Let’s Not Shrug This One Off

Hello it’s the weekend. This is The Weekender ☕

It was a busy week for Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) after TPM published an investigation linking his digital director, Wade Searle, to neo-Nazi leader Nick Fuentes. Our story detailed evidence that Searle attended a Fuentes rally and indications he was behind an interconnected network of social media accounts with the aliases “Chikken” and “ChickenRight.” Searle has also been described by a defector from Fuentes’ organization as a key member of the so-called “Groyper” inner circle.

“ChickenRight’s” pages, which can also be linked to an intern in Gosar’s office, were filled with extreme, hate-filled rhetoric, including attacks on Blacks, Asians, and Jews. The story prompted a wave of reactions from the White House, Democrats in Congress, Jewish groups, and even the Republican Jewish Coalition.

I made the rounds to talk about the piece including appearances on MSNBC and “Democracy Now.” Chris Hayes kept the conversation going throughout the week. During these conversations, I was particularly interested in addressing people who responded to the piece by noting they were unsurprised since Gosar has his own history of working with Fuentes and making extremist remarks. While it’s true that, on one level, it definitely isn’t surprising that Gosar has links to the furthest corners of the far right, this is still something that requires our full attention. 

Seeing full-on white supremacists slinking from fringe corners of the internet to become Capitol Hill staffers would be an alarming new level of growth for a movement that has been gaining steam in recent years. A world where we’re not shocked by the presence of open white supremacists in the government isn’t one I want to live in.

One person who hasn’t been talking about this story is GOP House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, indicating he may not be interested in taking action against Gosar or his staff. Gosar has also kept quiet. TPM’s own Emine Yucel caught up to him outside the House floor. Gosar tried to tell her to reach out to his press staff. When she informed him that we had done that (several times, in fact), Gosar declined to comment.

Instead of actually responding to the revelations about his staff in any meaningful or substantive way, Gosar made social media posts railing against “cancel culture.”

Of course, with neither Gosar or McCarthy taking action against this staffer, no one has been canceled at all. It was yet another example of how, for some on the right, that term has become almost meaningless — shame doesn’t work in the MAGA era. Rather than describing anyone being shut down, in this case, Gosar seemed to be using it to express frustration that someone in his orbit was being identified for having the views that they do.

That frustration — as well as the fact “ChickenRight” and his fellow pro-Fuentes “Groypers” so often take pains to avoid being named or “doxxed” — just shows that these people know their views are reprehensible and indefensible. The new generation of Zoomer neo-Nazis are quite vocal online and they are gaining a foothold in the larger political world, but they are hoping to do it in secret. Good thing we’re good at exposing secrets.
 

More on other news below. Let’s dig in. 

— Hunter Walker

The 14th Amendment Option?

A growing group of Senate Democrats have been urging President Joe Biden to consider invoking the 14th Amendment to declare the debt ceiling unconstitutional this week. This is a strategy that — if upheld by the courts — could avert a looming default without any concessions to House Republicans, who have used their slim majority to take the debt ceiling hostage.

Sens. Tina Smith (D-MN), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Ed Markey (D-MA) and Bernie Sanders (I-VT) have been circulating a letter amongst their colleagues this week to collect support for Biden to lift the debt ceiling without any help from House Republicans. Other Democrats — including Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) and Sen. Angus King (I-ME), who is more of a centrist than the other senators who weighed in — have also joined on the calls encouraging the President to take advantage of the 14th Amendment.

— Emine Yücel

Durham Down

John Durham didn’t really start his investigation so much as he morphed into it. Remember how it began: Attorney General Bill Barr ordered a non-criminal review of the origins of the Trump-Russia investigation in April 2019, days after the Mueller report was released. The review was based on a conspiracy theory concocted in the depths of Trump’s resentment, claiming that the entire probe was fueled by liberal-leaning FBI and intelligence officials, hell-bent on smearing The Donald because his brave truth-telling represented a threat to their corrupt deep-state dealings.

Durham’s probe metamorphosed into a criminal probe in September 2019, and Barr appointed him special counsel the next year. Now, it’s over, and Durham has nothing to show for it: one guilty plea and two acquittals at trial. The report itself, weighing in at 306 pages, was repetitive in several ways, but most of all because, like the prosecutions before, it failed to substantiate any of the allegations that started the investigation. Durham did not recommend any changes to federal law enforcement or the intelligence communities; his biggest claim was that the Trump-Russia probe began, in his view, without evidence needed to call for an investigation. But the results speak differently: multiple senior members of Trump’s 2016 campaign convicted, along with networks of Russian hackers responsible for the interference charged.

— Josh Kovensky

“Jamaal Bowman shouting at the top of his lungs … calling me a white supremacist, which I take great offense to. That is like calling a person of color the N-word … His physical mannerisms are aggressive … I feel threatened by him.”

That’s the MAGA-aligned conspiracy theorist Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) during a Thursday press conference describing a recent interaction with Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY), a Black member of Congress.

MTG — who was coined the QAnon congresswoman when she was first elected — is known for her frequent racist, anti-Semitic and Islamophobic rhetoric. But it seems this week she was trying to one up herself – describing a Black man as “aggressive” and saying she felt “threatened” by him is just plain old fashioned, lazy racism.

— Emine Yücel

Interference 2024?

Here’s an argument: there are far more reasons for the Russian government to interfere in the 2024 election than there were in 2016. Ukraine is fending off a massive land invasion, and is now reliant on support from a Western coalition mustered by the Biden administration. The U.S. provides the most aid, and coordinates what rest is provided by the West. Trump and some other scattered Republicans have either already promised to curtail that or expressed profound skepticism of American support.

In that light, the policy stakes of the 2024 election for Russia are far clearer than they were in 2016. The country now really is reliant on U.S. military support; why not support a candidate promising to end it? In a limited and mostly rhetorical sense, that may have already begun. Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced sanctions on a bizarre and comical list of people that includes Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel, but also several prosecutors involved in bringing cases against those responsible for the January 6 insurrection. The Russian government said it was striking out at “persecution of dissidents based on the so-called ‘storming of the Capitol.’”

— Josh Kovensky 

Ted Talks

The saying goes you should never attribute malice where incompetence will do. This is tough to keep in modern society where, even people don’t want to admit it, cynicism and exploitation are cherished values that can propel you to new professional heights. In the political realm, I find myself asking, “Do these people really believe this? Or are they just taking advantage of the others?” Recently, Tucker Carlson’s leaked texts seemed to firmly plant him in the latter category, whereas recent reporting on Paul Gosar suggests he’s in the former.

Enter Ted Cruz. Collegiate master debater, literally, who made his bones as a kind of ultra-rationalist, constitutional scholar who could bridge the gap between down home country yokels and the hallowed theorists you might find advancing unitary executive theory. The conservative movement thirsts for these types. Despite their outward disdain for elites, they want to be viewed as whip smart—just with a folksy charm.

When Ted first came on the scene, he did seem sort of smart and less willing to play in the mud. Of course that all changed with Trump.Ted’s latest self-abasement is opening an investigation into Bud Light’s relationship with Dylan Mulvaney, the trans star who had the audacity to promote Bud Light.

Why does this matter? Because there’s something akin to a New Sophist movement on the right generally and it’s dangerous. Ted might be an asshole, but he is very skilled at making arguments that sound smart and persuade people they aren’t just bigoted, racist, homophobic—on and on and on—they are simply logical. You could say politics is about winning and the ends justify the means. But that’s exactly the cynicism I’m talking about. And it’s dangerous.

— Joe Ragazzo