So, I think the easiest way for the audience to understand how we got here with somebody like Marjorie Taylor Greene is to understand that she started sort of as a social media performer, who filled the vacuum left behind by the sort of intellectual rot of conservative media. Greene started to get likes and shares and so forth for promoting these kind of unhinged conspiracy theories, which are inherently hateful.
And I think one thing that people misunderstand when they talk about QAnon and stuff like that is that I think the media kind of gets on this topic of discussion about just like how crazy it is, that this is like, oh, you know, these nutjobs or whatever, something like that. And understand, this is really hateful stuff that we're talking about here. Marjorie Taylor Greene has embraced explicitly anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. She once claimed that the Christchurch terror attack was a false flag. You can't get more anti-Muslim than that. And she aligns herself with anti-LGBTQ groups.
So, you know, while some of these ideas are crazy-sounding to people, I think it's very, very helpful to start reframing it in your mind as something that is just part of this drift toward anti-democratic, hard-right, authoritarian tendencies in the Republican Party, that is something we need to take very, very seriously and something that's very concerning for me.
JUAN GONZÃ LEZ: You've mentioned the impact of an algorithm-driven ecosystem of online right-wing commentary as helping to build a following for Marjorie Taylor Greene. Could you explain?
MICHAEL EDISON HAYDEN: Yeah, Juan. So, basically, these social media companies have you know, almost like the tobacco industry created these algorithms that are meant to make you addicted to their apps and their websites. And these things, like if you look at Twitter and stuff like that, it really serves as a radicalization engine for extremists. And you look around you, and you say, like, "Oh my god. Like, I don't remember things being like this 10 years ago or 15 years ago." Some of it has to do with the lies being pumped in by the Republican Party for years about things that we don't even cover, like climate change and stuff like that. But a lot of it has to do with this just radicalization engine on people's phones.
And again, Marjorie Taylor Greene is receiving likes and upvotes and so forth for giving voice to these grievances that people in the Republican Party have, or at least their base of support has. You look at where they get their news from. I mean, Jack Posobiec of One America News is you know, his rise as a public figure is tied to the white supremacist movement. He has collaborated with neo-Nazis. These are the type of people they're getting their news from. And it has to do with these figures taking advantage of the infrastructure of social media to get people addicted and to continue to feed this radicalization engine on people's phones.
AMY GOODMAN: Finally, Michael Edison Hayden, if you can talk about the Republican leadership facilitation of Marjorie Taylor Greene? She believes what she believes, but not all congressmembers are put on committees. She has been elevated, even as Liz Cheney, number three in the leadership, is being attacked roundly for supporting the impeachment of President Trump. But what does this mean? And what do you think the Republican leadership needs to do? Apparently, Kevin McCarthy, the minority leader, is going to be meeting with Greene this week, after he just went down to Mar-a-Lago to spend time with Donald Trump.
MICHAEL EDISON HAYDEN: Well, I mean, if you look at the Republican Party right now, they have this inability to disavow people. And if you recall, Southern Poverty Law Center published a very large investigation about Stephen Miller's private emails, showed him connected to groups like VDARE. And it used to be, in the past, that these types of investigations, Republicans didn't want anything to do with it, because it was too toxic. But as we got closer and closer to the 2020 election, we saw this total unwillingness to disavow.
And Marjorie Taylor Greene, I think, is going to be the most extreme test of this thought. They're going to the issue is that she is of the base right? now that the base is now in power. And she's really a very like a post-Trump extremist congresswoman, in the sense that if you remember Steve King from Iowa, who espoused these kind of white nationalist ideas and was associated with extremist groups, he kept trying to cage his beliefs in ideas that would sound acceptable to what he perceived to be mainstream conservatives. Greene is extremely outspoken about her the things that she hates, about her anti-democratic, hard-right, authoritarian views. I'm talking about executing politicians and so forth.
This is a new world. And the fact that they're unwilling to disavow, it's almost like there are kind of like these soft barriers that exist between violent, far-right extremists and your sort of mainstream, tea party type, you know, or at least your image of that sort of person. And these soft barriers eroded over the course of the Trump era, and eroded and eroded. And they really snapped on January 6th. And then you had these people who look like grandmothers or whatever standing with people wearing these "Camp Auschwitz" sweatshirt or whatever. I mean, this is really dark stuff. And I'm not particularly optimistic, to be honest with you, that McCarthy or anybody else is going to take a strong public stance and disavow, because this is what the Republican Party has become, unfortunately.
AMY GOODMAN: They stripped King of his appointments, and ultimately he would lose in Iowa, when he didn't have the clout that the people of Iowa in his district needed.
MICHAEL EDISON HAYDEN: That's correct.
AMY GOODMAN: Do you see anything like that happening with Congressmember Greene?
MICHAEL EDISON HAYDEN: I mean, it's theoretically possible. But the fact that Trump incited this insurrection and, I mean, I think that's pretty clear; that's my perception of it and they are still willing to kind of go to bed with Trump, I think, says something about their fear of the base, that the base is actually in control of the Republican Party in some ways.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, Michael Edison Hayden, we're going to leave it there. We want to thank you so much for being with us, senior investigative reporter with the Southern Poverty Law Center.
When we come back, well, Black History Month has begun. We look back at the assassination of Black Panther leader Fred Hampton in Chicago 51 years ago. New documents suggest J. Edgar Hoover, head of the FBI, was involved with Fred Hampton's murder. And we'll speak to the director of a film that's premiering at Sundance called Judas and the Black Messiah. Stay with us.
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