'The Republican congressmen Louis Gohmert and Paul Gosar adopted such
extreme, conspiracy-tinged positions, even before the US Capitol attack,
that a fellow member of the rightwing Freedom Caucus thought they “may
have had serious cognitive issues”.'
<
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/sep/27/denver-riggleman-book-republicans-paul-gosar-louie-gohmert>
'Once in, he says, he “began to understand that some of my colleagues
had fully bought into even the more unhinged conspiracy theories I had
been seeing out on the campaign trail”.
Riggleman describes one meeting in which Gohmert “promoted a conspiracy theory related to master algorithms”, saying he “suspected there was a secret technology shadow-banning conservatives across all platforms”.
Riggleman writes that others “nodded along”, though “of course, that’s crazy”. He says he said “something to that effect” during the meeting in question.
In subsequent meetings, Riggleman “would come to see that Gohmert was
one of a few colleagues who had gone deep down the rabbit hole.
“Scott Perry, Jody Hice, Randy Weber and the caucus chairman, Andy
Biggs, all said things that stunned me.”
Gosar is a far-right provocateur whose many controversies include being censured for tweeting a video depicting violence against Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a prominent New York progressive.
Riggleman says Gosar and Gohmert “seemed to be joined at the brain stem
when it came to their eagerness to believe wild, dramatic fantasies
about Democrats, the media and big tech.'
Oh, and of course:
'Riggleman also calls Gosar “a blatant white supremacist”, describing
him and the Iowa Republican Steve King “making a case for white
supremacy over pulled pork and ribs”.
“It was unbelievable,” Riggleman writes. “I had always bristled when I’d
hear Democrats dismiss Republicans as ‘racists’. To me, it seemed like
an easy insult that dodged policy discussions. Now, here I was behind
the curtain, seeing that some of my colleagues really seemed to hold
these awful views.”'
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