke mind virus.”
https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/right-wing-media-figures-prepare-spiritual-war-2024-claiming-their-opponents-are-demonic
no lnx many vid
right-wing media figures prepare for “spiritual war” in 2024 by claiming their opponents are demonic entities
Figures have invoked “demonic portals” and the occult to dehumanize LGBTQ people, perceived political enemies, and others
WRITTEN BY PAYTON ARMSTRONG & NOAH DOWE
PUBLISHED 07/05/23
Right-wing media figures are ramping up apocalyptic political rhetoric that literally demonizes LGBTQ people, perceived political enemies, and progressive causes, with some absurdly suggesting that demons are using portals to enter Earth and wage “spiritual war” against humanity.
Rhetoric about “demonic” influence and an existential, “spiritual” war has become a hallmark of right-wing punditry and Republican politics ahead of the 2024 elections, as Christian nationalism grows in popularity among Republican voters.Language that demonizes and dehumanizes political opponents has been a staple of right-wing commentary for years, but these recent accusations are not simple rhetorical flourishes; a number of media figures have begun to warn their audiences about occult rituals from the left and supposed portals to hell from which demons would enter the Earth. Last year, Trump ally and provocateur Roger Stone even claimed that a “Satanic portal” had opened over the White House after President Joe Biden took office.
This sort of framing, which posits that political enemies are literal “demons” waging a “spiritual war,” stems largely from a right-wing Christian movement known as the New Apostolic Reformation. For years, the NAR movement has reportedly sought “to take dominion over politics, business and culture in preparation for the end times and the return of Jesus.” Rolling Stone described the core NAR belief in spiritual war in a profile of one of the movement’s leading figures, commentator and self-proclaimed prophet Lance Wallnau:
NAR followers like Wallnau believe that America is specially anointed by God to project Christianity across the globe. And the NAR movement’s followers view foes of their quest as satanic. This is not metaphorical. They hold that the physical world is enveloped by a supernatural dimension, featuring warring angels and demons, and are convinced that demons afflict their enemies on behalf of the devil. The movement holds that these spiritual battles are reflected in earthly politics. As the late NAR founder C. Peter Wagner explained in a striking NPR interview in 2011: “I believe there’s a lot of demonic control over Congress … that needs to be dispersed.”
Fiery rhetoric of a spiritual war coupled with demonization of opponents has created an atmosphere in which violence appears permissible and justifiable to followers. For instance, the violence at the Capitol on January 6 was largely undergirded and inspired by boisterous cries of spiritual warfare from prominent figures on the religious right — including Wallnau — who have conditioned their audiences to consider political violence a legitimate tactic.
Over the last two years, right-wing media figures have increasingly adopted the scorched-earth rhetoric of movements like the NAR, setting the stage for a potentially dangerous political atmosphere in 2024. Here are a number of examples:
Right-wing media figures have suggested that demons are entering Earth, with some claiming they are using actual “portals” to hell
On several occasions, prominent right-wing media figures have claimed that demons are using “portals” to attack conservative causes or even fearmongered that Satan created a “woke mind virus.”
Right-wing media gadfly Roger Stone — who observers have noted has increasingly adopted rhetoric around “spiritual war” — claimed on Eric Metaxas’ Salem radio show that “a demonic portal” had been visible above the White House since Biden’s inauguration. Stone suggested that through the “portal,”demons began to “populate the Biden administration,” arguing “you can’t tell whether they are men or women.”
Video
Citation From a December 11, 2022, video posted to Eric Metaxas' Rumble page:
Salem media host Charlie Kirk said that “we’re in the midst of the most consequential spiritual war” in millennia because “there is no other way to explain the campaign of arson and destruction against our country other than diabolical, spiritually dark influences that are fighting for dominion over this nation.” He also argued that “witchcraft and the occult is a real thing, and there are portals to darkness and you have to be vigilant about this.” Kirk also alleged that Satan had created “the woke mind virus” to destroy America and called on religious leaders to “excommunicate … the demons of the woke.”
Video an episode of Real Life with Jack Hibbs, aired on Fox Business Network on May 6, 2023
Conspiracy theorist and Infowars host Alex Jones warned that the European Council for Nuclear Research had used the Large Hadron Collider for “satanic rituals” which he claimed “definitely has opened up a gate” to hell and let demons into the Earth “like paratroopers.” Jones has also claimed that an “alien offworld force” with demons as its agents is “working against us around the clock because they know we are about to go from our embryonic level to birthing into the next level.” What’s more, in his trial for defamation of the families of the Sandy Hook massacre, Jones attacked the judge and plaintiffs’ lawyers as “committed to occult ideology of the new world order” and implied they were “demonically possessed.”
Video
CitationFrom the April 11, 2022, edition of Infowars' The Alex Jones Show
Daily Wire host Michael Knowles said of reports of interactions with aliens: “Aliens are just demons for liberals who don't want to admit metaphysical reality."
Right-wing media figures have labeled LGBTQ people, gender-affirming care, and abortion “demonic”
Conservative media figures have also revved up their attacks on trans people, LGBTQ Pride month, and abortion by claiming they are inspired by “demons in our society.”
Knowles — who demanded this year that so-called “transgenderism” be “eradicated from public life entirely” — claimed that trans people are “demonic” and that demons are “always trans.”
Video
CitationFrom the March 14, 2023, edition of The Daily Wire's The Michael Knowles Show
On her prime-time Fox News show, Laura Ingraham referred to gender-affirming care as “a demonic campaign to destroy the natural biological order.”
Daily Wire host Candace Owens called trans people “demons in our society” and smeared “any actor, actress, individual that supports this” as “demonic.” Owens has also argued that surrogacy is “deeply demonic.”
Video
CitationFrom the February 7, 2023, edition of The Daily Wire's Candace Owens
On Fox, now-former host Tucker Carlson used the Covenant School shooting in Tennessee to falsely claim that “the trans movement is targeting Christians, including with violence,” and denounced the trans community as part of “a deranged and demonic ideology.”
On YouTube, BlazeTV’s Liz Wheeler said that “if you took the three most disgusting, demonic ideologies that you could possibly think of and put them all in one flag you would get the trans flag.”
Doomsday prophet and repeat Trinity Broadcast Network guest Jonathan Cahn recently declared that Biden had put the United States under “demonic possession” at the hands of an ancient goddess of “sexual immorality” by lighting up the White House in the colors of the rainbow for LGBTQ Pride.
Two days after a shooter killed five people in a Colorado Springs LGBTQ club,Infowars host Owen Shroyer ran footage of drag queens and questioned whether “these people are even human,” ranting: “Demon possession is real. Satanic agendas are real. I don’t know how else to describe any of this.”
Video
CitationFrom the November 22, 2022, edition of Infowars' The Alex Jones Show
BlazeTV host Steve Deace partnered with far-right Christian filmmakers Chuck Konzelman and Cary Solomon to produce a right-wing movie that argued humanity is engaged in a spiritual war against demonic forces such as abortion and LGBTQ equality. On his podcast, in an episode titled “Hot Take: Demonic or Democrats?” Deace said that people who advertise drag story hours are “literally inhabited by a demon” and are “a manifestation of a demonic presence.”
Salem Radio host Eric Metaxas and his guest John Zmirak proclaimed that Satan himself was behind the LGBTQ rights movement, with Zmirak decrying “blasphemous drag queen rituals, in your church, mocking Christ” and comparing the Pride flag to an inverted pentagram, claiming Satan “wants you to use the pronoun they.” Metaxas then warned his audience that if they did not boycott companies that celebrate Pride Month, they would be comparable to Germans who failed to stop the Holocaust, saying, “The death camps were the result of good people saying, ‘I don’t want to deal with this. Just let me live my life.’”
Christian nationalist pastor Jack Hibbs, whose sermons air on Fox Business Network, declared that transgender people are “satanic,” saying that in “the last days there’s going to be doctrines of demons and deceiving spirits. Wonder what that’s going to be like? You’re in it.” Per Right Wing Watch, Hibbs has also claimed that "demonism” has caused public support for trans rights.
Christian nationalist influencer and repeat Fox guest Sean Feucht has described abortion and the movement for trans rights as demonic, ascribing public support to “demons” and “the demonic spirit.” Feucht is closely associated with prominent NAR movement leaders and “apostles.”
Right-wing radio host Jesse Kelly said that “we have a society so full of demons that baby murder is now popular” and also referred to the LGBTQ community as “the LGTBQ demon mob.”
Lance Wallnau, a contributor for The Victory Channel’s Christian nationalist show FlashPoint, has repeatedly invoked demons while discussing LGBTQ people. In an April show, Wallnau said that transgender people represent “a fundamental deception” and that accepting them has made society “sympathetic with evil.” Wallnau said that demons target people to make them trans, saying, “I believe a demon comes along that enters into that confusion that affirms that they are the opposite gender.” Per Right Wing Watch, Wallnau also claimed that people become trans because "Satan has taken 'em over with crazy talk about them being in the wrong bodies.”
Video
CitationFrom the April 13, 2023, edition of The Victory Channel's Flashpoint
Right-wing media personalities have also warned that Democrats and other perceived enemies are “demonic” and “satanic”
Far-right Christian media figures and prominent right-wing commentators have told their audiences that the left is engaged with “satanic worship” and “demonic forces,” rationalizing ideological opposition as a product of the “demon-possessed.”
Fox prime-time host Jesse Watters claimed that viewers should be afraid of “demonic teachers” interested in “turning their classroom into a drag show.”
Carlson warned on Glenn Beck’s show that there are “spiritual forces surrounding” Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), calling him “a force of darkness.”
On a FlashPoint broadcast, contributor and pastor Hank Kunneman told viewers that “we don't wrestle against flesh and blood, but principalities, powers, spiritual wickedness in high places — you know, demonic entities.” Earlier in the episode, Wallnau said that tragedies in society such as mass shootings should be understood through a lens where “you don’t deal with current events, you deal with a demonic spin cycle.”
BlazeTV founder and longtime conspiracy theorist Glenn Beckproclaimed that the 2020 election was not contested against Democrats, but against “Satan himself,” which he claimed was prophesied to him in a dream. Beck has an extensive history of linking progressives to “the devil” and warning of “demonic” influence.
Disgraced Trump ally-turned-podcast-host Steve Bannon suggested that Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) is “satanic” because he “exudes … pure evil” and “hangs with Satanic Groomers.”
During his Christian nationalist ReAwaken America Tour, former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn has frequently asserted that there is a “spiritual war” in America. He has also called former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) a “demon.”
Right-wing podcast host Benny Johnson attacked the grand jury forewoman investigating Donald Trump’s 2020 election interference in Georgia, calling her “borderline demonic” and “demon-possessed.” He has also claimed that “you can see demonic forces at work" in Schiff's district, claiming that the congressman is “on the side of the demons.” Johnson has previously embraced the rhetoric of spiritual warfare, saying, “This rabbit hole goes down so far into the occult … This is a spiritual battle. This is a battle of possession, and there are stages of demonic possession, and we are in the oppression stage right now.”
Far-right pundit Stew Peters fearmongered about “SatanCon,” an event that is hosted by “a progressive church that doesn't worship the devil but instead uses the word to get attention,” claiming it was evidence of “full-blown satanic worship” in America. His guest, Sean Feucht, insisted that we are witnessing “the total unveiling of this demonic realm, this demonic spirit.” Feucht then warned that these alleged forces of Satan were “agitated and upset and trying everything they can do to intimidate Christians.”
On his BlazeTV podcast, Deace called the Democratic Party “a demonic construct, a satanically influenced entity, and a death cult.”
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mma 6 23
Right-wing media figures popularized and defended the Trump team’s last-ditch effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election through a scheme to nullify the election results, which is now under investigation by a special counsel — and some of the fake electors have reportedly already testified to a federal grand jury in Washington, D.C.
The scheme, cooked up by former Trump lawyers John Eastman and Rudy Giuliani, sought to create “alternate” slates of electors in favor of former President Donald Trump in seven swing states that voted for Joe Biden. At the time, several right-wing media figures supported the scheme to undermine the 2020 election, with some calling for key states to appoint their own alternate electors. Other right-wing media figures such as One America News host Christina Bobb and “Stop the Steal” organizer Ali Alexander were directly involved in engineering the fake elector scheme.
Individuals associated with Trump’s plot to appoint fake electors to overturn the outcome of the 2020 election have begun testifying before a federal grand jury.Last week, CNN reported:
Special counsel Jack Smith has compelled at least two Republican fake electors to testify to a federal grand jury in Washington in recent weeks by giving them limited immunity, part of a current push by federal prosecutors to swiftly nail down evidence in the sprawling criminal investigation into efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
The testimony, described to CNN by people familiar with the situation, comes after a year of relative dormancy around the fake electors portion of the investigation and as a parade of related witnesses are being told to appear before the grand jury with no chance for delay.
That activity could signal that investigators are nearing at least some charging decisions in a part of the 2020 election probe, sources added.
Now that the special counsel investigation is well underway and a related jury trial over the fake electors scheme in Wisconsin is set to begin, Fox News’ Mark Levin remains a vocally adamant defender of the scheme. On his radio show earlier this month, Levin claimed that “there’s no such thing as fake electors” and that the probe is “another novelty in the law that’s created by another Democrat prosecutor.”
Levin's continued defense of Trump's fake elector scheme is just one example of ayearslong campaign by right-wing media outlets to sow distrust in our elections process — and their consistent refrain that investigating Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election is political persecution has also primed conservative audiences to view the upcoming 2024 election with skepticism.
Right-wing media supported the fake electors scheme and presented it as a legitimate “remedy” for Trump’s 2020 loss
- Right after Election Day and two days before the 2020 election was called in Biden’s favor, Fox host Sean Hannity suggested on his radio show that “the remedy” to a Trump loss would be state electors going against the popular vote. Hannity said that to his “understanding,” electors are “not required to vote in accordance with whatever the state popular vote is, if they think there is fraud that is taking place they do have the power to stop that in these states.” Premiere Radio, *The Sean Hannity Show*, [11/05/20]
- Mark Levin appealed directly to state lawmakers, tweeting on November 5, 2020, “Reminder to the Republican state legislatures, you have the final say over the choosing of electors, not any board of elections, secretary of state, governor, or even court.” (He would later claim in a November 12, 2020, tweet, “Again and again, I have to explain that I never said electors should be chosen by the legislatures.”) Twitter, [11/05/20]
- Writing for The Blaze on November 5, 2020, Daniel Horowitz stated that “state legislatures can have their revenge and have the final say” in the 2020 election. Horowitz also echoed Levin’s support of the scheme, adding, “Mark Levin reminded his audience today that state legislatures are the ones who choose the electors who directly vote for president in each state.” The Blaze, [11/05/20]
- In a November 21, 2020, tweet, Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton claimed that a Pennsylvania court decision against the Trump campaign was a “miscarriage of justice and nakedly political.”Fitton also claimed that “under the Constitution, it is ultimately up [to] the Pennsylvania legislature to protect election integrity and appoint a clean slate of electors.” Twitter, [11/21/20]
- Christina Bobb argued on the December 14, 2020 episode of her OAN show that by “having the GOP electors cast their votes in these states, it preserves the legal remedy should Donald Trump win, either in court or in a state legislature, in the future.” She also defended the use of alternate electors because of the supposed “possibility that this state could flip or turn because there’s enough election fraud in here that it’s still contested.” OAN, [12/14/20]
- On the same day, OAN reporter Pearson Sharp showed a misleading videoof Trump’s fake electors being denied entry to the Michigan Capitol, which he said was evidence that “official state electors are being barred from performing their constitutional duties.” Sharp claimed that “that video is all you need to see to understand the lengths being taken to undermine the election.” OAN, [12/14/20]
- Former Fox Business host Lou Dobbs legitimized the efforts of the fake electors on the December 14, 2020, episode of Lou Dobbs Tonight.Dobbs uncritically reported that “Republican electors in Pennsylvania, Nevada, and Georgia [are] meeting separately today to cast their own votes for President Trump — a procedural move that keeps all of President Trump's legal options open.” Fox Business, *Lou Dobbs Tonight*, [12/14/20]
- Speaking with Bobb on December 15, 2020, former Arizona state Sen. Kelly Townsend claimed on OAN that the scheme was “absolutely legal and it’s not unprecedented.” Townsend would go on to defend the scheme further, claiming, “So it’s not treason. Some people are saying, ‘Oh, it’s treasonous, it’s seditious.’ It’s not any of that, it’s constitutional.” OAN, [12/15/20]
- On the July 31, 2022, edition of Fox News’ Life, Liberty, and Levin, host Mark Levin passionately defendedTrump's fake electors scheme, arguing that ,“you might think it's weird, you might think it's unethical, but it's not a crime.” Fox News, Life, Liberty, and Levin,[7/31/22]
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https://www.mediamatters.org/blazetv/blazetv-steve-deace-asks-if-transgender-madness-really-just-psyop-grease-skids-michelle
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mma 6 23
right-wing media have promoted the Christian film Nefarious as one of the latest battlegrounds in so-called “spiritual warfare.” Through strategically cut trailers, influencer promotion, and a Coachella event, the film's creators have worked to “subversively” market it as a generic thriller to a mainstream audience in the hopes that it would “show them the light.”
The movie Nefarious is a prequel to A Nefarious Plot, a book by right-wing commentator andBlazeTV host Steve Deace, who partnered with directors Chuck Konzelman and Cary Solomon — the duo behind other right-wing faith-based movies such as Unplanned and God’s Not Dead1 and 2. Deace has an extensive history of using virulently anti-LGBTQ, misogynistic, anti-abortion, and other bigoted rhetoric such as saying lessons for kids about Pride Month are “right out of the pit of hell.” He claimed that he and his company “invested millions of dollars that [he] frankly didn’t have to make this movie” because “storytelling” is the “last place left where real persuasion can occur.”
Though marketed to a mainstream audience as a standard horror movie, Nefarious serves as a “Christian allegory, and it is conveyed with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer,” as the Washington Examiner put it:{, with the two main characters — an atheist psychiatrist and a death-row inmate who claims to be possessed by a demon — debating the existence of the devil and God. The movie also suggests humanity is engaged in a spiritual war against demonic forces, with the demon }
:{ progressive political and social stances that have }:taken root:{ in American society, like }:abortion rights:{ and LGBTQ equality. }:
The movie’s theme is captured in a scene featuring bigoted conspiracy theorist and BlazeTV founder Glenn Beck, playing himself. Beck asks the psychiatrist, “What happens to an atheist that is confronted by demonic evil?” Later the psychiatrist notes, “There’s a great battle going on, whether we realize it or not — a battle between good and evil — and we’re all participants, willing or not.”
The film’s promotion of a right-wing Christian worldview on viewers is clear: On his BlazeTV podcast, Deace agreed with an online reviewer who described it as “Christo-facist propaganda.” Yet Deace, Solomon, and Konzelman repeatedly admitted that Nefarious was marketed as a standard horror film to reach viewers who might not choose to see a faith-based movie. The film started streaming on June 2 and it has been playing in hundreds of theaters nationwide for at least seven weeks, grossing over $5 million.
Nefarious’ creators marketed it as a standard horror film to attract “nonbelievers”
In April, Deace boasted to right-wing groupThe Family Leaderthat the film’s trailer was crafted “subversively” to portray Nefarious as a horror movie and hide from potential moviegoers that it was faith-based and contained right-wing ideological themes. Apparently, the trailer played ahead of the nonfaith-based movie Cocaine Bear in at least some theaters. In the same interview, Deace went on to call the Motion Picture Association “demonic” for the R rating that Nefarious received, claiming that it was given this rating only because the group was afraid “unbelieving” kids “would be impacted by it.”
Deace, as well as directors Solomon and Konzelman, repeatedly admitted to trying to attract a mainstream audience.
- In April, Deace described the movie’s marketing campaign as “tricking” the audience into thinking it was a horror movie rather than faith-based, saying: “Now that we're done tricking — I'm sorry, ‘marketing’ it as a horror film to the Ninevites — we're just gonna flat out now be honest about the movie now that it's in theaters. It's a faith-based film. It was always intended to be a faith-based film. We just packaged it in a way to bring people in that are being attracted to darkness to then get them in the theaters so that we can then show them the light.” (Ninevites descend from Nineveh, which is famous for its depiction in the Bible as a sinful city.)
- vid?]
- discussing online reviews of the movie during his podcast, Deace agreed with a reviewer who described the film as “Christo-fascist propaganda,” saying: “Even most of the critical reviews from users were like, well, it's actually very well-acted and well-made. I just hated the world view. It's Christo-fascist propaganda. OK, which is true, but I digress.”
- In an interview with a right-wing Catholic site, Konzelman described the movie’s poster as a “Trojan horse”: “Don’t be afraid of the poster — [it] looks pretty intimidating. The poster is a Trojan horse designed to lure the mainstream horror audience into the film, nonbelievers.”
- In the same interview, Konzelman said: “This is the movie for your family member who has fallen away from the faith, or your friend who has never been a believer. You can take them to this film, and under the guise of entertainment, they’re going to be confronted with the greater questions.”
- On his podcast, Deace and his producer, Aaron McIntire, mocked online reviewers, whom they described as being “lured” into the movie by the “effective marketing” and failing to “do their homework about what this movie was.” They also mocked a reviewer who said she “went to see Nefarious completely blindly thinking it was just a scary movie.” McIntire said to Deace of similar reviews from unsuspecting viewers: “Seeing those reactions, you accomplished something.”
The movie was seemingly also promoted through an influencer campaign — a growing tactic within the right-wing ecosystem that can create a false impression of organic public support.
[pix twt]
at least two dozen influencer and meme accounts, including accounts affiliated with right-wing influencer group Today is America, across Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok promoted Nefarious, particularly in late April after it received a 33% review on Rotten Tomatoes. The content of the various posts was very similar, if not exactly the same, generally using the hashtag #WokenTomatoes, and encouraging followers to see the movie.
It also appears that there was a red carpet event in Palm Springs, California, for the film prior to the Coachella music festival, seemingly hosted by actor Paul Butcher and attended by celebrities including Victoria Justice. Like much of the film’s official marketing, the event seems to have presented Nefarious primarily as a paranormal thriller, not a faith-based movie. From photos shared of the event — which was attended by mainstream social media influencers with hundreds of thousands or even millions of followers — it appears that guests were entertained with a tattoo booth and a vodka company was a sponsor.
[twt]
right-wing media figures are promoting Nefarious using rhetoric from the religious right that warns of an ongoing“spiritual war”
The larger political context surrounding the release of Nefarious is growing Christian nationalism and apocalyptic political rhetoric on the right, which frames the country as engaged in existential “spiritual warfare” against satanic forces.
Some right-wing media figures are also labeling trans people and abortion as “demonic,” and Konzelman and Soloman made similar claims in various interviews while promoting Nefarious. In one, they cited the existence of trans people as evidence of satanic influence: “There will come a time when good is considered bad, and bad is considered good, when women will be as men, when all these things that are happening in our world today. … You can see the devil’s machinations.”
Numerous right-wing media figures — and even members of Congress — have endorsed or promoted Nefarious, including Glenn Beck, right-wing influencer and neo-Nazi collaborator Jack Posobiec, BlazeTV host
The Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh, Salem Radio host
, conspiracy theorist Dinesh D’Souza, right-wing podcast host Elijah Schaffer, former Trump administration official Ben Carson, former Newsmax host Grant Stinchfield, and disgraced former Trump attorney Sidney Powell
[vid]?
several right-wing and Christian media outlets also covered the movie’s message positively, including Fox News, Church Militant, Breitbart, The Christian Post, Western Journal, Christian Broadcasting Network, The Federalist, and The Daily Wire.
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mma 5 18 show
GLENN BECK (HOST): We're going to show you tonight 170 -- I asked my researchers, show me just the violations, the criminal violations that we have absolute proof of, that Hunter Biden -- and I thought how, you know, many crimes do you think we have proof of? How many crimes?...170. 170, and none of them, no one has taken action....
You'll be happy to know that finally, finally the Vermont guy that everybody's been talking about, that had a torch at the Charlottesville rally -- go back in your memory. I mean, I know it just happened and it's still on everybody's mind. It was the second worst thing that's ever happened to America since the Civil War. But the Charlottesville -- this guy wasn't charged with beating anybody or anything, he just had a torch. And apparently --
STEVE BURGUIERE (CO-HOST): Open flame.
BECK: An open flame. Well, apparently in Virginia it --
BURGUIERE: I hope that's part of the crime --
BECK: It is a crime because, you know, Klan. They kinda like, hey, nobody carrying around anything on fire.
BURGUIERE: Okay. I mean, it's a good safety tip --
BECK: It's a good safety tip, but it's also with the Klan, you can kind of understand.
BURGUIERE: Sure.
BECK: Anyway, this happened in 2017, and he's just been charged with a felony for marching in a demonstration with a torch. He's just been charged with a felony, just now.
BURGUIERE: What -- what year? Is this a recorded show?
BECK: No.
BURGUIERE: Okay.
BECK: No. It's currently 2023.
BURGUIERE: Okay.
BECK: It happened in 2017, they just busted him and charged him with a felony. By the way, 170 crimes? No, nothing. But that damn torch?
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https://www.mediamatters.org/facebook/facebook-right-leaning-pages-lead-discussion-about-home-invasions-right-wing-media-and-nra
mma 4 23
no pix lnx
On Facebook, right-leaning pages lead discussion about home invasions, with right-wing media and the NRA praising homeowners who shoot suspected intruders
Right-leaning Facebook pages earned 65% of total interactions on posts about home invasions, despite sharing only 25% of them
Special PROGRAMS
GUNS & PUBLIC SAFETY
WRITTEN BY NATALIE MATHES
RESEARCH CONTRIBUTIONS FROM CARLY EVANS
PUBLISHED 04/26/23
On Facebook in the last year, right-wing media outlets have amplified sensational posts that praise people who have shot, and in some instances killed, alleged home intruders.
In a new study, Media Matters compiled and analyzed Facebook posts about home invasions from news and politics pages in the last year and found that right-leaning pages earned 65% of total interactions on posts about home invasions, despite sharing only 25% of them. Among these right-leaning pages are right-wing media outlets and the National Rifle Association.
A series of recent shootings have refocused the nation’s attention on so-called “castle doctrine” — the idea that a person doesn’t have a “duty to retreat” before using deadly force to defend themselves when in their home — and “stand your ground” laws that apply this idea outside the home, using what critics call a “shoot first, ask questions later” model that allows “anyone who believes their life to be in danger to use lethal force in an act of self-defense, without any duty to retreat.”
On April 13, an elderly man in Kansas City, Missouri, shot teenager Ralph Yarl in the head after Yarl mistakenly rang the home's doorbell while he was trying to pick up his siblings. On April 15, a homeowner in rural New York shot and killed 20-year-old Kaylin Gillis when a car she was riding in pulled into his driveway by accident while searching for a friend’s house. On April 18, a man in Florida shot a 6-year-old girl, her parents, and another neighbor after a basketball accidentally rolled onto his property. The next day, a man in Texas shot two high school cheerleaders who had mistaken his car for their own after a late-night practice.
According to an April 22 report by Insider, gun violence experts say that these recent shootings are “a larger symptom of a distinctly American culture that empowers people to open fire, even when there's no real threat.” This violent culture stems from the NRA’s decades-long campaign pushing “stand your ground” laws across the nation.
Most Americans are not satisfied with existing gun laws, but right-wing media continue to defend the role guns play in America. For example, former Fox News host Tucker Carlson claimed in January that assault weapons “are not a threat to anybody,” and the Daily Wire’s Michael Knowles said that guns had “nothing to do with” a recent mass shooting in Nashville. Salem Media Group’s Dennis Prager has falsely insisted that “there's no way to stop the ubiquity of guns” in America, and Turning Point USA’s Charlie Kirk has claimed, “It’s worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment.”
By defending the role guns play in America and working to convince Americans that there is no real possibility of passing stronger gun control measures in the U.S., right-wing media encourage the false belief that the only way to make ourselves safer is to take matters into our own hands and further arm ourselves. This provides cover for politicians who work with the NRA and, conveniently, creates bigger business for gun sellers.
In the last year — from April 20, 2022, through April 20, 2023 — Facebook has enabled the NRA and right-wing media outlets to sensationalize and amplify stories about alleged home invasions across its platform. Several of these stories pushed the narrative that people need to own guns in order to defend their families, and even praised people who shoot and kill alleged home intruders.
In the last year, right-leaning Facebook pages shared only 25% of posts about home invasions but earned 65% of total interactions
In the last year, Facebook pages that regularly post about U.S. news and politics shared at least 8,100 posts about home invasions, earning over 6.5 million total interactions. Right-leaning pages shared only 25% of these posts (about 2,000) but earned 65% of total interactions, amounting to over 4.2 million.
Several of these posts praised elderly homeowners in particular for shooting, and in some instances killing, alleged home intruders, with Rumble’s Steven Crowder captioning one such post “nice shot.” Others celebrated instances when it was revealed that homeowners would not be charged for shooting and killing people who trespassed on their property.
Home invasion Facebook posts praising elderly
Home invasion Facebook posts celebrating no charges
Ideologically nonaligned Facebook pages shared 72% of posts (nearly 6,000), but earned only 30% of total interactions (nearly 2 million). Left-leaning pages shared only 3% of posts (about 200) and earned 5% of total interactions, amounting to 294,000.
Using CrowdTangle, Media Matters compiled a list of 1,773 Facebook pages that frequently posted about U.S. politics from January 1 to August 25, 2020. For an explanation of how we compiled pages and identified them as right-leaning, left-leaning, or ideologically nonaligned, see the methodology here. The resulting list consisted of 771 right-leaning pages, 497 ideologically nonaligned pages, and 505 left-leaning pages. Using CrowdTangle, Media Matters compiled all posts about home invasions from the pages
The NRA earned 17% of total interactions on Facebook posts about home invasions in the last year, despite sharing just 0.1% of them
The NRA's official Facebook page earned the most total interactions on posts about home invasions during the time frame studied. The page earned over 1.1 million total interactions on just 9 such posts, meaning the NRA shared just 0.1% of Facebook posts about home invasions from U.S. news and politics pages over the last year, but earned 17% of total interactions.
After the NRA, the 6 Facebook pages that earned the most total interactions on posts about home invasions were pages for right-wing outlets, organizations, and personalities. In order, they include Blue Lives Matter, Fox News, Breitbart, Ben Shapiro, Colion Noir, and TheBlaze.
home invasion other top 6 collage
The top 6 posts that earned the most total interactions were from the NRA, and all featured headlines praising homeowners for shooting alleged intruders.
NRA Facebook posts about home invasions
The NRA has also run at least 115 ads on Meta platforms over the last year on an additional Facebook page. These ads endorsed midterm candidates it claimed would defend your “right to protect your home and family” and attacked candidates it claimed would “leave your family defenseless.” Facebook earned at least $500,000 on these ads, which reached an estimated audience of up to 60.9 million users.
NRA Meta Ads home invasion
Networks of Facebook pages operated by right-wing outlets amplified numerous stories praising homeowners for shooting, and in some instances killing, alleged home intruders
Facebook has a history of profiting from networks of right-wing pages that exploit its platform to amplify various right-wing talking points — including conservative narratives around gun ownership.
The Western Journal shared nearly 350 posts about home invasions in the last year across 19 Facebook pages, collectively earning nearly 160,000 total interactions. Some of these posts featured an article praising a resident for sending suspects “running for their lives,” while others claimed, “You know what they say — real gun control means hitting your target. And this homeowner did just that.”
Western Journal home invasion collage
TheBlaze shared 195 posts about home invasions in the last year across 10 Facebook pages, collectively earning more than 300,000 total interactions. Some of these posts featured an article claiming that “armed home invaders wearing ski masks” shot a homeowner, but that homeowner also had a gun and shot “both crooks dead.” Others featured an article headlined, “Video: It’s all smiles before crooks invade home; seconds later it’s all backsides as they run for their lives from homeowner firing ‘AK-47-style’ gun at them.”
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TheBlaze collage of home invasion posts
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The Daily Wire’s network shared 160 posts about home invasions in the last year across 7 Facebook pages, collectively earning at least 285,000 total interactions on these posts — some of which cited “castle doctrine” as protecting a woman in Texas who fatally shot an alleged home invader.
The Daily Wire home invasion collage
Fox News shared 24 posts about home invasions in the last year across 3 Facebook pages, collectively earning more than 200,000 total interactions. Some of these posts praised elderly homeowners for turning the tables on suspected home invaders.
Fox News home invasion collage
Methodology...
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April 14, 2023
- Will Sommer and Zachary Petrizzo @ The Daily Beast: Campaign in Chaos: Kanye West Just Wants to Be ‘Left Alone.’
- Colby Hall @ Mediaite: DeSantis Signs Bill Banning Abortions After 6 Weeks During Late Night Closed Door Ceremony.
- Prem Thakker @ The New Republic: GOP Candidates Put Guns Over Lives, Pledging to the NRA After Mass Shootings.
- Alex Bollinger @ LGBTQ Nation: GOP lawmaker who advocated 12-year-olds getting married blames backlash on Democrats.
- Media Matters: BlazeTV host Steve Deace calls Vice President Kamala Harris “one of Montel Williams’ hoes.”
Tags: Kanye West Mike Moon Ron DeSantis Steve Deace Round-Up NRA
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mma 4 23
STEVE DEACE (HOST): Which one of your books would Pfizer and Moderna land in?
WAYNE ALLYN ROOT (GUEST): Pfizer -- you know, here's the interesting thing. When I wrote this book, I didn't want to get banned by Amazon or anyone else so I kind of hid my real beliefs inside the book. It sounds like it's just a boycott book, great patriotic companies, but about half the book are my opinions of what's happening in America and then the other half, the other half of the book,the back half are all the companies with a full page on each company, the products they sell, and why I rated them as conservative.
But the first half of the book, Steve, is what I believe is happening to America. A communist takeover of the United States. Not socialist, not progressive, communist takeover, and I tell you why. Rigged elections and I tell you why. I absolutely believe in every cell in my body -- and I'm a pretty smart guy. I'm no dummy and I don't wear antennas on my head -- I'm telling you, elections are being stolen, not just the 2020 election. Kari Lake was just stolen. I think that Adam Laxalt in Nevada for U.S. Senate was just stolen. There's a lot of stolen elections. Our country's rigged.
And then I've got an entire third of the book about the COVID vaccine and how dangerous and deadly it is and the lies and propaganda that have been told to fool you. This book is about the COVID vaccine being dangerous and deadly, but you don't know it until you open the book. I sneak it in. So, I think I did it in a way that, you know, nobody will say, oh, let's censor the book, because it doesn't look like it's about the COVID vaccine, but it is.
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March 31, 2023
- Nicole Narea and Ian Millhiser @ Vox: Your biggest questions about Trump’s indictment, answered.
- William Vaillancourt @ **The Daily Beast: Glenn Beck Hyperventilates About the End of America After Trump Indictment.
- Lee Moran @ HuffPost: Lindsey Graham Gets Super Emotional Begging Fox News Viewers To Donate To Trump.
- Zachary Leeman @ Mediaite: Mark Levin Calls Trump Indictment Declaration of ‘War’ on GOP: ‘Republicans Better Wake the Hell Up.’
- Joe Jervis: Boebert: Let’s Not “Nitpick What The Bible Says” About My Teenage Son Knocking Up His Underage Girlfriend.
- Media Matters: Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh: “All of us today would be in a worse spot if slavery never existed at all across the entire globe.”
- Ben Collins @ NBC News: Heather McDonald’s on-stage collapse became anti-vaccine fodder, but she’s alive and joking.
Tags: Donald Trump Glenn Beck Lauren Boebert Lindsey Graham Mark Levin Matt Walsh Round-Up
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https://www.mediamatters.org/glenn-beck/glenn-becks-radio-show-heritage-foundation-president-celebrates-his-plan-eliminate
GLENN BECK (HOST): So, let me re-ask, Kevin, just to clarify. I'm talking about things like shutting down the Department of Education.
KEVIN ROBERTS (GUEST): Yes.
BECK: Are you guys talking about those kinds of things?
ROBERTS: Oh, we're not just talking about it. We have the plan. In fact, literally sitting on my desk is the draft of that plan. And I'll be doing -- reading through that today. And so, let me be really, really blunt. We will eliminate the Department of Education piece by piece, block by block. It has to be part of the next administration in the first term. We also, as I know is a big interest of yours, going to up end the Department of Justice. And our plan for the Federal Bureau of Investigation is to select-all delete and start from scratch.
BECK: Wow.
ROBERTS: That gives you a sense of the vigor of this plan.
BECK: So, is this going to be something that will be able to be adopted, and talked about and given to people so they can say, hold the president, whoever it's going to be accountable and say, we want you to do this if you win?
ROBERTS: Absolutely. In fact, Glenn, historically, what Heritage and the conservative movement have done is issue this plan sometime after Election Day --
BECK: Yeah.
ROBERTS: Which is -- which. I mean, it was better than nothing, but --
BECK: Right.
ROBERTS: We're two years ahead. And so, the very reason that we're issuing this plan or parts of the plan in April of this year is precisely so that two things can happen. Number one, Americans, everyday Americans can be part of this and talking about it, asking people who want to be their elected officials about it. But secondly, to the heart of your question, when we start having debates among the Republican presidential aspirants, they're talking about that plan. It -- the plan becomes the very reason that we, as Republicans, will nominate someone.
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mma
Beck: “When governments and institutions start regulating calories, it makes me think of the Holocaust a little bit”
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HARWELL: Yeah, 100%. I think that was the most stunning claim she made, and that was one that was a real headline from one of the committee hearings, which was that Twitter, in her words, protected Trump because he was a star.You know, he had brought a large amount of attention and clout to Twitter. Twitter in social media is effectively an also-ran, right? They're not a Facebook or an Instagram or a TikTok. They're a news platform, and Donald Trump helped make Twitter into a very influential company. And so in her words, she felt like the company had become deferent to Trump because they felt like they couldn't punish somebody who was beneficial in this way. There was kind of a mutually beneficial arrangement here.
But there were other people who spoke to the company, too, from inside Twitter that also suggested that there was some fear of the backlash of being too tough on Trump. And, you know, even before January 6, Trump had always been very infamous for what he would say on Twitter, as anybody who was online during those years knew. I mean, it was a lot of borderline or over-the-line tweets that people were wondering, why is Donald Trump able to talk like this on the platform? Anybody else who was sharing these kinds of messages would be treated differently, and this is what Anika ended up saying to the committee - was that he was treated differently. He was given special treatment because of this impactful role he had in the company....
:{:{}:
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You know, I will say Facebook had stood up some election integrity efforts even before January 6 that were about, you know, if somebody posts something about the election being stolen, we're going to post a disclaimer that actually that's false. We're going to link you to proactive, right, accurate information. Facebook had very notably disbanded those efforts before January 6. I think they sort of felt like the election's over; we're not needed anymore. That was specifically called out as an institutional failure that could have led to some of these things. But it all sort of came back to, could the company have done more, taken down more, been more active in addressing these calls to violence? And would that have made any difference on January 6?
DAVIES: There was also mention in this memo that you and your colleagues found of a white list that Facebookkept of certain accounts that were exempted from the fact-checking that would occur on other accounts. Among the people on that list -Eric Trump, Donald Trump Jr. Glenn Beck, Gateway Pundit, various other conservative things. Did the committee find that troubling, the committee's investigators?
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mma 12 22 // beck
https://www.mediamatters.org/ben-shapiro/ben-shapiro-says-republican-party-needs-overhaul-very-very-serious-way-after-passage
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https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/their-failure-to-consider-the-bible-relevant-debunking-christian-nationalists-favorite-claim-about-the-founding-era/
earlier this month, former Rep. Michele Bachmann spoke at an “Understanding The Times” conference in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, where she declared that “it isn’t even debatable” that the United States was founded to be a Christian nation.
As “evidence” of this claim, Bachmann asserted that “you can find scripture” throughout both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution—which, as we have pointed out countless times, is entirely untrue.
Bachmann also falsely claimed that “the number one book that was referenced by the Founders, across the board, when they were putting this nation together was the Bible."
[twt]
Right-wing broadcaster Glenn Beck made this same claim on his
a few weeks ago, misrepresenting the findings of a study conducted by a University of Houston professor decades ago. [vid]
in an attempt to document the source of the unique ideas that created the longest ongoing constitution in world history, political scientists from the University of Houston analyzed writings from the founding era, covering the years 1760 to 1805. Their goal was to identify the specific political authorities quoted during that period. Selecting 15,000 representative writings, the researchers identified 3,154 direct quotations in the works. They documented the original sources of those quotations. The results showed a singular single source cited far more, far more, above and away: the Bible. Thirty four percent of all of the quotes that [are] in the representative writings of the founding era were taken directly from the Bible.
This false claim, like nearly all of the misinformation the right regularly cites about the supposedly Christian founding of this nation, originated with religious-right pseudo-historian David Barton.
As usual, Barton cherry-picked and misrepresented data from a University of Houston study to bolster his political views, as researcher Chris Rodd explained more than a decade ago. But since Barton and those who rely on his work, like Bachmann and Beck, continue to spread this misinformation in their efforts to chip away at the separation of church and state, it is worth debunking this claim yet again.
In 1984, professor Donald S. Lutz of the University of Houston published a study in The American Political Science Review titled “The Relative Influence of European Writers on Late Eighteenth-Century American Political Thought.” The purpose of the study was to identify which writers and sources of ideas were most cited in “the political writings of Americans published between 1760 and 1805.”
The finding, Lutz reported, was that “there was no one European writer, or one tradition of writers, that dominated American political thought” during that era, but that the Bible was cited most frequently solely because many of the pamphlets included in the research were sermons that had been reprinted for mass distribution.
As Lutz explained:
Anyone familiar with the literature will know that most of these citations come from sermons reprinted as pamphlets; hundreds of sermons were reprinted during the era, amounting to at least 10% of all pamphlets published. These reprinted sermons accounted for almost three-fourths of the biblical citations, making this nonsermon source of biblical citations roughly as important as the Classical or Common Law categories.
As Lutz noted, once the sermon pamphlets were excluded, quotes from the Bible appeared no more frequently in the political writings of the era than citations of the classical or common law.
More importantly, Lutz also noted that when the focus was solely on the public political writings from 1787 to 1788, when the U.S. Constitution was written and ratified, “the Bible’s prominence disappears” almost completely.
Tables 4 and 5 illustrate the pattern of citations surrounding the debate on the U.S. Constitution. The items from which the citations for these two tables are drawn come close to exhausting the literature written by both sides. The Bible’s prominence disappears, which is not surprising since the debate centered upon specific institutions about which the Bible had little to say. The Anti-Federalists do drag it in with respect to basic principles of government,but the Federalists’ inclination to Enlightenment rationalism is most evident here in their failure to consider the Bible relevant.
Not only is the claim that the Bible was the most cited document during the founding era misleading, the very article upon which this claim relies completely debunks the Christian nationalist narrative that the Bible was a key source in crafting the Constitution by demonstrating that the Federalists, who drafted the document and supported its ratification, did not publicly cite the Bible once during the crucial time period.
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right-wing commentator Glenn Beck and religious-right pseudo-historian David Barton
for an event Tuesday that was organized by the Utah Eagle Forum on the dangers allegedly posed by “The Great Reset and ESG.”
The Great Reset is the name for a plan created by the World Economic Forum on how best to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic, and ESG refers to the use of environmental, social, and governance criteria by investors when determining the worth and value of potential investments. Both issues have recently become a focus of Beck’s trademark doomsday catastrophizing.
But Beck sees hope in his fellow Mormons.
As Beck does whenever he addresses a crowd made up of members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, he cited the fabled “White Horse Prophecy” while declaring that the audience has the power to call down miracles that will save this nation.
As we explained when Beck cited this prophecy in 2016 while campaigning in Utah for Sen. Ted Cruz, who was then running for president, and Sen. Mike Lee.
Back in 1843, Joseph Smith, the founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, supposedly delivered a message known as “The White Horse Prophecy” that declared that one day, when the U.S. Constitution was hanging by a thread, the Mormon people would rise up and save this nation.
This is how Brigham Young reportedly explained it in 1854:
Will the Constitution be destroyed? No; it will be held inviolate by this people; and, as Joseph Smith said, “The time will come when the destiny of the nation will hang upon a single thread. At that critical juncture, this people will step forth and save it from the threatened destruction.”
In 2010, the LDS church issued an official statement that “the so-called ‘White Horse Prophecy’ is based on accounts that have not been substantiated by historical research and is not embraced as Church doctrine.”
The fact that the LDS church denies the legitimacy of this supposed prophecy has never prevented Beck from promoting it, as he did when speaking in Utah earlier this week.
“Read 3 Nephi,” Beck beseeched the crowd. “I read it on the plane on the way here. You read 3 Nephi right now, and all I could see was America. We celebrate our victories, but we have not humbled ourselves in front of God. We have not asked for forgiveness for our sins.”
“Unless we humble ourselves, we will be swept off this land,” he
. “I am a convert. Where are the rest of the Mormons that will stand up and say, ‘We have this information; we were given the prophecy for this land’? The time is here. It’s now!”
“Do you really not believe that the Lord could rain miracles down on righteous people and save our nation and our land and our people?” Beck asked. “I know if you’re a Christian, you believe that he rose from the dead. I think that one’s a bigger miracle than saving us. Let’s believe and live our lives in a way—I promise you—if we live our lives in the way that we need to live our lives, we will not only witness the very hand of God in our life—I mean real miracles, we will see them—but if we are a righteous people, we can call them down. We must be righteous and call them down.”
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8 22
https://www.mediamatters.org/elon-musk/right-wing-influencers-leading-social-media-crusade-against-esg
Right-wing media figures are fueling outrage against ESG, an acronym for corporate standards and practices related to environment, social, and governance issues that Republican lawmakers and the fossil fuel industry are seeking to turn into a new bogeyman. Conveniently vague,ESG is being misleadingly cast as a tool for “elites” to force a tyrannical agenda on unsuspecting Americans, specifically investors, as part of the far-right “Great Reset” conspiracy theory.
The anti-ESG movement is gaining momentum fast. In May, former Vice President Mike Pence, seemingly gearing up for a potential 2024 presidential run, attacked ESG in a speech in Houston and in aWall Street Journal op-ed.Biotech founder and conservative influencer Vivek Ramaswamy launched an explicitly anti-ESG asset management firm called Strive that same month. More recently, right-wing media spearheaded an effort to blame upheaval in the Netherlands, Sri Lanka, and other countries on green policies supposedly forced into place because of ESG compliance, warning that if the “global elites” had their way, the United States would be next.
This right-wing campaign is now targeting corporations which are implementing ESG practices and the financial institutions which are encouraging them through investment. According to Reuters, 17 conservative-led states have pushed at least 44 bills or new laws punishing companies for taking a stance on ESG issues in 2022, compared to about a dozen of these types of actions in 2021. Notably, an August 5 New York Times investigation revealed that a dark money group with deep ties to the fossil fuel industry is working with state treasurers across the country to hinder climate action in the form of anti-ESG legislation, among other tactics.
ESG is attracting more and more attention from right-wing media influencers like Elon Musk, Glenn Beck, and James Lindsay. They are part of a growing number of conservative media figures seizing the opportunity to turn ESG into the next battleground in the culture wars, in part by fitting it into the broader “Great Reset” conspiracy theory on social media. As it relates to climate change denial, the Great Reset posits that global elites are using the climate crisis as a pretext to impose economic control on the masses.
What is ESG?
On May 18, Musk took to Twitter, writing, “ESG is a scam. It has been weaponized by phony social justice warriors.” Tesla had just been kicked off of the S&P 500’s ESG index, potentially spelling trouble for the company’s stock value, and Musk was mad. It wasn’t the first time he had touched on the topic, but the media frenzy that followed had everyone asking one question: What is ESG?
From May 17-19, Google search interest in “ESG” skyrocketed by 233%, reaching peak popularity for a relatively esoteric acronym.
ESG stands for “environmental, social, and governance” criteria that companies can meet by developing initiatives and disclosures to appear responsive to environmental concerns, workers' rights, and other pressing social issues. Independent rating agencies evaluate how well they are managing risks and growth opportunities in these different areas and how that could have material impacts on their performance. For example, a company that provides detailed reporting on its greenhouse gas emissions from direct operations and across its supply chain and has a robust plan to achieve net-zero emissions may be more likely to receive a high ‘E’ score.
Investors who want to prioritize financial returns but are seeking some level of corporate accountability are increasingly relying on ESG scores to make decisions. ESG investments are on track to exceed $50 trillion by 2025. The big three asset management firms – BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street, which have sometimes used their shareholder power to support ESG resolutions – are the main villains in the right’s anti-ESG narrative. For example, at Exxon’s annual meeting in 2021, the three firms used their voting power to help activist investors install three directors on the company's board, with the goal of building out a more aggressive strategy to transition away from fossil fuels.
But that doesn’t mean corporate ESG will save the planet. To the contrary, climate advocates have called ESG a greenwashing scam. Despite being in the S&P 500’s ESG Index, Exxon has increased its investment in oil and gas drilling and does not have a climate planthat meets the goals of the Paris agreement. But the fossil fuel industry and the lawmakers who receive lavish contributions from it aren’t concerned with legitimate criticisms of ESG.
Why ESG matters to fossil fuel proponents
It is clear that despite short-term demand rising, fossil fuels are not viable long-term investments. However, fossil fuel industry allies are clawing to keep their power and profits, discouraging any corporate commitment to climate by vilifying and even prohibiting adherence to ESG standards while advancing pro-oil and gas legislation at the state and federal levels that prohibits investment and business decisions from considering the economic and environmental consequences of fossil fuels. What’s more, Republican legislators are vowing to continue this trend if they take control of the House in the November midterm election.
In the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s decision to hamstring the authority of the Environmental Protection Agency in June, ESG opponents are now calling for the court to place similar limits on the Securities and Exchange Commission and its ability to ask public companies for disclosures about their climate impacts.
Right-wing culture warriors, conspiracy theorists, and Fox News hosts are attacking ESG
The burgeoning conservative campaign against ESG isn’t just playing out in state legislatures or financial institutions. ESG panic may be approaching critical mass, with high-profile climate skeptics like Tucker Carlson, Marc Morano, Alex Epstein, and Michael Shellenberger realizing that the acronym is ripe for manipulation and fearmongering.[vid]
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Some key media figures in the right-wing campaign against ESG, such as radio host andconspiracy theorist Glenn Beck and anti-critical theory activist James Lindsay,jumped at the chance to amplify several attacks from Musk in an effort to move ESG into the mainstream discourse.
These anti-ESG evangelists aren’t just concerned with protecting oil and gas interests. Their grievances are often focused on the social and governance aspects as well, applying the same flawed arguments to specific examples to deride and toxify ESG as a whole.
Musk: “ESG is the devil incarnate”
Musk’s vendetta against ESG is personal, and it has been building at the same time his faltering deal to buy Twitter with the goal of stopping the “woke mind virus” has transformed him into a reactionary martyr.
Musk first took to Twitter with his ESG grievances on March 8, claiming, “ESG rules have been twisted to insanity,” replying to a tweet from venture capitalist and Facebook board member Marc Andreessen.
- The Daily Wire’s coverage of the comment has garnered more Facebook interactions than any other U.S.-based right-wing article mentioning “ESG” since 2020. It was also shared by Daily Wire influencers Matt Walsh and Michael Knowles.
- Dark money-funded PragerU, which has denied the established science of climate change in its videos, edited the thumbnail of an older anti-ESG video to feature Musk and his tweet.
On April 3, Musk tweeted, “I am increasingly convinced that corporate ESG is the Devil Incarnate,” cueing up another right-wing media pile-on.
- Several conspiracy theorists and far-right characters chimed in, with some invoking the “Great Reset” conspiracy theory. Right-wing news coverage did the same.
- Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX), who has received well over half a million dollars from the fossil fuel industry and has a large social media following, used Musk’s statements to blame high gas prices on ESG instead of price gouging and dedicated an entire episode of his podcast, Hold These Truths, to the supposed evils of ESG.
On May 18, Musk wrote his infamous “social justice warriors” tweet, which has over 360,000 interactions.
- Fox News and Fox Business both ran a variety of segments on Musk’s tweet, calling ESG a scam, defending Musk as a victim of censorship, and interviewing lawmakers pushing anti-ESG legislation.
On May 26, Fox host Laura Ingraham dedicated an entire segment of The Ingraham Angle to fearmongering about ESG, citing Musk at the outset.
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- On Twitter, industry shills, dedicated climate change deniers, and other conservative media personalities jumped to back Musk’s statement, sometimes promoting their own content on the topic for engagement.
Glenn Beck: “Elon Musk Joins Glenn in Anti-ESG Crusade”
Beck is not new to ESG. The right-wing TV and radio host was an early adopter of the “Great Reset” conspiracy theory in 2020 following the World Economic Forum’s annual Davos summit, along with Steve Bannon, Alex Jones, and a slew of other conservative influencers. He has also been weaving ESG into this theory, which has been aptly described as a “hodgepodge of one-world-government fears.”
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- In December 2021, Beck insisted that Citigroup’s implementation of ESG scores for its clients was part of “the Davos plan” to prevent individuals from getting loans.
- In January, Beck claimed that the Davos elites are “designing everything – everything – in your life,” including the climate crisis, for the purpose of implementing the Great Reset, in part through ESG.
Beck worked with the fossil fuel-funded Heartland Institute, to help spread his message. Heartland has been testifying before lawmakers in several states to back anti-ESG legislation, providing them with misleading information about how financial institutions are implementing ESG strategies. Beck even wrote a book with Heartland Editorial Director Justin Haskins. In one
Beck claimed that “there are now 20 states that are starting to put anti-ESG legislation in because of his book.”
- In February, Beck did indeed talk to at least one state legislature in Idaho, calling ESG “CRT on steroids.” (In March, the Idaho legislature passed a bill aimed at discouraging state investment boards from making ESG considerations.)
- In an April 4 video titled “Elon Musk Joins Glenn in Anti-ESG Crusade,” Beck praised Tesla as a company and noted that Musk’s provocative tweets have sparked more conversations around ESG and lent credibility to criticism, especially given his perceived commitment to addressing the climate crisis.
A true Musk fanboy, Beck has gone so far as to blame ESG and the Great Reset for roadblocks to his deal to buy Twitter.
James Lindsay: “We’re going to do to ESG what we did to CRT”
Lindsay, a critical theory opponent, has emerged as a loud ESG critic, particularly on Twitter. Lindsay is an influential figure in the “critical race theory” panic. He was also instrumental in popularizing the baseless “groomer” slur which has been used to target LGBTQ people and falsely suggest they are child predators. (Lindsay was recently permanently suspended from Twitter, where he had over 300,000 followers, for calling a trans Harvard instructor a “child sexualization specialist.”)
Now, similarly to Beck, Lindsay is using his influence to spotlight ESG as a key feature of the Great Reset conspiracy theory, becoming increasingly obsessed with the topic and anyone who he feels could give it momentum – especially Musk. More broadly, Lindsay is focused on gathering a smorgasbord of right-wing grievances under the umbrella of ESG, with the intent of building a nearly all-encompassing cause for conservative activists to rally behind. Unlike some of the lawmakers who are primarily targeting climate-conscious businesses, Lindsay’s interest is more aligned with attacking the “social” aspect of ESG, which includes Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion efforts (DEI).
- He has taken aim at any efforts to combat discrimination at companies such as Starbucks, falsely labeling DEI initiatives as critical race theory or “Woke Marxism,” and writing, “DEI won’t go away until after ESG is defeated. It’s a slightly separate fight, but it doesn’t even start until ESG is in ashes.”
- He has also targeted Disney and linked it to ESG in order to feed into the homophobic and transphobic right-wing false accusation that LGBTQ people are predators.
- He first started writing about ESG in March 2021 on Twitter, around the same time that Beck started posting about the topic. Lately, though, he’s been writing extreme statements about ESG almost every day across social media. Many of these appeared in his tweets, which had thousands of likes and retweets, but are no longer available due to his suspension.
In May, Lindsay wrote that “we’re going to do to ESG what we did to CRT,” in response to an article from The New Republic examining ESG’s role in the broader culture wars. The article highlighted Musk’s tweets and noted that anti-critical race theory and anti-ESG groups have common funders.
Lindsay repeatedly attempted to engage with Musk about ESG on Twitter, encouraging and agreeing with his objections to ESG and praising Tesla and SpaceX. On Facebook, he invoked Musk when posting about the issue, and generally jumped to his defense in the face of any criticism
- In May, he addressed the “ESG Cartel” in a short
of his New Discourses podcast and appeared on I’m Right with Jesse Kelly, where he talked about having conversations with lawmakers in “maybe a dozen states” regarding ESG and DEI and linked it to the influence of the World Economic Forum.
In June, he was a guest on The Charlie Kirk Show, to discuss how ESG is part of a “Marxist theology.”
ESG is seemingly poised to continue gaining traction
If we learned anything from the rise of critical race theory to a national issue and right-wing media obsession, it’s that underestimating the right-wing media’s ability to create a moral panic out of opaque terminology has serious consequences. Musk’s tweets were all that right-wing media figures and conspiracy theorists needed to expand attacks on ESG. Now, conservative TV news outlets have picked up on the narrative. With midterms approaching, so is the opportunity to mobilize voters and shareholders against this new iteration of ever-evolving “woke” ideology.
There are legitimate concerns about ESG. But even if it isn't an effective path toward decarbonization, permitting a maliciously misleading interpretation conceived by the fossil fuel industry and its allies to dominate the media cycle certainly won’t get us there, and may even further demonize various types of climate action.
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