GOP Flirts with QAnon

When Politico reported on Republican congressional candidate Marjorie Greeneโ€™s racist and bigoted comments in June, ...

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When Politico reported on Republican congressional candidate Marjorie Greeneโ€™s racist and bigoted comments in June, several top GOP officialsโ€”including Minority Leader Kevin McCarthyโ€”condemned her campaign. But after she beat her Republican opponent Dr. John Cowan in Tuesdayโ€™s primary race, McCarthy immediately switched gears. A spokesman for McCarthyโ€™s office told Declan that the GOP leader โ€œlooks forwardโ€ to her win this November. Why on Earth is the House minority leader welcoming a racist conspiracy mongering candidate into the GOP with open arms? Our Dispatch Podcast hosts have some thoughts. Itโ€™s also worth exploring how she was able to win her primary in the first place, especially with all the negative media attention sheโ€™s gotten in recent months. A source close to her opponentโ€™s campaign has a theory: โ€œThe most consistent thing we heard [about why voters were supporting Greene over Cowan] was that, โ€˜Well, sheโ€™s gonna go and sheโ€™s gonna fight, sheโ€™s gonna fight, sheโ€™s gonna fight.โ€™ When you prodded a little bit deeper and asked, โ€˜Well what does that fight look like?โ€™ They couldnโ€™t tell you, but they just know sheโ€™s going to fight.โ€ Tune in for some insights into what the future of the Republican Party will look like with a QAnon supporter in its ranks.

Show Notes:

–Declanโ€™s piece on the GOPโ€™s reaction to Marjorie Greeneโ€™s primary win, Audreyโ€™s piece on the growing conspiracy fringe in the Republican Party, Politico article on GOP condemning Greene in June, Trumpโ€™s tweet congratulating Greene on her win, Marjorie Taylor Greeneโ€™s motto.

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  1. Avatar photo
    Bryan Myrick

    I've listened to this episode several times and enjoy it more each time. Any announcements on when the next episode might be going up?

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    Isaac Alexander

    Why didn't these guys (https://www.foxnews.com/politics/jeff-flake-former-gop-congress-biden) decide this when perhaps an alternate candidate or maybe even an alternate party could make a difference? IE, if you are going to effectively elect Biden, why not do it testing a new branch of the party or at least new (old) ideas of conservatism and not just directly electing Biden? Either way, expressly endorsing Biden or directly not endorsing Trump, Biden gets more votes. Why not try the latter?

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    Donny from Queens

    I live in the district. Voters had a choice between a community man of good reputation, great education, and a Christian in good standing with long ties to a local church on the one hand and a out-of-district crazy woman who sounds more like a pagan than anything else. And ya know what? The church vote put her over the top! I need a stronger word for disillusionment.

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      Donny from Queens

      Ok the Germans came through as they do in language sometimes: Weltschmerz.

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  4. AndrewC

    What happened to the pod this week? Did I miss an announcement?

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    Stephanie

    I enjoyed Declan's input. It'd be great to hear more from him in the future.

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    WKDawson

    Well Declan, you earn my respect as a gumshoe because you put your work ahead of everything else and end up eating frozen pizza on a Friday night. I've never done reporting, but being a scientist, I kind of see good reporting and good science as relentless detective work where one has to care more about the truth than passions and keep digging for that truth. None of that work is easy. In some ways, detective work and even good reporting are probably harder to do than science because we scientists only have to fight with overcoming our own bias, but the target of our study (the data) doesn't "lie" (at least those who are honest with their data).

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    1. linda

      Yep. Well done.

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    Pat @ Tavi Hall

    I am glad you are covering Q but I think it is more widespread than polls state. I am in North Carolina, my social media is made up of conservative Christian women like myself. They vary in age, and they vary in choices of schooling, but it is shocking to see how many Q adjacent posts come through my feed in a day. Many, many stories about pedophiles on the prowl. The Wayfair story came through without any obvious Q markers and currently there is some darn Troll toy with a terribly placed button to make it talk or giggle or something (can you tell I have boys?). To believe the narrative this toy was produced with intent to convince children this is normal.

    Did Trump do this to us or did we do it to ourselves?

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      WKDawson

      One problem is Twitter and Facebook, though in different ways perhaps. With facebook, it seems like it has more to do with the echo chambers it creates with its friends feed. So most of my friends are center-right/center-left so the "we're all going to die because of Trump" sorts don't really come up unless I really look for the, and the "there's nothing happening, Trump did nothing" types don't either. In some ways, because of the incredible silo that the Trumpies seem to live under, it strikes me as worse, but only in matter of degree. At one time, conservatives and liberals at least agreed on the same facts and the issue was interpretation. Now even the facts are in question.

      There is another problem though. That is youtube. If you are looking for the name of a song or a how-to-do answer, youtube can be very useful. Some political commentary can also be useful. However, I notice that some people really go down a rabbit hole with that stuff and go completely mad (in my opinion). I had someone who used to be a practicing nurse send me that Mikovitz video. I told here "If Mikovitz thinks this is true, she should go to the lab and ๐—ฑ๐—ฒ๐—บ๐—ผ๐—ป๐˜€๐˜๐—ฟ๐—ฎ๐˜๐—ฒ ๐—ถ๐˜ [i.e., prove it]. Otherwise, she should shut up." She stopped talking to me after that. However, that was shocking to see a nurse fall for such utter horse hooey and mendacity, but I guess that is what too much youtube boob-tube will do to you.

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    2. linda

      He saw an opportunity. He saw a weakness. What he did was to find a group that was really mad. Doesn't really matter what they are mad about. Then he runs to the head of the line and says he's more mad than anyone. We shall fight! Then he makes up pure cow pies and that gives the fringe the go-head to make up even bigger cow pies and a group of trollers say that Hillary eats stolen babies and you are on your way to? not to sure about the end of the story. When people are over invested in emotion and there is no real leadership on the scene (let's face it the Repubs stand for nothing in particular) then it's easy for the grifter to enter the house. I can say this as a life long repub and no longer identify as a repub.

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      Aylene Wright

      I think there are many more Q adjacent people than those who actually believe every aspect of the theory (which includes Clinton backers not only molesting kids but actually eating their brains, it really is out of a low budget horror film). I have come across a few myself, some don't know what Q is, but are definitely convinced an elite pedophile sex ring exists, and point to Epstein as proof.

      I also suspect that if Q had targeted extreme Trump haters and claimed that it was Trump, Ivanka, and Jared who were running a pedophile sex ring and splitting the profits with Putin, he (or she or they) would have gotten a lot of buy-in from the very same leftists mocking QAnon today.

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        WKDawson

        Maybe you're right. Even as a center-left, I sometimes get angry about the fat-cats, for example. So I notice that I have to be careful when I stumble on something accusing some over-bloated fat cat of doing something despicably evil; carefully reading both the conservative and liberal picture of it before jumping to conclusions. It is kind of easy to short-circuit that if it plays on something I already suspect about that stuff.

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    BrettH

    Enjoyed the listen, thanks yโ€™all. The analysis always scratches my political itch and Declan does well stepping up to fill in as a starter.

    Since you talked pork...I smoked some pork tenderloins for the UFC fights on Saturday. The Traeger smoked pork tenderloin marinade recipe only takes a few minutes to make and is oh so tasty after smoking over applewood for about 3 hours.

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  9. Vince

    You mentioned an espresso bbq sauce. I am intrigued! As a fellow native Texan, rubs are definitely the way to go. Smoked a nice dry rubbed turkey breast this weekend. Would you mind sharing the recipe you used? I googled "espresso bbq sauce" and the recipes were kind of all over the map as far as ingredients. Thanks and Keep up the good work! HOOK 'EM!

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    Rev Snow

    If the clip featuring General Flynn and family is dispositive, the "Q Pledge" is nothing more than the oath of office for federal employees, followed by a Q-specific variant of the slogan of the the Three Musketeers.

    https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/07/politics/michael-flynn-qanon-video/index.html

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      Rev Snow

      I think you can reasonably go back and forth on whether self-organizing groups uniting under a pledge is creepy or is All-American (or both!), but if it's going to happen, we could do far far worse than a solemn oath to defend the US Constitution.

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