Morning Briefing: Moms for Liberty Summit Highlights Influence of Far Right on GOP
Moms for Liberty national summit featured speakers included prominent Republican politicians alongside influential conservative activists with connections to far right extremists.
Morning Briefing: Moms for Liberty, the far right group, hosted the group’s annual national summit in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and the featured speakers included prominent Republican politicians such as former president Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron Ron DeSantis.
The Moms for Liberty national summit highlights the growing influence of the far right within the Republican Party, as the speakers and attendees at the event represented spectrum of right-wing causes and groups ― including those with connections to far right extremists such as the Oath Keepers.
Later this week, Radical Reports will be publishing additional reporting and research on Moms for Liberty’s far right extremist connections, and now you can explore this interactive visualization of the Moms for Liberty far right anti-LGBTIQ networks.
Three men in Michigan have been charged with allegedly defacing “Temple Jacob with swastikas and symbols associated with The Base, a multi-state, white supremacist group.” The three defendants reportedly “used an encrypted messaging platform to discuss vandalizing property associated with African Americans and Jewish Americans.”
The trials of six members of Patriot Front, the White Nationalist neo-fascist group, are “scheduled to begin July 17 in Coeur d’Alene.” Each have been charged with conspiracy to riot (each have plead not guilty) for “allegedly planning to violently disrupt a Pride celebration in Coeur d’Alene City Park.”
During the penalty phase of the trail of the individual found guilty for the Tree of Life synagogue massacre, a medical expert testified for the defense that the shooter “experienced delusions and signs of schizophrenia.”
Members of the Proud Boys, the far right violent extremist street gang, were ordered by a judge “to pay over $1 million to a historic Black church after it sued the far-right group for destruction of property in a December 2020 episode in which the group’s members tore down the church’s large Black Lives Matter sign.”
Brazil's federal electoral court ruled that Jair Bolsonaro, former president of Brazil, was banned from “public office until 2030 for his conduct during last year's fraught election,” as a 5-2 decision convicted Bolsonaro for “abuse of power and misuse of the media over his actions in July 2022.”
Must Reads
Adam Gabbatt reports that the “Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), a registered non-profit behind the ongoing 303 Creative supreme court case which could chip away at LGBTQ+ rights, saw its revenue surge by more than $25m between 2020 and 2021, a period in which a rightwing obsession with transgender rights and sexual orientation saw almost 200 anti-LGBTQ+ bills introduced in states around the US. The surge in funding to the ADF, which has been termed an ‘anti-LGBTQ hate group’ by the Southern Poverty Law Center, saw it record revenue of $104.5m in 2021, according to filings with the Internal Revenue Service. It has handed over hundreds of thousands of dollars of that newfound wealth to fringe organizations which have sought to diminish the rights of trans students in schools and the right for trans people to participate in sports, an investigation by the watchdog group Accountable.US has found.” [The Guardian]
Lydia Morrish reports that “US culture war narratives have infected other countries and influenced international movements. The Institute for Strategic Dialogue found a footprint of anti-drag pursuits treading the globe, including in Australia, Ireland, France, and elsewhere in Europe, with the UK forming the turf for 57 anti-drag incidents in the past year. There, falsehoods are racking up during Pride about LGBTQ people and drag queens alongside the internationalized narrative that children were forced to wear drag to school. Uproar about the term ‘cis-gender,’ including the unevidenced claim that it was coined by a German sexologist, also flooded social media in the US and UK on June 21 and 22, as Elon Musk announced the words ‘cis’ and ‘cisgender’ would be considered ‘slurs’ on Twitter. By traversing social media with anti-drag and anti-trans rhetoric, influential figures from the US have encouraged outrage across borders and induced localized, copycat narratives from afar. The online culture war comes alongside a global wave of anti-LGBTQ legislation and wider backlash against trans rights.” [Wired]
Rebecca Gordon writes writes that “maybe the grubby little group behind the tracts my father and I saw that day in New York would have let me live. Maybe not. In those days home-grown fascists were rare and so didn’t have that kind of power. Now, however, there’s a new extermination campaign stalking this country that would definitely include me among its targets: the right-wing Republican crusade against ‘sexual predators’ and ‘groomers,’ by which they mean LGBTQI+ people. (I’m going to keep things simple here by just writing ‘LGBT’ or ‘queer’ to indicate this varied collection of Americans who are presently a prime target of the right wing in this country.) You may think ‘extermination campaign’ is an extreme way to describe the set of public pronouncements, laws, and regulations addressing the existence of queer people here. Sadly, I disagree.” [TomDispatch]
What to expect from Radical Reports: Morning Briefing provides a daily round-up of reporting on the Radical Right; Extremist Links offers a weekly round-up of extremists activities including the white supremacist and militia movements; Narratives of the Right delivers weekly analysis of the current narratives in far right online spaces and promoted by right-wing media; and Research Desk provides monthly highlights research and analysis from academia on the Radical Right.