Late Wednesday, news broke that Ron DeSantis was one of 50 moderators of a white supremacist Facebook group known as the Tea Party. Just that. No "patriots" or location-specific designation. Just the Tea Party, which boasts nearly 100,000 members.
The group is a "sister group" to the Citizens for Trump group, which routinely cross-promotes racist, conspiratorial content from the Tea Party group.
On Thursday, there were only 49 group administrator/moderators. DeSantis no longer appeared on the list, but a review on Thursday morning indicated there were other Republican candidates for office still listed as group administrators.
For example, perennial Nevada candidate Danny Tarkanian was listed as an admin and a member. Tarkanian is running for a seat in the House of Representatives vacated when Jacky Rosen declared her candidacy for Dean Heller's seat.
Kelli Ward, who just lost her bid to run for Senator Jeff Flake's seat in November is another.
Additional candidates listed as group admins on Thursday morning: Texas Congressional candidate Danny Crenshaw, white supremacist neo-confederate Corey Stewart, running against Senator Tim Kaine in Virginia, Patrick Morrisey, vying for the Senate in West Virginia, and Matt Rosendale, running against Jon Tester in Montana. (A review of the list on Thursday afternoon indicates Amy and Danny Tarkanian and Patrick Morrisey are no longer listed as admins. Some of these candidates seem to be allergic to sunlight.)
Here's the entire list, as captured Thursday morning. DeSantis is gone but it features some other prominent names on there, like Islamophobe Pamela Geller and Pizzagate promoter Jack Prosobiec.
- Patrick Howley of the far-right site Big League Politics, which has recently been linked to a far-right harassment network.
- Eliyokim Cohen of the racist fake news site Jews News.
- Jan Morgan, an Islamophobic bigot who banned Muslims from her gun range and serves as the national spokesperson for "Citizens for Trump."
- Joe Newby of the far-right clickbait site Conservative Firing Line.
- Trevor Loudon, a New Zealand activist and longtime far-right conspiracy theorist.
- Tom Tancredo, a white nationalist apologist, once columnist for WND and Breitbart, and former congressman from Colorado.
No one should be shocked by this. There is no difference -- none whatsoever -- between the Republican Party and these racist, conspiracy-driven lunatics who worship at the cult of Trump. This is why we continue to insist that none dare call it "Trumpism" when it's just the usual Republicans, doing Republican things.
Just as DeSantis' "monkey it up" comment was unapologetically racist, so too is the entire Republican party, and they're out and proud of it.
