Although it appears that Ron DeSantis has stepped down from his moderating duties, there are other candidates for office using a white supremacist Facebook group to self-promote.
DeSantis One Of Several Republican Candidates Associated With Racist Facebook Group
A sample of posts in the Tea Party group on Facebook.Credit: Screen capture
August 30, 2018

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.

Media Matters has more:

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.

Can you help us out?

For nearly 20 years we have been exposing Washington lies and untangling media deceit, but now Facebook is drowning us in an ocean of right wing lies. Please give a one-time or recurring donation, or buy a year's subscription for an ad-free experience. Thank you.

Discussion

We welcome relevant, respectful comments. Any comments that are sexist or in any other way deemed hateful by our staff will be deleted and constitute grounds for a ban from posting on the site. Please refer to our Terms of Service for information on our posting policy.
Mastodon