Inside the Fascist Lurch: Amanda Moore on Going Undercover Within MAGA

In this episode of the It’s Going Down podcast, we speak with journalist and investigator Amanda Moore, about spending over a year undercover within the broader MAGA movement and the outright fascist and white supremacist currents and activists she found firmly embedded within it. During our discussion we speak on the role of conspiracy theories within the movement, the lead up to January 6th in Washington DC, entryism into the GOP by white nationalists, and the inability of the neoliberal media to hold the Republican party to account for its lurch towards outright fascism.

From Amanda’s recent expose in The Nation:

I attended more than a dozen extremist and conspiracy events and went to ostensibly mainstream Republican conferences, including the Conservative Political Action Conference, or CPAC, the annual gathering of Republican activists, politicians, and hopefuls, and Turning Point USA’s Student Action Summit, and witnessed a radical youth movement trying to take over the GOP. Like a parasitic pilot fish, a robust fascist community follows the big Republican events into every town. They host shadow parties, receptions, and speeches as they work to recruit new members. The conservative establishment benefits from the presence of these farther-right gatherings; the extremists are often younger, well-dressed, and social-media savvy. While the more mainstream GOP organizations occasionally ban the most overt racists from a featured event, their attempts often feel half-hearted, and there are always other extremists who step up and fill the role as intermediaries between the white nationalists and normie conservatives.

Some of the neo-Nazis and fascists I met undercover in 2020 are working as congressional campaign staffers and helping to form congressional caucuses. They are meeting with leaders of far-right political parties in Italy and Hungary. They are leaders in their local Young Republican organizations. They have access to elected GOP officials at the national and local level.

Despite this growing influence, few of them or their true beliefs are known to the public. Some have worked hard to scrub themselves from the Internet or to curate their online personas; others operate in the shadows, so that people do not even know to look for them. But they network with each other, calling in favors and introductions. They’ve created a social maze that’s almost impossible to trace—unless you are invited to become one of them.

As segments of the far-Right reposition themselves in a post-J6 world, we discuss how these forces will continue to evolve as the 2024 election looms and Trump’s future role in the movement remains in doubt.

More Info: Amanda More on Link Tree and selected works at The Nation.