theintercept--2020-09-23--How QAnon Conspiracy Theories Spread in My Colorado Hometown

, I noticed this alarming shift in my Facebook feed .
Childhood friends and old high school acquaintances began plastering my timeline with posts referring to a satanic cabal of pedophile elites , including hysterical , unfounded claims about the proliferation of child sex trafficking and cultural or political efforts to “ normalize ” pedophilia .
During the pandemic , some of the people I grew up with in Colorado had gotten sucked into QAnon , the sprawling and baseless pro-Trump conspiracy theory that is deemed a domestic terror threat by the FBI .
I remembered them as perfectly reasonable @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , but all frozen in my memory as intellectually curious .
Now , online and from a distance , I was watching them change .
Young , white suburban women , in particular , were falling for a Q-adjacent movement , “ Save the Children , ” which raises false fears about child sex trafficking through fabricated stories , pastel infographics , and hashtag campaigns .
“ When George Floyd cried for his momma everyone ‘ felt that , ’ now try to imagine 22,000 CHILDREN A DAY crying for their momma and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ‘ feel that ’ too !
!
# SaveOurChildren , ” read one post liked by nearly a dozen people I went to school with .
Other posts incorporated Covid-19 misinformation or advocated against mask-wearing : “ Mask or no mask ?
What we NEED to ask is where the fuck did 8 million children go ?
?
?
” another image read .
Parker is an affluent suburb in Douglas County , the richest county in the state and among the richest in the nation .
The population is heavily conservative and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ lived there , Parker was about 93 percent white , though it has diversified a bit more in recent years , according to census data .
The suburb ’ s member of Congress , Republican Rep. Ken Buck , is among the GOP lawmakers fueling Save the Children conspiracy theorists .
He ’ s demanding that the Department of Justice investigate the Netflix film “ Cuties , ” which has faced intense backlash over claims that it sexualizes young girls .
The film , a coming-of-age comedy-drama directed by French Senegalese filmmaker Maïmouna @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the pedophile-obsessed .
A few of the friends I spoke with were young moms who recently began posting Q-curious content , adopting the anti-trafficking cause as their top issue — despite openly detesting the Trump administration and otherwise holding left-leaning positions .
Jared Holt , an investigative reporter at Right Wing Watch who has been covering QAnon since its inception , said that this web of conspiracy theories during the pandemic has “ spread so much that it ’ s coming home to roost in places we were not expecting.
” “ During @ @ @ @ @ @ @ really , as a movement , found a lot of success breaking out of its confines among sort of the far-right fringe , ” Holt said .
“ You are now seeing mommy bloggers , health and wellness influencers , MMA fighters , various celebrities embracing parts or the whole of QAnon.
” The cult-like movement is achieving undeniable influence in the political sphere , including through dozens of QAnon candidates who have run for Congress this cycle and Marjorie Taylor Green ’ s unsettling primary victory in Georgia .
President Donald Trump @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that love our country , ” while countless Republican lawmakers have avoided disavowing it .
Save the Children marches have attracted small but impassioned crowds — notably diverse in race , gender , and age — in cities across the U.S. , and some adherents have already committed criminal or violent acts inspired by their beliefs .
Last month , NBC News reported that an internal investigation by Facebook revealed millions of members in QAnon groups and pages .
The following week , the company announced that it would be removing and restricting @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and groups from its sites , including Instagram .
But the Q believers I spoke with stumbled upon these incomprehensible ideas the old-fashioned way .
They say they were indoctrinated ( though they don ’ t use that term ) by their parents , other family members , and friends , or introduced to the conspiracy through word-of-mouth , rather than via the algorithms that have received the most national attention .
But word-of-mouth alone isn ’ t enough .
The ability of people sitting at home to follow the online rabbit holes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ an ever-changing web of trafficking conspiracy theories bounce around their circle of mom friends , like the debunked Wayfair conspiracy theory and USPS phishing text scam .
The Jeffrey Epstein saga , a real-life case that involved an alleged sex trafficking ring and was covered by reputable news outlets , has also served as a key gateway into QAnon .
Zoë Royer , a 23-year-old youth advocate based in Denver , said QAnon and Save the Children is everywhere .
“ The Parker bubble is so real , ” she said .
“ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s very new , and it takes a while to get to the major highways , like — you really can just stay in Parker and have no idea of what the entire rest of the world is like.
” She agreed that the theories have captured moms especially , adding that most people have been bored and cooped up at home during the pandemic .
“ This all kind of popped up around the same time that the [ Black Lives Matter ] protests did as well , ” Royer said .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ s such a conservative area — and the fact that there was a popular movement and reaction to all the police brutality , that they couldn ’ t straight up say , ‘ no , we ’ re anti-BLM ’ — they kind of had to grasp onto this other basically fake story to make it seem like they are the ethical crusaders.
” , 24 , is a stay-at-home mom in Dacono , Colorado , a small town north of Denver .
She lived all around the state growing up but moved @ @ @ @ @ @ @ school and high school , just before starting seventh grade .
Nash comes from a law enforcement family and , like many of my old classmates , inherited her parents ’ conservative ideals .
“ I didn ’ t know about any of this until a couple months ago , ” Nash told me .
“ I actually heard about it from my mom .
I don ’ t know how long she knew about it , but she started talking to me about it because she started reading a couple of books.
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ Calm Before the Storm ” by Dave Hayes , a Christian author and QAnon star known online as the “ Praying Medic.
” His YouTube channel has more than 386,000 subscribers and the book , which sells for $ 15.42 on Amazon , is ranked No .
17 in the Political Corruption & Misconduct category and No .
22 in books about the United States National Government .
In the book , Hayes explains the entire theory and “ decodes ” Q drops , including a glossary of Q terms and codes at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at first , I thought she was psychotic , ” Nash continued .
“ She just started making these claims that sounded outrageous to me , like ‘ JFK Jr. is not dead.
’ ” ( Hardcore Q believers think John F. Kennedy Jr. is alive and a Trump supporter who lives in Pittsburgh . )
Among her mother ’ s claims , Nash said , were stories about celebrities , including big Hollywood names , doing “ ritual sacrifices ” on Epstein ’ s island in the U.S. Virgin Islands .
“ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” Nash said .
“ I was kind of laughing it off.
” But then her friends started talking about it too .
“ My friend Ashley Campbell , she was like , ‘ No , I actually think this too and here ’ s why , ’ ” Nash continued .
“ And she recommended me some books and documentaries to watch , and she also added me to this Facebook group .
After I watched that , it was super eye-opening .
It was about three hours long , and I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ if you don ’ t have anything to back it up.
” In late June , she began posting regularly about QAnon and related conspiracy theories on Facebook , sharing viral content from other accounts .
I asked if she buys into some of the other conspiracy theories that have merged into the Q world , like anti-vaccine or anti-mask views .
Nash said she is not personally against vaccines and has no problem wearing a mask in public if it ’ s required , but understands the skepticism other QAnon believers may @ @ @ @ @ @ @ vaccine .
Like other followers of the movement , she also shares a deep distrust of the media and has been avoiding all mainstream news outlets .
“ Even Fox News , I don ’ t really like to watch that much , ” she said , adding that she avoids Google and uses the search engine DuckDuckGo instead .
“ My sister , she is a police officer , she believes in [ QAnon ] , ” Nash said .
“ Not sure about my dad , he ’ s a police @ @ @ @ @ @ @ part , it ’ s me and my mom discussing it.
” criminal justice student aiming to go into law enforcement , first got into QAnon a few months ago , learning about the conspiracy theory through a three-hour YouTube video recommended by her brother and dad , who ’ s a federal employee .
An avid Trump supporter , she said she was pretty confident he was headed for reelection until the pandemic hit .
But seeing how widely the QAnon and Save the Children movements have spread around Colorado , including @ @ @ @ @ @ @ banner over a bridge , ” has renewed her optimism .
“ It ’ s giving me a little bit of hope that our president in the coming term could be on our side.
” “ As a Trump supporter , I kinda feel like I ’ m alone most of the time in my beliefs , ” Campbell said .
“ But this one I feel like I ’ m part of the majority because everyone is kind of thinking the same thing.
” But QAnon isn ’ t just a set @ @ @ @ @ @ @ into an alternate reality , which , at its core , is calling for the mass arrests and execution of the president ’ s political enemies .
And because followers inherently distrust traditional media and most forms of authority , it becomes difficult to deradicalize them .
Notably , a Parker woman was arrested last December in Montana and charged with conspiracy to commit kidnapping , as she was allegedly planning an armed raid to kidnap her child from foster care with help from QAnon .
The woman , Cynthia Abcug , lost @ @ @ @ @ @ @ according to an arrest affidavit , her daughter told the police that Abcug had “ gotten into some conspiracy theories and she was ‘ spiraling down it.
’ ” I asked Campbell whether she had any concerns about QAnon-inspired violence or believers getting in too deep and acting on it .
For a very brief moment , I felt like there was a small breakthrough .
“ To be honest — this is going to sound kind of dumb of me — but I had never really even thought about the possibility of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , ” she replied .
“ I guess I do now , because I had never really thought about it before , but yeah it is scary .
It is really scary , and I ’ m sure it won ’ t be the end of it getting to people ’ s heads because how do you really stop it at that point ?
Once you realize , oh shit , this actually is so real.
” lives in Parker , working at a coffee shop at the heart of Old Town Parker @ @ @ @ @ @ @ doesn ’ t affiliate with either political party , but does consider himself “ a big environmentalist , so things that have to do with the environment and regulations , I tend to care about more.
” “ I work at a coffee shop , so I just overhear people talking a lot , ” Priester said .
“ Certain members of my extended family had mentioned it to me in the past , and then I kept hearing — I mean , just in passing on the street , in the coffee @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , I ’ d just hear people talking about Q. I thought , what is this thing ?
” He got into the Pizzagate conspiracy theory , which first circulated before the 2016 election , before it began receiving mainstream attention .
Unlike Campbell , Priester didn ’ t seem troubled by Abcug ’ s case or the possibility of violence , believing that QAnon primarily attracts the nature-loving hippie types .
“ From what I ’ ve seen from the QAnon movement , I ’ ve only ever seen love and light @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” he said .
“ I ’ ve never met a violent , or someone who knows about Q and is an inherently violent , individual , ” he continued .
“ But I ’ ve met a lot of people who are into Q who are very hippie-dippy types , very open love and , you know , wanting to save the world through peace and unity .
Again , I ’ m aware that there ’ s a few kind of religious , cultish kind of groups that claim to be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , as well , I roll my eyes at , because it ’ s like , you ’ re doing it wrong .
That ’ s not what the movement is.
” Another way in which QAnon ’ s influence has spread — even across ideological lines — is through viral videos on TikTok , a popular short-form video platform .
The app is awash with conspiracy theories about missing children and the “ pedophile elites , ” the type of content that can grab the attention of even avowed liberals .
One @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , a 25-year-old mom and brand strategist living in a suburban community in Los Angeles County , is one such example .
We met in Parker during my senior year and had bonded over our shared high school obsession with Barack Obama .
After college , we drifted apart , but recently reconnected and picked up where we left off .
I had grown out of my adolescent fondness for the former president , largely out of ideological differences and a journalistic conviction to challenge power , while she grew out of her @ @ @ @ @ @ @ participation in satanic rituals with other Democratic Party figures .
Metzner has had left-of-center politics since I first met her and is particularly vocal in support of the Black Lives Matter movement .
She cares deeply about a range of progressive issues and generally aligns with the Bernie Sanders wing of the Democratic Party .
In recent months , she ’ s also gotten into spirituality , meditation , and the like , which , combined with her bell-bottoms and lifelong love of Stevie Nicks , makes her the kind of hippie Priester @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s algorithm is insane , ” Metzner told me .
“ So I started seeing it and I just went down the rabbit hole .
Now I see it all the time because I literally spent a week , like manic episode , just going through the internet and finding all these videos and documents and flight logs , you know , watching survivors ’ videos.
” In earlier stages of QAnon , boomers seemed particularly susceptible to the conspiracy theory ’ s claims , more likely to share and engage with its @ @ @ @ @ @ @ revival on TikTok — and its transformation into a theory that focused on celebrities like Justin Bieber and Chrissy Teigen , rather than political figures — accelerated QAnon ’ s reach among younger generations , especially teenagers .
Metzner ’ s “ For You ” page usually consists of “ a lot of nature stuff and pretty videos , ” but then “ it ’ ll pop in a video of Save the Children stuff.
” She ’ s genuinely terrified about child trafficking and worries for her 3-year-old daughter ’ s safety @ @ @ @ @ @ @ insist on the ubiquity of child sex trafficking , are using tactics that were perfected by the mainstream , bipartisan anti-trafficking movement .
QAnon and Save the Children have thrived , in large part , because a less ridiculous version has long been a force in political orthodoxy .
As Melissa Gira Grant has argued in the New Republic , decades of exaggerated anti-trafficking rhetoric and sex trafficking “ awareness ” campaigns helped drive our current panic .
“ Anti-child sex trafficking memes were already popular on Facebook and Instagram , ” she @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a mix of both overt and more subtle mentions of QAnon.
” Common claims and statistics about human trafficking that go viral online are often exaggerated , misinterpreted , or taken out of context .
The claim that 1 in 4 victims of trafficking are children , for example , is based on a 2017 report from the International Labour Organization , which was done in collaboration with other groups .
But ILO ’ s figures are more complicated than can be conveyed in a short tweet ; the organization factored in a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ forced marriage and forced labor , which is a much more prevalent form of trafficking and exploitation than say , getting kidnapped in the suburbs .
As a recent HuffPost article noted , the problem of child exploitation “ persists for complicated , heartbreaking reasons that have more to do with the failure of America ’ s social safety net than the rapaciousness of its criminal sex offenders.
” Though Metzner didn ’ t use the word QAnon or seem as diehard as many of the other believers I spoke with , she @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by the “ horrifying rumors ” surrounding the Clintons and Obama , a politician she once admired .
When it came to the Epstein stuff , I couldn ’ t argue with some of the broader disdain I heard for a system and ruling class that let the late millionaire financier off the hook .
But these occasional kernels of truth were always intertwined with the indefensible .
Using bits of truth to support a bigger , baseless conspiracy theory , Holt noted , “ is a practice as old as time.
” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ keeping a conspiracy theory going and interesting , sort of evolving the conspiracy theory , ” he said .
“ Then , it also acts as a vector to open up potentially another entry point for new believers to come into the movement .
”

Earlier this summer , I noticed this alarming shift in my Facebook feed. Childhood friends and old high school acquaintances began plastering my timeline with posts referring to a satanic cabal of pedophile elites, including hysterical, unfounded claims about the proliferation of child sex trafficking and cultural or political efforts to “normalize” pedophilia.
During the pandemic, some of the people I grew up with in Colorado had gotten sucked into QAnon, the sprawling and baseless pro-Trump conspiracy theory that is deemed a domestic terror threat by the FBI. I remembered them as perfectly reasonable people: some liberal, some conservative, but all frozen in my memory as intellectually curious. Now, online and from a distance, I was watching them change. Young, white suburban women, in particular, were falling for a Q-adjacent movement, “Save the Children,” which raises false fears about child sex trafficking through fabricated stories, pastel infographics, and hashtag campaigns.
“When George Floyd cried for his momma everyone ‘felt that,’ now try to imagine 22,000 CHILDREN A DAY crying for their momma and no one hearing them! Please, ‘feel that’ too!! #SaveOurChildren,” read one post liked by nearly a dozen people I went to school with. Other posts incorporated Covid-19 misinformation or advocated against mask-wearing: “Mask or no mask? What we NEED to ask is where the fuck did 8 million children go???” another image read.
Save the Children is different in tone than straight-up QAnon, which originated on the anonymous discussion board 4chan in October 2017, with an unknown individual (or group of individuals) called “Q” claiming to have top-security clearance within the U.S. government. Q believers think that someone in the Trump administration has been using online message boards to send coded messages, known as “Q drops,” about the president’s secret war against this cabal to the public. Once a fringe conspiracy theory among Trump’s most ardent supporters, QAnon’s latest iteration is taking over white women in suburban communities, particularly mothers, and several other unexpected demographics. In Parker, Colorado, the suburban town I lived in for nearly a decade, and surrounding cities, it now feels like QAnon is everywhere.
Once a fringe conspiracy theory among Trump’s most ardent supporters, QAnon’s latest iteration is taking over white women in suburban communities, particularly mothers.
Parker is an affluent suburb in Douglas County, the richest county in the state and among the richest in the nation. The population is heavily conservative and predominantly white. In the time I lived there, Parker was about 93 percent white, though it has diversified a bit more in recent years, according to census data. The suburb’s member of Congress, Republican Rep. Ken Buck, is among the GOP lawmakers fueling Save the Children conspiracy theorists. He’s demanding that the Department of Justice investigate the Netflix film “Cuties,” which has faced intense backlash over claims that it sexualizes young girls. The film, a coming-of-age comedy-drama directed by French Senegalese filmmaker Maïmouna Doucouré, became an instant target for the pedophile-obsessed.
A few of the friends I spoke with were young moms who recently began posting Q-curious content, adopting the anti-trafficking cause as their top issue — despite openly detesting the Trump administration and otherwise holding left-leaning positions.
Jared Holt, an investigative reporter at Right Wing Watch who has been covering QAnon since its inception, said that this web of conspiracy theories during the pandemic has “spread so much that it’s coming home to roost in places we were not expecting.”
“During the last six months, QAnon has really, as a movement, found a lot of success breaking out of its confines among sort of the far-right fringe,” Holt said. “You are now seeing mommy bloggers, health and wellness influencers, MMA fighters, various celebrities embracing parts or the whole of QAnon.”
The cult-like movement is achieving undeniable influence in the political sphere, including through dozens of QAnon candidates who have run for Congress this cycle and Marjorie Taylor Green’s unsettling primary victory in Georgia. President Donald Trump has praised Q believers as “people that love our country,” while countless Republican lawmakers have avoided disavowing it. Save the Children marches have attracted small but impassioned crowds — notably diverse in race, gender, and age — in cities across the U.S., and some adherents have already committed criminal or violent acts inspired by their beliefs.
People march during a “Save the Children” rally outside the Capitol building on August 22, 2020 in St Paul, Minnesota. Hundreds of rallies around the country, meant to decry human trafficking and pedophilia, are scheduled for today, some of which have been linked to social media accounts promoting the QAnon conspiracy. Photo: Stephen Maturen/Getty Images
Last month, NBC News reported that an internal investigation by Facebook revealed millions of members in QAnon groups and pages. The following week, the company announced that it would be removing and restricting thousands of QAnon accounts, pages, and groups from its sites, including Instagram.
But the Q believers I spoke with stumbled upon these incomprehensible ideas the old-fashioned way. They say they were indoctrinated (though they don’t use that term) by their parents, other family members, and friends, or introduced to the conspiracy through word-of-mouth, rather than via the algorithms that have received the most national attention. But word-of-mouth alone isn’t enough. The ability of people sitting at home to follow the online rabbit holes downward is critical. Moms are seeing an ever-changing web of trafficking conspiracy theories bounce around their circle of mom friends, like the debunked Wayfair conspiracy theory and USPS phishing text scam. The Jeffrey Epstein saga, a real-life case that involved an alleged sex trafficking ring and was covered by reputable news outlets, has also served as a key gateway into QAnon.
Zoë Royer, a 23-year-old youth advocate based in Denver, said QAnon and Save the Children is everywhere. “The Parker bubble is so real,” she said. “It’s this exurb that’s very new, and it takes a while to get to the major highways, like — you really can just stay in Parker and have no idea of what the entire rest of the world is like.”
She agreed that the theories have captured moms especially, adding that most people have been bored and cooped up at home during the pandemic. “This all kind of popped up around the same time that the [Black Lives Matter] protests did as well,” Royer said. “I think that because it’s such a conservative area — and the fact that there was a popular movement and reaction to all the police brutality, that they couldn’t straight up say, ‘no, we’re anti-BLM’ — they kind of had to grasp onto this other basically fake story to make it seem like they are the ethical crusaders.”
Savanna Nash , 24, is a stay-at-home mom in Dacono, Colorado, a small town north of Denver. She lived all around the state growing up but moved to Parker, where she attended middle school and high school, just before starting seventh grade. Nash comes from a law enforcement family and, like many of my old classmates, inherited her parents’ conservative ideals.
“I didn’t know about any of this until a couple months ago,” Nash told me. “I actually heard about it from my mom. I don’t know how long she knew about it, but she started talking to me about it because she started reading a couple of books.”
One of those books was “Calm Before the Storm” by Dave Hayes, a Christian author and QAnon star known online as the “Praying Medic.” His YouTube channel has more than 386,000 subscribers and the book, which sells for $15.42 on Amazon, is ranked No. 17 in the Political Corruption & Misconduct category and No. 22 in books about the United States National Government. In the book, Hayes explains the entire theory and “decodes” Q drops, including a glossary of Q terms and codes at the end.
“And honestly, at first, I thought she was psychotic,” Nash continued. “She just started making these claims that sounded outrageous to me, like ‘JFK Jr. is not dead.’” (Hardcore Q believers think John F. Kennedy Jr. is alive and a Trump supporter who lives in Pittsburgh.)
Among her mother’s claims, Nash said, were stories about celebrities, including big Hollywood names, doing “ritual sacrifices” on Epstein’s island in the U.S. Virgin Islands. “It just sounded ridiculous to me,” Nash said. “I was kind of laughing it off.”
But then her friends started talking about it too. “My friend Ashley Campbell, she was like, ‘No, I actually think this too and here’s why,’” Nash continued. “And she recommended me some books and documentaries to watch, and she also added me to this Facebook group. After I watched that, it was super eye-opening. It was about three hours long, and I liked it because those things sound crazy if you don’t have anything to back it up.”
In late June, she began posting regularly about QAnon and related conspiracy theories on Facebook, sharing viral content from other accounts. I asked if she buys into some of the other conspiracy theories that have merged into the Q world, like anti-vaccine or anti-mask views. Nash said she is not personally against vaccines and has no problem wearing a mask in public if it’s required, but understands the skepticism other QAnon believers may have about the development of a coronavirus vaccine. Like other followers of the movement, she also shares a deep distrust of the media and has been avoiding all mainstream news outlets. “Even Fox News, I don’t really like to watch that much,” she said, adding that she avoids Google and uses the search engine DuckDuckGo instead.
“My sister, she is a police officer, she believes in [QAnon],” Nash said. “Not sure about my dad, he’s a police officer as well. For the most part, it’s me and my mom discussing it.”
Campbell, a criminal justice student aiming to go into law enforcement, first got into QAnon a few months ago, learning about the conspiracy theory through a three-hour YouTube video recommended by her brother and dad, who’s a federal employee.
An avid Trump supporter, she said she was pretty confident he was headed for reelection until the pandemic hit. But seeing how widely the QAnon and Save the Children movements have spread around Colorado, including recently spotting a “Save the Children banner over a bridge,” has renewed her optimism. “It’s giving me a little bit of hope that our president in the coming term could be on our side.”
“As a Trump supporter, I kinda feel like I’m alone most of the time in my beliefs,” Campbell said. “But this one I feel like I’m part of the majority because everyone is kind of thinking the same thing.”
But QAnon isn’t just a set of beliefs. The movement draws adherents into an alternate reality, which, at its core, is calling for the mass arrests and execution of the president’s political enemies. And because followers inherently distrust traditional media and most forms of authority, it becomes difficult to deradicalize them.
“As a Trump supporter, I kinda feel like I’m alone most of the time in my beliefs. But this one I feel like I’m part of the majority because everyone is kind of thinking the same thing.”
Notably, a Parker woman was arrested last December in Montana and charged with conspiracy to commit kidnapping, as she was allegedly planning an armed raid to kidnap her child from foster care with help from QAnon. The woman, Cynthia Abcug, lost custody of her son, and, according to an arrest affidavit, her daughter told the police that Abcug had “gotten into some conspiracy theories and she was ‘spiraling down it.’”
I asked Campbell whether she had any concerns about QAnon-inspired violence or believers getting in too deep and acting on it. For a very brief moment, I felt like there was a small breakthrough.
“To be honest — this is going to sound kind of dumb of me — but I had never really even thought about the possibility of people taking it into their own hands,” she replied. “I guess I do now, because I had never really thought about it before, but yeah it is scary. It is really scary, and I’m sure it won’t be the end of it getting to people’s heads because how do you really stop it at that point? Once you realize, oh shit, this actually is so real.”
Austin Priester still lives in Parker, working at a coffee shop at the heart of Old Town Parker and teaching theater classes nearby. He doesn’t affiliate with either political party, but does consider himself “a big environmentalist, so things that have to do with the environment and regulations, I tend to care about more.”
“I work at a coffee shop, so I just overhear people talking a lot,” Priester said. “Certain members of my extended family had mentioned it to me in the past, and then I kept hearing — I mean, just in passing on the street, in the coffee shop, at restaurants, at bars, I’d just hear people talking about Q. I thought, what is this thing?”
He got into the Pizzagate conspiracy theory, which first circulated before the 2016 election, before it began receiving mainstream attention.
Unlike Campbell, Priester didn’t seem troubled by Abcug’s case or the possibility of violence, believing that QAnon primarily attracts the nature-loving hippie types. “From what I’ve seen from the QAnon movement, I’ve only ever seen love and light talked about and emanated from that,” he said.
“I’ve never met a violent, or someone who knows about Q and is an inherently violent, individual,” he continued. “But I’ve met a lot of people who are into Q who are very hippie-dippy types, very open love and, you know, wanting to save the world through peace and unity. Again, I’m aware that there’s a few kind of religious, cultish kind of groups that claim to be Q followers or whatever — and that, as well, I roll my eyes at, because it’s like, you’re doing it wrong. That’s not what the movement is.”
Another way in which QAnon’s influence has spread — even across ideological lines — is through viral videos on TikTok, a popular short-form video platform. The app is awash with conspiracy theories about missing children and the “pedophile elites,” the type of content that can grab the attention of even avowed liberals.
One of my closest friends, Taylor Metzner, a 25-year-old mom and brand strategist living in a suburban community in Los Angeles County, is one such example. We met in Parker during my senior year and had bonded over our shared high school obsession with Barack Obama.
After college, we drifted apart, but recently reconnected and picked up where we left off. I had grown out of my adolescent fondness for the former president, largely out of ideological differences and a journalistic conviction to challenge power, while she grew out of her affinity because she became convinced of his participation in satanic rituals with other Democratic Party figures.
Metzner has had left-of-center politics since I first met her and is particularly vocal in support of the Black Lives Matter movement. She cares deeply about a range of progressive issues and generally aligns with the Bernie Sanders wing of the Democratic Party. In recent months, she’s also gotten into spirituality, meditation, and the like, which, combined with her bell-bottoms and lifelong love of Stevie Nicks, makes her the kind of hippie Priester was talking about.
Pizzagate’s revival on TikTok — and its transformation into a theory that focused on celebrities, rather than political figures — accelerated QAnon’s reach among younger generations, especially teenagers.
“TikTok’s algorithm is insane,” Metzner told me. “So I started seeing it and I just went down the rabbit hole. Now I see it all the time because I literally spent a week, like manic episode, just going through the internet and finding all these videos and documents and flight logs, you know, watching survivors’ videos.”
In earlier stages of QAnon, boomers seemed particularly susceptible to the conspiracy theory’s claims, more likely to share and engage with its online content. But Pizzagate’s revival on TikTok — and its transformation into a theory that focused on celebrities like Justin Bieber and Chrissy Teigen, rather than political figures — accelerated QAnon’s reach among younger generations, especially teenagers.
Metzner’s “For You” page usually consists of “a lot of nature stuff and pretty videos,” but then “it’ll pop in a video of Save the Children stuff.” She’s genuinely terrified about child trafficking and worries for her 3-year-old daughter’s safety every day.
These movements, which insist on the ubiquity of child sex trafficking, are using tactics that were perfected by the mainstream, bipartisan anti-trafficking movement. QAnon and Save the Children have thrived, in large part, because a less ridiculous version has long been a force in political orthodoxy. As Melissa Gira Grant has argued in the New Republic, decades of exaggerated anti-trafficking rhetoric and sex trafficking “awareness” campaigns helped drive our current panic. “Anti-child sex trafficking memes were already popular on Facebook and Instagram,” she wrote. “Among them now are a mix of both overt and more subtle mentions of QAnon.”
Common claims and statistics about human trafficking that go viral online are often exaggerated, misinterpreted, or taken out of context. The claim that 1 in 4 victims of trafficking are children, for example, is based on a 2017 report from the International Labour Organization, which was done in collaboration with other groups. But ILO’s figures are more complicated than can be conveyed in a short tweet; the organization factored in a wide set of legal concepts, including forced marriage and forced labor, which is a much more prevalent form of trafficking and exploitation than say, getting kidnapped in the suburbs. As a recent HuffPost article noted, the problem of child exploitation “persists for complicated, heartbreaking reasons that have more to do with the failure of America’s social safety net than the rapaciousness of its criminal sex offenders.”
Though Metzner didn’t use the word QAnon or seem as diehard as many of the other believers I spoke with, she said she’s “heartbroken” by the “horrifying rumors” surrounding the Clintons and Obama, a politician she once admired.
When it came to the Epstein stuff, I couldn’t argue with some of the broader disdain I heard for a system and ruling class that let the late millionaire financier off the hook. But these occasional kernels of truth were always intertwined with the indefensible. Using bits of truth to support a bigger, baseless conspiracy theory, Holt noted, “is a practice as old as time.”
“That is a key way of keeping a conspiracy theory going and interesting, sort of evolving the conspiracy theory,” he said. “Then, it also acts as a vector to open up potentially another entry point for new believers to come into the movement.”


theintercept--2020-09-23--Fires Turn Brazil’s Tropical Wetlands Into Wildlife Death Traps

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U.S. Official Hints at Possible Plea Deal for Julian Assange
The U.S. ambassador to Australia said there could be a “resolution” to the Justice Department’s pursuit of Assange.


theintercept--2020-09-24--With Chamber of Commerce Defections, a GOP Mainstay Finds Allies Among Democrats

of the elite wing of the Republican Party into the Democratic fold saw its most pronounced movement earlier this month when the U.S. Chamber of Commerce , long an appendage of the GOP , overcame internal dissension to endorse 23 vulnerable House Democrats for reelection , along with a slate of 30 Democratic congressional candidates total .
The move comes as Democrats have been performing increasingly well among white , suburban voters and the elderly , particularly women , a shift in voting patterns that handed control of the House of Representatives to the party in the 2018 midterms and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Georgia , and North Carolina increasingly competitive .
A new survey from the Atlanta-Journal Constitution found President Donald Trump and Democrat Joe Biden locked in a 47-47 tie in Georgia , while other polls have found Biden within striking distance in Texas .
The tectonic plates are not shifting smoothly , and the move by the Chamber , which is , broadly speaking , a lobbying and political operation funded by large businesses , has sparked an intra-business fight , drawing protestations from the fossil fuel industry , whose loyalty to the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , a top executive at Devon Energy Corp. , quit the U.S. Chamber ’ s board in protest of the endorsements .
Chad Warmington , president of the Oklahoma State Chamber of Commerce , lashed out at the national Chamber for endorsing freshman Democrat Rep. Kendra Horn , who he said was hostile to the industry in Oklahoma .
On Friday , lit up by an article on the drama in Breitbart , Trump and Vice President Mike Pence both demanded a phone call with Chamber head Tom Donohue .
The article , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was headlined , “ The Great Betrayal : How Republican Wunderkind Became Democrat Darling at the Chamber of Commerce , ” and focused on the role of one-time conservative movement figure Neil Bradley in the Chamber ’ s shift .
Pence tried to be conciliatory , acknowledging that every cycle the Chamber has endorsed a Democrat or two , such as New Jersey ’ s Josh Gottheimer or Texan Henry Cuellar .
Still , he noted , never has the operation put its clout behind the full project of making sure that Democrats @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Republicans need to flip 16 Democratic seats to win back the majority , a not-inconceivable feat given how many seats Republicans lost last cycle by the slimmest of margins .
But the Chamber support undercuts that effort in a variety of ways , including by giving a Democrat in a tight race a card to play if they are attacked as a tax-and-spend liberal who ’ ll stall economic growth .
Democrats have not been shy over the past few weeks in touting the endorsement back home .
While the Chamber is a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ local level , town Chambers of Commerce tend to have a Kiwanis-esque reputation for boosting small businesses and working to beautify streets , sponsor Little League teams , or otherwise contribute to the fabric of the community .
The national Chamber routinely exploits that cultural misunderstanding , by positioning itself as similarly benign , and now Democratic candidates can exploit it to their own advantage .
In some ways , the Republican surprise at the Chamber ’ s pivot suggests that leading party figures never understood the organization ’ s mission .
It @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the Republicans , but that ideology was always a cover for its true motive : doing what it is paid to do by big companies and industries , which generally prefer Republicans in power but whose highest priority is profit .
If that means working with Democrats , so be it .
As detailed in the 2016 book by Alyssa Katz , “ The Influence Machine , ” the Chamber on a national level has long been a mercenary project funded by rent-seeking corporations looking to cloak their profit motive in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on his call with Donohue and Pence , asked Donohue if the endorsements were final , and Donohue said the group had no plans to change them , Axios reported .
He noted that bipartisanship had been important for some of Trump ’ s major successes , including his renegotiation of NAFTA .
Oklahoma native , launched his career as an aide to Sen. Tom Coburn , the Oklahoma senator who was the tea party before the tea party .
Bradley went on to work for the Republican Study Committee , a mirror @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
From there , Bradley became a top lieutenant to Rep. Eric Cantor , the Virginia Republican who represented the conservative flank of House leadership before he was stunned in an upset by a local tea party-backed professor , Dave Brat , in a 2014 primary .
Bradley , after a stint with Rep. Kevin McCarthy , the current GOP House leader , wound up at the Chamber , where he serves as executive vice president and chief policy officer .
Brat , in turn , was ousted in 2018 by Democrat Abigail @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , as seats that had only recently been safely in the hands of Republicans began drifting Democratic .
Now the Chamber , under Bradley ’ s guidance , has endorsed Spanberger in his old boss ’ s seat .
The Chamber ’ s realignment has caused great consternation among Republicans , while Democrats , eager for the support , have spent little time discussing what it means to have the backing of an organization it only recently associated with all of the things that are wrong with politics and an economy tilted in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Bradley said that the endorsements prove what the Chamber has always claimed , but rarely been believed : that it is fundamentally nonpartisan .
“ Many of these Democrats are representing districts that were previously represented by Republicans .
Perhaps it ’ s possible that both Republicans and Democrats are representing their districts , ” he said .
Heading into the 2010 midterms , the Chamber went to war against then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her Democratic majority , pumping millions into the effort to flip the House .
“ If they were @ @ @ @ @ @ @ we are now … a plutocracy and oligarchy , ” Pelosi said .
“ Whatever these few wealthy , secret , unlimited sources of money are can control our entire agenda.
” They did win , making Cantor majority leader and in line for the speakership , but Pelosi reclaimed the gavel eight years later , and this time , she and the Chamber have engaged in a delicate dance , as Pelosi quietly refused to bring to the House floor the Protecting the Right to Organize Act , legislation to expand and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to organize workers into unions .
Stopping the PRO Act was a top priority of the Chamber and will remain a top priority in the Biden administration .
Under intense labor union pressure , Pelosi finally put the bill on the floor in early 2020 , where it passed with 224-194 .
Only six Democrats broke with the party and voted against the legislation , meaning that most of the Chamber ’ s endorsed candidates opposed the Chamber on a major priority .
Of the 23 front-line Democrats endorsed by the Chamber , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Ben McAdams in Utah , and Joe Cunningham in South Carolina — sided with the Chamber in the vote .
Those three Democrats won their seats by a total of roughly 7,000 votes .
( Bradley said that the books on the Chamber ’ s scorekeeping were closed early this year , before the PRO Act came to the floor . )
Spanberger voted aye on the PRO Act , but the Chamber ’ s strategy — rooted in the hope that if Democrats take full control in Washington , their willingness @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as it has before — appears to be aspirational .
Indeed , a Pelosi-led House has passed labor law reform before , during the 2007-2008 term , when the party was sure that if it made the desk of President George W. Bush , he would veto it .
Democrats couldn ’ t find the 60 votes needed to overcome a filibuster it in the Senate , and once President Barack Obama was sworn in , it never passed the House again — similar to how Republicans successfully repealed Obamacare more than 50 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it , but somehow couldn ’ t get it to Trump ’ s desk .
The Chamber is no doubt hoping a similar scenario unfolds if former Vice President Joe Biden wins the White House , and is increasing its clout among vulnerable Democrats , which could help them win converts next term , when passing it would actually matter .
Bradley said he would frame the decision to endorse slightly differently .
Endorsing Democrats who performed well on the Chamber ’ s scorecard — which means voting or co-sponsoring the right way @ @ @ @ @ @ @ organization ’ s priority pieces of legislation — was important in terms of building credibility across the aisle , he said .
“ When we started this Congress , there was healthy skepticism [ among Democrats ] that the Chamber would follow through [ on making endorsements ] .
When push came to shove , would they make up an excuse ?
” Going through with endorsements of Democrats in tight races , he said , was the Chamber ’ s way of showing “ you can trust we ’ re going to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ going to stand by our word.
” Indeed , the Chamber ’ s endorsement list includes a who ’ s who of Democrats the GOP was most hoping to pick off : Reps. Sharice Davids of Kansas ; Xochitl Torres Small of New Mexico ; Colin Allred and Lizzie Fletcher of Texas ; Andy Kim of New Jersey ; Abby Finkenauer and Cindy Axne of Iowa ; Elaine Luria of Virginia ; Haley Stevens of Michigan ; David Trone of Maryland ; Angie Craig and Dean Phillips of Minnesota ; Greg Stanton of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and Harley Rouda of California ; Susie Lee of Nevada ; and New York ’ s Anthony Brindisi and Antonio Delgado .
Virtually all of the Democratic candidates endorsed by the Chamber have simultaneously pledged not to accept money from corporate political action committees — though the Chamber ’ s PAC routinely cuts a check to endorsed candidates and has done so in most cases this time , according to Federal Election Commission records .
The Chamber is technically not an individual corporate PAC , but is more accurately the mother of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s major spending this cycle is going mostly to protect vulnerable Senate Republicans to keep Mitch McConnell as Senate majority leader .
The House endorsements have not come with big outside spending , but aside from their intrinsic value , they mean that the Chamber isn ’ t spending against vulnerable Democrats down the stretch , as it often is .
The Chamber also plans to endorse some Republican challengers to incumbent Democrats , Bradley said , but the organization ’ s priority remains the Senate .
Pelosi ’ s major policy priority @ @ @ @ @ @ @ prices , another initiative that the Chamber fiercely opposes , darkly warning that any regulation or negotiation of prices would spell the end of the development of new drugs .
It ’ s a rare area of policy agreement between Pelosi and Trump , though they have so far failed to agree on legislation .
In September , after the Chamber announced its endorsements of key House Democrats , Trump issued an executive order aimed at bringing prices down .
Bradley responded publicly by calling Trump ’ s order a “ flawed and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ substantial reduction in investment in new cures and drugs at the worst possible time , ” followed by a promise to fight back .
“ We urge the administration to reconsider this approach , and the U.S. Chamber is assessing options to challenge this misguided policy , ” he said .
has been mum about the Chamber ’ s new affinity for Democrats , the right has been paying close attention .
“ I don ’ t want the U.S. Chamber ’ s endorsement , because they have sold out , ” Bradley @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Fox News .
“ It is hypocrisy that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce would endorse these Democrats that are part of this socialist agenda that is driving this country out and is fighting this president .
Remember , these are the people who voted for impeachment , when this president has done so much for this nation.
” The Senate ’ s No .
2 Republican , John Cornyn , facing a reelection fight in Texas , has come out swinging .
“ Everyone has their roles to play , ” Bradley said @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and other Republicans .
The truth , he said , is that the business community wants a working relationship with both parties , and worries that political gridlock is bad for the economy in the long-term .
That it ’ s an aide to Cantor — who famously launched the GOP tactic of obstruction by refusing to work with Democrats on an economic stimulus package in 2009 — making that argument is an irony not lost on Bradley , though he noted that Cantor was also criticized from the right for negotiating too @ @ @ @ @ @ @ co-chaired an effort to find a bipartisan path to slash the deficit .
“ Of course there are gon na be votes and times the parties don ’ t work together .
What folks are saying is when things have to get done , or you want reforms that endure , you have to figure out a way to work together across the aisle , and that ’ s what ’ s increasingly lacking , phase four being a perfect example , ” he said , referring to the failed effort to get @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
“ There used to be a few issues where people put on their team colors , and lots of issues where they ’ d work together , from appropriations to infrastructure and even immigration , ” he said .
“ Today every bill is an attempt to put on your team colors.
” Bradley favorably cited last week ’ s passage of the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act .
The bill , he said , was originally the product of liberal groups like the National Women ’ s Law Center , and led @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
The scene was set for a partisan battle , but the Chamber came to the table with concerns from the business world , but also a willingness to see something pass , Bradley said .
The question of how to accommodate pregnant employees , he said , was one that his organization ’ s members would like to see resolved in a uniform way .
The Chamber argued over the bill ’ s clause on dispute resolution , and the final bill settled on employing a similar process to the one used @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with Disabilities Act .
“ Every employer has dealt with that for 30 years , let ’ s copy that process , ” Bradley said the Chamber argued .
“ Not everything has to be a big fight , ” he said of the bill that won 329 votes , including 103 Republicans .
“ There is this belief across the business community we have to figure out how to work with both parties.
” As the Chamber is wandering into the Democratic tent , it ’ s doing so while the party @ @ @ @ @ @ @ time that college-educated and suburban voters are flocking to the party , an insurgent left is making major inroads , even in districts packed with suburban voters .
Chappaqua , New York , home of the Clintons , will be represented by progressive Mondaire Jones after the insurgent won a bruising primary earlier this year .
Marie Newman knocked out Rep. Dan Lipinski in suburban Chicago .
While the Chamber support can be helpful for swing-district Democrats in their reelection bids , doing too much of the Chamber ’ s bidding could end @ @ @ @ @ @ @ primary from the left .
One of the Chamber endorsements , for instance , went to freshman Rep. Sharice Davids , who won a narrow and bitterly fought primary in a wealthy suburban Kansas district in 2018 .
She carried the suburbs , but lost the Black working-class sections of her district to Brent Welder , who had the backing of Justice Democrats , Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez , and Sen. Bernie Sanders .
Davids and her supporters assured voters that she was equally as progressive as her rival , aided by her pledge @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and , with the backing of an EMILY ’ s List Super PAC , won the primary by just over 2,000 votes .
That her claim to the progressive mantle was less than solid became clear when , after being sworn in , she joined the New Democrat Coalition , becoming one of a handful of freshmen to join both the pro-business caucus and the Progressive Caucus simultaneously .
From there , her voting record has been enough to satisfy the Chamber that she deserves reelection .
The death of Supreme Court Justice @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by Republicans to fill her seat ahead of the election is having a radicalizing effect on Democratic voters , who poured more than $ 100 million into the election last weekend , shattering records .
Those voters are going to want something in return for their investment : a Democratic Party that fights back .
But the Chamber ’ s going to have a few things it wants first .
And for that , it ’ ll be leaning on swing-district Democrats .
“ Partisans on both sides wan na paint members of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Every Democrat must be AOC , and conversely for Democrats , every Republican must be whatever bogeyman is the reverse .
That ’ s not true , ” Bradley said of the Bronx lawmaker the Chamber tried and failed to oust in a Democratic primary .
“ AOC did very poorly on the Chamber scorecard .
”

The slow migration of the elite wing of the Republican Party into the Democratic fold saw its most pronounced movement earlier this month when the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, long an appendage of the GOP, overcame internal dissension to endorse 23 vulnerable House Democrats for reelection, along with a slate of 30 Democratic congressional candidates total.
The move comes as Democrats have been performing increasingly well among white, suburban voters and the elderly, particularly women, a shift in voting patterns that handed control of the House of Representatives to the party in the 2018 midterms and has made cul-de-sac right states like Texas, Georgia, and North Carolina increasingly competitive. A new survey from the Atlanta-Journal Constitution found President Donald Trump and Democrat Joe Biden locked in a 47-47 tie in Georgia, while other polls have found Biden within striking distance in Texas.
The tectonic plates are not shifting smoothly, and the move by the Chamber, which is, broadly speaking, a lobbying and political operation funded by large businesses, has sparked an intra-business fight, drawing protestations from the fossil fuel industry, whose loyalty to the GOP has not waned. Allen Wright, a top executive at Devon Energy Corp., quit the U.S. Chamber’s board in protest of the endorsements. Chad Warmington, president of the Oklahoma State Chamber of Commerce, lashed out at the national Chamber for endorsing freshman Democrat Rep. Kendra Horn, who he said was hostile to the industry in Oklahoma.
On Friday, lit up by an article on the drama in Breitbart, Trump and Vice President Mike Pence both demanded a phone call with Chamber head Tom Donohue. The article, in Breitbart’s unsubtle style, was headlined, “The Great Betrayal: How Republican Wunderkind Became Democrat Darling at the Chamber of Commerce,” and focused on the role of one-time conservative movement figure Neil Bradley in the Chamber’s shift.
Pence tried to be conciliatory, acknowledging that every cycle the Chamber has endorsed a Democrat or two, such as New Jersey’s Josh Gottheimer or Texan Henry Cuellar. Still, he noted, never has the operation put its clout behind the full project of making sure that Democrats retain the majority in the House. Republicans need to flip 16 Democratic seats to win back the majority, a not-inconceivable feat given how many seats Republicans lost last cycle by the slimmest of margins. But the Chamber support undercuts that effort in a variety of ways, including by giving a Democrat in a tight race a card to play if they are attacked as a tax-and-spend liberal who’ll stall economic growth.
Democrats have not been shy over the past few weeks in touting the endorsement back home.
While the Chamber is a different beast in Washington, at the local level, town Chambers of Commerce tend to have a Kiwanis-esque reputation for boosting small businesses and working to beautify streets, sponsor Little League teams, or otherwise contribute to the fabric of the community. The national Chamber routinely exploits that cultural misunderstanding, by positioning itself as similarly benign, and now Democratic candidates can exploit it to their own advantage.
The Chamber has been a fierce ideological ally of the Republicans, but that ideology was always a cover for its true motive: doing what it is paid to do by big companies and industries.
In some ways, the Republican surprise at the Chamber’s pivot suggests that leading party figures never understood the organization’s mission. It has indeed been a fierce ideological ally of the Republicans, but that ideology was always a cover for its true motive: doing what it is paid to do by big companies and industries, which generally prefer Republicans in power but whose highest priority is profit. If that means working with Democrats, so be it. As detailed in the 2016 book by Alyssa Katz, “The Influence Machine,” the Chamber on a national level has long been a mercenary project funded by rent-seeking corporations looking to cloak their profit motive in the sheen of pro-growth ideology.
Trump, on his call with Donohue and Pence, asked Donohue if the endorsements were final, and Donohue said the group had no plans to change them, Axios reported. He noted that bipartisanship had been important for some of Trump’s major successes, including his renegotiation of NAFTA.
Neil Bradley, an Oklahoma native, launched his career as an aide to Sen. Tom Coburn, the Oklahoma senator who was the tea party before the tea party. Bradley went on to work for the Republican Study Committee, a mirror version of the House Congressional Progressive Caucus. From there, Bradley became a top lieutenant to Rep. Eric Cantor, the Virginia Republican who represented the conservative flank of House leadership before he was stunned in an upset by a local tea party-backed professor, Dave Brat, in a 2014 primary. Bradley, after a stint with Rep. Kevin McCarthy, the current GOP House leader, wound up at the Chamber, where he serves as executive vice president and chief policy officer.
Brat, in turn, was ousted in 2018 by Democrat Abigail Spanberger, a veteran of the CIA, as seats that had only recently been safely in the hands of Republicans began drifting Democratic. Now the Chamber, under Bradley’s guidance, has endorsed Spanberger in his old boss’s seat. The Chamber’s realignment has caused great consternation among Republicans, while Democrats, eager for the support, have spent little time discussing what it means to have the backing of an organization it only recently associated with all of the things that are wrong with politics and an economy tilted in favor of the wealthy and powerful.
Bradley said that the endorsements prove what the Chamber has always claimed, but rarely been believed: that it is fundamentally nonpartisan. “Many of these Democrats are representing districts that were previously represented by Republicans. Perhaps it’s possible that both Republicans and Democrats are representing their districts,” he said.
Heading into the 2010 midterms, the Chamber went to war against then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her Democratic majority, pumping millions into the effort to flip the House. “If they were to win, it would mean that we are now … a plutocracy and oligarchy,” Pelosi said. “Whatever these few wealthy, secret, unlimited sources of money are can control our entire agenda.”
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi speaks during a press conference advocating for the passage of the Protecting the Right to Organize Act in the House of Representatives on Capitol Hill on Feb. 5, 2020 in Washington, D.C. Photo: Samuel Corum/Getty Images
They did win, making Cantor majority leader and in line for the speakership, but Pelosi reclaimed the gavel eight years later, and this time, she and the Chamber have engaged in a delicate dance, as Pelosi quietly refused to bring to the House floor the Protecting the Right to Organize Act, legislation to expand and reform labor laws and make it easier to organize workers into unions. Stopping the PRO Act was a top priority of the Chamber and will remain a top priority in the Biden administration. Under intense labor union pressure, Pelosi finally put the bill on the floor in early 2020, where it passed with 224-194.
Only six Democrats broke with the party and voted against the legislation, meaning that most of the Chamber’s endorsed candidates opposed the Chamber on a major priority. Of the 23 front-line Democrats endorsed by the Chamber, just three — Kendra Horn in Oklahoma, Ben McAdams in Utah, and Joe Cunningham in South Carolina — sided with the Chamber in the vote. Those three Democrats won their seats by a total of roughly 7,000 votes. (Bradley said that the books on the Chamber’s scorekeeping were closed early this year, before the PRO Act came to the floor.)
Spanberger voted aye on the PRO Act, but the Chamber’s strategy — rooted in the hope that if Democrats take full control in Washington, their willingness to fight for labor will diminish, as it has before — appears to be aspirational. Indeed, a Pelosi-led House has passed labor law reform before, during the 2007-2008 term, when the party was sure that if it made the desk of President George W. Bush, he would veto it. Democrats couldn’t find the 60 votes needed to overcome a filibuster it in the Senate, and once President Barack Obama was sworn in, it never passed the House again — similar to how Republicans successfully repealed Obamacare more than 50 times when Obama was there to veto it, but somehow couldn’t get it to Trump’s desk. The Chamber is no doubt hoping a similar scenario unfolds if former Vice President Joe Biden wins the White House, and is increasing its clout among vulnerable Democrats, which could help them win converts next term, when passing it would actually matter.
Going through with endorsements of Democrats in tight races was the Chamber’s way of showing “you can trust we’re going to follow through. … We’re going to stand by our word.”
Bradley said he would frame the decision to endorse slightly differently. Endorsing Democrats who performed well on the Chamber’s scorecard — which means voting or co-sponsoring the right way on at least 70 percent of the organization’s priority pieces of legislation — was important in terms of building credibility across the aisle, he said. “When we started this Congress, there was healthy skepticism [among Democrats] that the Chamber would follow through [on making endorsements]. When push came to shove, would they make up an excuse?” Going through with endorsements of Democrats in tight races, he said, was the Chamber’s way of showing “you can trust we’re going to follow through. … We’re going to stand by our word.”
Indeed, the Chamber’s endorsement list includes a who’s who of Democrats the GOP was most hoping to pick off: Reps. Sharice Davids of Kansas; Xochitl Torres Small of New Mexico; Colin Allred and Lizzie Fletcher of Texas; Andy Kim of New Jersey; Abby Finkenauer and Cindy Axne of Iowa; Elaine Luria of Virginia; Haley Stevens of Michigan; David Trone of Maryland; Angie Craig and Dean Phillips of Minnesota; Greg Stanton of Arizona; Josh Harder, TJ Cox, and Harley Rouda of California; Susie Lee of Nevada; and New York’s Anthony Brindisi and Antonio Delgado.
Virtually all of the Democratic candidates endorsed by the Chamber have simultaneously pledged not to accept money from corporate political action committees — though the Chamber’s PAC routinely cuts a check to endorsed candidates and has done so in most cases this time, according to Federal Election Commission records. The Chamber is technically not an individual corporate PAC, but is more accurately the mother of all corporate PACs.
The Chamber’s major spending this cycle is going mostly to protect vulnerable Senate Republicans to keep Mitch McConnell as Senate majority leader. The House endorsements have not come with big outside spending, but aside from their intrinsic value, they mean that the Chamber isn’t spending against vulnerable Democrats down the stretch, as it often is. The Chamber also plans to endorse some Republican challengers to incumbent Democrats, Bradley said, but the organization’s priority remains the Senate.
Pelosi’s major policy priority for the term was reducing prescription drug prices, another initiative that the Chamber fiercely opposes, darkly warning that any regulation or negotiation of prices would spell the end of the development of new drugs. It’s a rare area of policy agreement between Pelosi and Trump, though they have so far failed to agree on legislation. In September, after the Chamber announced its endorsements of key House Democrats, Trump issued an executive order aimed at bringing prices down. Bradley responded publicly by calling Trump’s order a “flawed and dangerous policy that will result in a substantial reduction in investment in new cures and drugs at the worst possible time,” followed by a promise to fight back. “We urge the administration to reconsider this approach, and the U.S. Chamber is assessing options to challenge this misguided policy,” he said.
While the left has been mum about the Chamber’s new affinity for Democrats, the right has been paying close attention. “I don’t want the U.S. Chamber’s endorsement, because they have sold out,” Bradley’s old boss McCarthy sniffed on Fox News. “It is hypocrisy that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce would endorse these Democrats that are part of this socialist agenda that is driving this country out and is fighting this president. Remember, these are the people who voted for impeachment, when this president has done so much for this nation.”
The Senate’s No. 2 Republican, John Cornyn, facing a reelection fight in Texas, has come out swinging.
The Chamber of Commerce, the nation’s premier business lobby, puts aside its principles to make nice with Democrats. It won’t work, writes @KimStrassel https://t.co/ZAD8Yz3U8M via @WSJ — Senator John Cornyn (@JohnCornyn) September 4, 2020
Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich called for the Chamber’s leadership to be ousted.
The spirit of neville chamberlain is alive and well at the US Chamber of Commerce. Endorsing 23 House Democrats who vote for Pelosi betrays every business member of the Chamber. The leadership should be replaced. — Newt Gingrich (@newtgingrich) September 5, 2020
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, mocked them for cowardice.
What’s going on with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce? First endorsing 23 anti-growth Democrats, and now leaving “Abolish the Police” graffiti spray-painted on its own HQ?? pic.twitter.com/zdfed8fiV2 — Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) September 18, 2020
Republicans who’ve fashioned themselves as populists, like Donald Trump Jr., are linking the Chamber’s shift to its longtime support of increased legal immigration.
The national Chamber of Commerce wanted amnesty so bad that they cut a deal w/ the devil & sold out their local members to Pelosi & her socialist squad. SAD! The Great Betrayal: How Republican Wunderkind Became Democrat Darling at the Chamber of Commercehttps://t.co/QeQb1NG7sU — Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) September 18, 2020
“Everyone has their roles to play,” Bradley said of the criticism from his former boss and other Republicans. The truth, he said, is that the business community wants a working relationship with both parties, and worries that political gridlock is bad for the economy in the long-term. That it’s an aide to Cantor — who famously launched the GOP tactic of obstruction by refusing to work with Democrats on an economic stimulus package in 2009 — making that argument is an irony not lost on Bradley, though he noted that Cantor was also criticized from the right for negotiating too much, as when Cantor and Biden co-chaired an effort to find a bipartisan path to slash the deficit.
“Of course there are gonna be votes and times the parties don’t work together. What folks are saying is when things have to get done, or you want reforms that endure, you have to figure out a way to work together across the aisle, and that’s what’s increasingly lacking, phase four being a perfect example,” he said, referring to the failed effort to get a new round of Covid-19 recovery legislation.
“There used to be a few issues where people put on their team colors, and lots of issues where they’d work together. … Today every bill is an attempt to put on your team colors.”
“There used to be a few issues where people put on their team colors, and lots of issues where they’d work together, from appropriations to infrastructure and even immigration,” he said. “Today every bill is an attempt to put on your team colors.”
Bradley favorably cited last week’s passage of the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act. The bill, he said, was originally the product of liberal groups like the National Women’s Law Center, and led by liberal Judiciary Committee Chair Jerrold Nadler. The scene was set for a partisan battle, but the Chamber came to the table with concerns from the business world, but also a willingness to see something pass, Bradley said. The question of how to accommodate pregnant employees, he said, was one that his organization’s members would like to see resolved in a uniform way. The Chamber argued over the bill’s clause on dispute resolution, and the final bill settled on employing a similar process to the one used to adjudicate disputes stemming from the Americans with Disabilities Act. “Every employer has dealt with that for 30 years, let’s copy that process,” Bradley said the Chamber argued. “Not everything has to be a big fight,” he said of the bill that won 329 votes, including 103 Republicans. “There is this belief across the business community we have to figure out how to work with both parties.”
As the Chamber is wandering into the Democratic tent, it’s doing so while the party is in flux. At the same time that college-educated and suburban voters are flocking to the party, an insurgent left is making major inroads, even in districts packed with suburban voters. Chappaqua, New York, home of the Clintons, will be represented by progressive Mondaire Jones after the insurgent won a bruising primary earlier this year. Marie Newman knocked out Rep. Dan Lipinski in suburban Chicago.
From left, Ways and Means Chair Richard Neal, D-Mass., Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., Reps. Ben Ray Luján, D-N.M., Sharice Davids, D-Kan., and Angie Craig, D-Minn., conduct a news conference in the Capitol Visitor Center to announce a new infrastructure investment framework on Jan. 29, 2020. Photo: Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call via AP
While the Chamber support can be helpful for swing-district Democrats in their reelection bids, doing too much of the Chamber’s bidding could end up hurting them back home in a primary from the left. One of the Chamber endorsements, for instance, went to freshman Rep. Sharice Davids, who won a narrow and bitterly fought primary in a wealthy suburban Kansas district in 2018. She carried the suburbs, but lost the Black working-class sections of her district to Brent Welder, who had the backing of Justice Democrats, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Sen. Bernie Sanders. Davids and her supporters assured voters that she was equally as progressive as her rival, aided by her pledge not to take corporate PAC money, and, with the backing of an EMILY’s List Super PAC, won the primary by just over 2,000 votes. That her claim to the progressive mantle was less than solid became clear when, after being sworn in, she joined the New Democrat Coalition, becoming one of a handful of freshmen to join both the pro-business caucus and the Progressive Caucus simultaneously. From there, her voting record has been enough to satisfy the Chamber that she deserves reelection.
The death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the brazen push by Republicans to fill her seat ahead of the election is having a radicalizing effect on Democratic voters, who poured more than $100 million into the election last weekend, shattering records. Those voters are going to want something in return for their investment: a Democratic Party that fights back. But the Chamber’s going to have a few things it wants first. And for that, it’ll be leaning on swing-district Democrats.
“Partisans on both sides wanna paint members of each party with the same brush. Every Democrat must be AOC, and conversely for Democrats, every Republican must be whatever bogeyman is the reverse. That’s not true,” Bradley said of the Bronx lawmaker the Chamber tried and failed to oust in a Democratic primary. “AOC did very poorly on the Chamber scorecard.”


theintercept--2020-09-24--Washington Congressional Race Lays Bare Democratic Divide on Tackling Climate Crisis

State Rep. Beth Doglio , a supporter of the Green New Deal , is facing off against former Tacoma Mayor Marilyn Strickland .
The race pits an environmental activist who successfully fended off fossil fuel projects in Washington against a mayor who stood by as fossil fuel infrastructure developed in her city without necessary permits .
Which one will go to Congress will say much about what kind of Democratic Party will be tackling climate change in the years ahead .
In Strickland ’ s two terms as mayor of Tacoma , from January 2010 to January 2018 , she @ @ @ @ @ @ @ expanded fossil fuel infrastructure at the Port of Tacoma .
The port is not directly under the City of Tacoma ’ s control , though the city does have to permit construction projects inside the port .
The conflicts centered on two issues : the proposed construction of a methanol plant in 2016 and a liquid natural gas , or LNG , facility that Strickland initially invited to Tacoma in 2013 with hopes that it would reduce air pollution , but became controversial due to the plant ’ s infringement on tribal lands @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of questions from The Intercept , Strickland declined to weigh in on her record at the port , and her campaign would not make her available for an interview .
Prior to her tenure in the statehouse , Doglio had worked to stop fossil fuel infrastructure , having been a co-chair of Power Past Coal , a coalition that led successful campaigns in 2015 and 2016 to stop the construction of seven coal export terminals in the state .
Doglio and the Power Past Coal coalition organized with the state ’ s Lummi @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to be the nation ’ s largest export terminal , arguing that it would infringe on the federal government ’ s treaty obligations to the tribe .
In 2016 the Army Corps of Engineers denied permits for the project , citing the treaty rights .
“ We ’ re totally at a crossroad and the Northwest stood up and said we ’ re not going to allow this to happen in our own backyard , ” Doglio said at the time .
In the summer of 2017 , toward the end of Strickland @ @ @ @ @ @ @ began arguing that the new facility infringed on their tribal lands and fishing treaty rights .
Because of that , combined with new data on the effects of methane as a greenhouse gas , the plant should have been a non-starter for the city , said Eric de Place of the Sightline Institute , an environmental watchdog group based in Seattle .
( Leaks in natural gas extraction and production are a significant contributor to methane emissions , which can be 84 times more potent as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” infringement on tribal rights , we now know a lot more about the climate impact of methane , and it also became clearer that we have a giant climate crisis and we have to stop new fossil fuel infrastructure , ” said de Place .
As the LNG facility moved forward , the City of Tacoma , under Strickland ’ s leadership , issued an environmental review that contained a major error , the Sightline Institute found .
Namely , it significantly understated the amount of marine traffic that the new facility @ @ @ @ @ @ @ one of the state ’ s utility companies , began building the facility without the necessary permits , and the city never pushed back , eventually retroactively granting the permits .
Puget Sound Energy is owned by a confederation of Canadian and Dutch pension funds .
“ The blame for all of this falls on the city of Tacoma , ” said de Place .
“ They did a very poor job of conducting the review .
That should never happen again .
The facility is completely built.
” While her administration was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ methanol plant in 2016 , Strickland appeared in a promotional video for the Chinese government-backed project , despite her public claims of neutrality .
The plant would have been the largest methanol plant in the world , an export facility that would have been used as an integral component in Chinese plastics production .
In addition to the plastics , environmentalists were concerned about the plant ’ s huge water and electricity consumption , as well as methanol ’ s status as a toxic substance .
While the project was under consideration , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Chinese President Xi Jinping at a Tacoma school .
The China-backed company , Northwest Innovation Works , backed out of the plan in April 2016 .
The company is now seeking to build the plant in the town of Kalama , Washington , which is about 40 miles outside of Portland , Oregon .
Local activists said the two projects led to little love lost between Strickland and the city ’ s environmental movement .
“ She had more police presence in the city hall during the citizens forums than any other mayor @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Church , a Tacoma activist .
“ Just because she had so many people protesting the projects she supported or brought in like LNG , or the methanol , ” Church said .
“ Her history has shown that she would be the exact opposite by supporting the methanol and LNG facilities.
” Doglio has been endorsed by the League of Conservation Voters , the Sierra Club , and the Sunrise Movement , while the endorsement list on Strickland ’ s website does not include any environmental groups .
The groups backing Doglio @ @ @ @ @ @ @ House , where she passed a green construction bill mandating efficiency benchmarks for large commercial buildings , legislation to eliminate fossil fuels from utilities by 2035 , legislation to eliminate food waste , and legislation to allow localities to more easily raise funds for mass transit .
Doglio also passed a complete overhaul of regulation of toxic substances after a bruising battle with the chemical industry , a win that has acquired new relevance as toxins in home construction are now being sent directly into the atmosphere due to the fires .
Sunrise @ @ @ @ @ @ @ making at least 75,000 calls to voters in the district on behalf of Doglio .
“ We have the opportunity to elect someone who will prioritize community well-being over profiting from fossil fuel executives who want to drill in the district , ” said Michele Weindling , electoral campaigns coordinator with Sunrise , in a statement to The Intercept .
“ Right now , the entire west is burning , the climate crisis is here , and we must elect the candidates who have a bold plan to battle it at the scale @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” Strickland , meanwhile , supports reentering the Paris climate agreement , and said in a statement to The Intercept that she “ supports impactful plans to address climate change that are attainable and effective to reduce carbon emissions , while creating and maintaining family-wage jobs , and ensuring a just and equitable transition to clean energy source.
” She added that she supports the recommendations of the House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis , which are less ambitious than those outlined in Green New Deal proposals .
The GND sets a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ emissions , while the Select Committee ’ s timeline extends to 2050 .
Additionally , unlike the Green New Deal , the Select Committee ’ s proposal does not set a goal of halting fossil fuel extraction , to the ire of some environmentalists .
Doglio , on the other hand , is much more aggressive .
“ It ’ s really clear right now that we have to do everything we can to turn the tide on fossil fuel production , ” Doglio said in an interview with The Intercept .
“ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ vision where we don ’ t just significantly reduce fossil fuels over time .
It also has intersectional smarts — on poverty , racial justice and union jobs .
The Green New Deal moves climate policy forward so it centers people , and racial justice specifically.
” Sunrise ’ s Weindling argued that the Green New Deal is integral to any solution to the climate crisis currently engulfing the West .
“ These fires are proof that the climate crisis is here , and that we as a country are not prepared for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ race in the crowded primary was to replace four-term Rep. Denny Heck , who decided to run for lieutenant governor .
Strickland has the backing of former Democratic Govs .
Christine Gregoire and Gary Locke — the latter of whom was also secretary of commerce and the ambassador to China in the Obama administration — among many other members of the Washington Democratic political establishment , including centrist U.S. representatives Derek Kilmer , Suzan DelBene , Rick Larsen , and House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn .
In addition to environmental groups , Doglio @ @ @ @ @ @ @ State Labor Council federation of unions .
Washington has all-party political primaries , à la California and Louisiana , which led to the Democrat-on-Democrat race .
Doglio and Strickland had raised a roughly equal amount of money — just over $ 600,000 — as of the June 30 FEC deadline .

Against a backdrop of fires that have burned over 600,000 acres in Washington state, the climate crisis is becoming an important issue in the congressional race between two Democrats in the state’s 10th Congressional District, which includes Olympia and the surrounding area.
State Rep. Beth Doglio, a supporter of the Green New Deal, is facing off against former Tacoma Mayor Marilyn Strickland. The race pits an environmental activist who successfully fended off fossil fuel projects in Washington against a mayor who stood by as fossil fuel infrastructure developed in her city without necessary permits. Which one will go to Congress will say much about what kind of Democratic Party will be tackling climate change in the years ahead.
Which one will go to Congress will say much about what kind of Democratic Party will be tackling climate change in the years ahead.
In Strickland’s two terms as mayor of Tacoma, from January 2010 to January 2018, she frequently clashed with climate activists by supporting expanded fossil fuel infrastructure at the Port of Tacoma. The port is not directly under the City of Tacoma’s control, though the city does have to permit construction projects inside the port. The conflicts centered on two issues: the proposed construction of a methanol plant in 2016 and a liquid natural gas, or LNG, facility that Strickland initially invited to Tacoma in 2013 with hopes that it would reduce air pollution, but became controversial due to the plant’s infringement on tribal lands. In response to a detailed set of questions from The Intercept, Strickland declined to weigh in on her record at the port, and her campaign would not make her available for an interview.
Prior to her tenure in the statehouse, Doglio had worked to stop fossil fuel infrastructure, having been a co-chair of Power Past Coal, a coalition that led successful campaigns in 2015 and 2016 to stop the construction of seven coal export terminals in the state. Doglio and the Power Past Coal coalition organized with the state’s Lummi tribe in opposition to what was meant to be the nation’s largest export terminal, arguing that it would infringe on the federal government’s treaty obligations to the tribe. In 2016 the Army Corps of Engineers denied permits for the project, citing the treaty rights. “We’re totally at a crossroad and the Northwest stood up and said we’re not going to allow this to happen in our own backyard,” Doglio said at the time.
In the summer of 2017, toward the end of Strickland’s mayoralty, the Puyallup Tribe began arguing that the new facility infringed on their tribal lands and fishing treaty rights. Because of that, combined with new data on the effects of methane as a greenhouse gas, the plant should have been a non-starter for the city, said Eric de Place of the Sightline Institute, an environmental watchdog group based in Seattle. (Leaks in natural gas extraction and production are a significant contributor to methane emissions, which can be 84 times more potent as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.) Constructing the LNG facility would require ”infringement on tribal rights, we now know a lot more about the climate impact of methane, and it also became clearer that we have a giant climate crisis and we have to stop new fossil fuel infrastructure,” said de Place.
As the LNG facility moved forward, the City of Tacoma, under Strickland’s leadership, issued an environmental review that contained a major error, the Sightline Institute found. Namely, it significantly understated the amount of marine traffic that the new facility would generate. Puget Sound Energy, one of the state’s utility companies, began building the facility without the necessary permits, and the city never pushed back, eventually retroactively granting the permits. Puget Sound Energy is owned by a confederation of Canadian and Dutch pension funds.
“The blame for all of this falls on the city of Tacoma,” said de Place. “They did a very poor job of conducting the review. That should never happen again. The facility is completely built.”
While her administration was conducting the environmental review for the proposed methanol plant in 2016, Strickland appeared in a promotional video for the Chinese government-backed project, despite her public claims of neutrality. The plant would have been the largest methanol plant in the world, an export facility that would have been used as an integral component in Chinese plastics production. In addition to the plastics, environmentalists were concerned about the plant’s huge water and electricity consumption, as well as methanol’s status as a toxic substance. While the project was under consideration, Strickland orchestrated an elaborate PR opportunity for Chinese President Xi Jinping at a Tacoma school. The China-backed company, Northwest Innovation Works, backed out of the plan in April 2016. The company is now seeking to build the plant in the town of Kalama, Washington, which is about 40 miles outside of Portland, Oregon.
Local activists said the two projects led to little love lost between Strickland and the city’s environmental movement. “She had more police presence in the city hall during the citizens forums than any other mayor I knew of,” said Barbara Church, a Tacoma activist. “Just because she had so many people protesting the projects she supported or brought in like LNG, or the methanol,” Church said. “Her history has shown that she would be the exact opposite by supporting the methanol and LNG facilities.”
Photo: Steve Bloom/The Olympian/AP
Doglio has been endorsed by the League of Conservation Voters, the Sierra Club, and the Sunrise Movement, while the endorsement list on Strickland’s website does not include any environmental groups. The groups backing Doglio point to her record in the state House, where she passed a green construction bill mandating efficiency benchmarks for large commercial buildings, legislation to eliminate fossil fuels from utilities by 2035, legislation to eliminate food waste, and legislation to allow localities to more easily raise funds for mass transit. Doglio also passed a complete overhaul of regulation of toxic substances after a bruising battle with the chemical industry, a win that has acquired new relevance as toxins in home construction are now being sent directly into the atmosphere due to the fires.
Sunrise, the youth-led climate movement, anticipates making at least 75,000 calls to voters in the district on behalf of Doglio. “We have the opportunity to elect someone who will prioritize community well-being over profiting from fossil fuel executives who want to drill in the district,” said Michele Weindling, electoral campaigns coordinator with Sunrise, in a statement to The Intercept. “Right now, the entire west is burning, the climate crisis is here, and we must elect the candidates who have a bold plan to battle it at the scale it requires. Beth is that candidate.”
Strickland, meanwhile, supports reentering the Paris climate agreement, and said in a statement to The Intercept that she “supports impactful plans to address climate change that are attainable and effective to reduce carbon emissions, while creating and maintaining family-wage jobs, and ensuring a just and equitable transition to clean energy source.” She added that she supports the recommendations of the House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis, which are less ambitious than those outlined in Green New Deal proposals. The GND sets a deadline of 2030 for achieving net zero emissions, while the Select Committee’s timeline extends to 2050. Additionally, unlike the Green New Deal, the Select Committee’s proposal does not set a goal of halting fossil fuel extraction, to the ire of some environmentalists.
Doglio, on the other hand, is much more aggressive. “It’s really clear right now that we have to do everything we can to turn the tide on fossil fuel production,” Doglio said in an interview with The Intercept. “The Green New Deal is an incredible vision where we don’t just significantly reduce fossil fuels over time. It also has intersectional smarts — on poverty, racial justice and union jobs. The Green New Deal moves climate policy forward so it centers people, and racial justice specifically.”
Sunrise’s Weindling argued that the Green New Deal is integral to any solution to the climate crisis currently engulfing the West. “These fires are proof that the climate crisis is here, and that we as a country are not prepared for how devastating it will be.”
The race in the crowded primary was to replace four-term Rep. Denny Heck, who decided to run for lieutenant governor. Strickland has the backing of former Democratic Govs. Christine Gregoire and Gary Locke — the latter of whom was also secretary of commerce and the ambassador to China in the Obama administration — among many other members of the Washington Democratic political establishment, including centrist U.S. representatives Derek Kilmer, Suzan DelBene, Rick Larsen, and House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn. In addition to environmental groups, Doglio also has the endorsement of the Washington State Labor Council federation of unions. Washington has all-party political primaries, à la California and Louisiana, which led to the Democrat-on-Democrat race. Doglio and Strickland had raised a roughly equal amount of money — just over $600,000 — as of the June 30 FEC deadline.