╌>

Newest House GOP Star Teams Up With Nutty MAGA Conspiracy Theorist

  

Category:  News & Politics

Via:  tessylo  •  3 years ago  •  6 comments

By:   Roger Sollenberger, The Daily Beast

Newest House GOP Star Teams Up With Nutty MAGA Conspiracy Theorist

S E E D E D   C O N T E N T




Newest House GOP Star Teams Up With Nutty MAGA Conspiracy Theorist











Roger Sollenberger

Thu, August 19, 2021, 9:39 PM











6e1635423677c065d491c4c02b5b27d3



Photo Illustration by The Daily Beast/Photos Getty/Alamy/Twitter

Three months in as the House GOP conference’s new chairwoman, Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) plans to take the stage next week with a MAGA operative who has an extremist past and played a key role in “Stop the Steal” efforts to overturn President Joe Biden’s victory.

The operative, Virginia native Scott Presler, has a years-long history of extremist activism, including serving as   a top strategist   for an organization that the   Anti-Defamation League   and   Southern Poverty Law Center   deemed the largest anti-Muslim hate group in the United States. Presler, who in 2017 stunted for disgraced Alabama U.S. Senate candidate Judge Roy Moore, also helped organize multiple “Stop the Steal” protests leading up to the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. He later   attended   the riot,   describing   it as the “largest civil rights protest in American history” in a tweet with video of the crowd.

The joint appearance with Stefanik, slated for an Aug. 25 rally and voter registration drive in Saratoga, New York, highlights the four-term Republican’s ongoing pivot to an extremist MAGA base still enthralled with ex-President Donald Trump and the notion that the 2020 election was unfairly decided.


Stefanik, who for years both campaigned and voted as a right-of-center Republican, has pivoted to fully embrace  the Trump wing of her party. In January she challenged the Electoral College results and later voted against a Jan. 6 commission. Most recently, Stefanik drew backlash for pushing  false narratives  about the attempted insurrection.




On a personal level, however, that pivot appears to have paid off.


In May, when House Republicans booted anti-Trump Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) as GOP conference chair, Stefanik landed the position—and   touted   Presler’s endorsement along the way.

Presler, 30, has generally skated below the headlines, but his social media extremist activism dates back years and, fueled by his 830,000-follower Twitter account, has attracted enough attention to   spur protests   at his events.

In 2014, Presler, who is openly gay, stumped for Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott’s campaign, and two years later backed Trump’s 2016 presidential bid. Then, from 2017 to 2018, he worked as a strategist for ACT for America, an organization   SPLC has designated   as an anti-Muslim hate group.

According to SPLC, ACT “pushes wild anti-Muslim conspiracy theories, denigrates American Muslims” and intentionally commingles mainstream and radical Islamic beliefs. Extremist watchdog ADL   says   the group “stokes irrational fears” about Muslims and “traffics in paranoia that vilifies the American Muslim community.”

In his role at ACT, Presler took the lead in organizing a nationwide series of “March Against Sharia” rallies in mid-2017. As the group’s Facebook administrator, he oversaw what SPLC   characterized   as a “plentiful” outpouring of “racist and violent content,”   collaborated   with avowed neo-Nazi Billy Roper, and   co-organized   a rally with   Patriot Prayer founder Joey Gibson   in Portland, Oregon, which the city eventually canceled.

NPR   reported   that Roper said on a podcast ahead of the planned Arkansas march that “we want to send a message to Muslims that they are not welcome in our communities,” and “ultimately we want to send a message to Muslims that they're not welcome in our nation and, of course, endgame, on our planet.” When SPLC flagged Roper’s involvement, ACT canceled the event, saying it “became aware that the organizer is associated with white supremacist groups,” according to a statement.

“This is against all of our values.” the statement said. (Roper’s wife posted emails Roper and Presler had exchanged earlier, in which Presler told Roper, “You are approved and ready to go.”)

Still, a number of fascist and   militia groups   were reportedly   present   at “March Against Sharia” events. Those groups   include   members of white supremacist organizations Identity Evropa and Vanguard America, both of which later played roles in 2017’s deadly “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.

In 2019, Twitter suspended  Presler’s account after he posted, “Black lives murdered by criminal illegal aliens don’t matter,” which the website said violated its rules against hateful conduct. And that summer, Pressler embarked on a  concern-trolling venture  to ostensibly clean up trash in West Baltimore, at the time represented by the late Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD), after Trump tweeted that the district was a “rodent infested mess.”

Presler later took that show on the road, popping up to supposedly clean up streets in   Los Angeles , San Francisco, and   Kenosha, Wisconsin . The San Francisco outlet   Mission Local   described Presler’s crew “filming trash, needles, and feces—and asking homeless people whether the government should prioritize their needs over immigrants.”

While Presler denies these clean-up stunts had anything to do with politics, he has an explicit parallel political history.

In 2017, Presler went to bat for Judge Roy Moore, a Republican Senate candidate in Alabama who was at the time under fire for   allegations of child molestation . After   the allegations surfaced , Presler sprang to Moore’s defense for weeks— pushing   false claims   about the accusations,   pumping up   Moore surrogate Steve Bannon’s assertions that the disgraced judge had “honor and integrity,” and attempting to   discredit the victims .

“This Roy Moore accuser has a ‘violent nature’ and was arrested on a felony charge for forging checks,” Presler   tweeted   on Nov. 17. He also   tweeted   multiple   times   about a poll showing that 71 percent of Alabama Republicans believed the allegations are false. “Voters know the difference between unsubstantiated allegations versus photographic evidence of Al Franken molesting a sleeping woman,” Presler wrote.

Moore lost the election to former Sen. Doug Jones (D-AL), the first Democratic senator to represent the state in 20 years.

Last year, Presler’s activism found him flirting with   QAnon   and   COVID denialism . And after Trump’s election loss in November, he stepped into an organizing role for “Stop the Steal” rallies across the country, including in   Atlanta,   Washington, D.C. , and   Harrisburg, Pennsylvania , where he held   an interview   with white nationalist conspiracy theorist Jack Posobiec. That movement culminated in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, which Presler   vowed   multiple   times   he   would attend . He later   tweeted   footage of himself at the event.

Presler, who   spoke at CPAC 2021   in Orlando, has dedicated his 2021 to a   nationwide tour   aimed at unseating Trump dissenters in the GOP ranks. He aligned himself in that effort with Stefanik, who has easily defended her seat in a reliably conservative upstate district and has not yet drawn a serious primary opponent. But Stefanik’s rise to House leadership has made her a top target for Democrats, who will try to exploit her radical drift among moderate voters and have already begun   pouring money   into 2022 challengers.

And recent   social media posts   suggest Presler has   planted himself   in Stefanik’s home state of New York, where he has been “harvesting” voter registrations, according to an Aug. 15 Facebook   post . He also appears on the payroll for RISE NY PAC, the state-level PAC behind the upcoming Stefanik event.

That PAC paid Presler only once—$5,000 in June, according to New York campaign finance records. It is listed as a “bonus.”









Article is LOCKED by author/seeder
[]
 
Tessylo
Professor Principal
1  seeder  Tessylo    3 years ago

Today's gqp are not bringing us their best.

 
 
 
Tessylo
Professor Principal
2  seeder  Tessylo    3 years ago

Bitch is aligning herself with a full on whackjob extremist white supremacist.  

 
 
 
JohnRussell
Professor Principal
2.1  JohnRussell  replied to  Tessylo @2    3 years ago

I have the feeling that this is all going to backfire on Stefanik at some point.  

She's still trying to get that one on one moment with Trump in one of the Maralago guest bedrooms. 

 
 
 
Tessylo
Professor Principal
2.1.1  seeder  Tessylo  replied to  JohnRussell @2.1    3 years ago

Yeah I cannot imagine what the hell brought her over to the dark side.  She's sickening.  

 
 
 
Hal A. Lujah
Professor Guide
3  Hal A. Lujah    3 years ago

When did Kid Rock change his name?

 
 
 
Tessylo
Professor Principal
3.1  seeder  Tessylo  replied to  Hal A. Lujah @3    3 years ago

jrSmiley_86_smiley_image.gif

 
 

Who is online





422 visitors