Nick Taurus only did this after the Orange County GOP sent out invitations to him and other Republicans, telling them they should go to Porter’s event and “press her.”
Notice the language he is using (hordes of immigrant voters) tracks closely with the “white replacement theory” propaganda that Tucker Carlson and InfoWars have been ratcheting up, where they warn that Dems are part of some sort of plan for a “genocide” of white people.
Nick Taurus may not be the eventual GOP candidate against Katie Porter here in OC in 2022.
But he is playing a role in the GOP’s current approach to politics: riling the white nationalist part of their base to generate hate, and to intimidate her and anyone who supports her.
Some of the people Taurus brought with him even called Katie Porter a “carpetbagger.”
This language is straight out of the antebellum south, from a time when the KKK and others threatened, intimidated, and even violently attacked people who supported and taught civil rights.
Nick Taurus, the GOP candidate who organized people to intimidate Porter and her supporters, and started a fist fight at a family friendly event, has a history of violent actions toward political opponents.
Thread with details and photos from past incidents here:
Nick Taurus in Sept 2020, a basic thug, intimidating protestors, stealing and ripping up signs, essentially the white nationalist US political version of a soccer hooligan.
Nick Taurus in June, 2021, with Nick Fuentes, in a mustache and suit, preparing to become a GOP candidate.
Sept 2020: After failing to steal this protestor’s sign, Nick Taurus tries to kick him in the head as he picks it up off the ground.
July, 2021: Nick Taurus dons a suit and mustache, as he prepares to run for office as a Republican (he met groyper Fuentes in June).
The screencap of Taurus trying to kick the protestor is from the end of this video:
As I’ve been saying, Boebert and MTG are not outliers or anomalies. They are a part of the trend of a radicalizing Republican Party, that I have been pointing out since *before* the election.
Here is another thread outlining the radicalization process.
What the media is failing to tell the public, is that this GOP radicalization is being financed, through opaque funding channels, with dozens of shell companies registered as “philanthropic” and “charity” LLCs.
There is also a serious issue in certain parts of the country, where County Sheriffs’ departments do nothing about people like Nick Taurus. This is why, instead of being a felon for his assaults, he is running for office.
DOJ should enforce civil rights protections.
Also worth noting: Fuentes was one of the recipients of a half-million dollar Bitcoin transfer, from a French blogger who committed suicide afterward.
Where did that money come from, and which right wing networks was that French “blogger” a part of??
I know people get tired of talking - and hearing - about the fact that the GOP has been doing some of these things for decades, but this is why I keep bringing it up.
Conservatives have been hearing these things since they were children.
Nothing that Trump has done is more than just an incremental evolution.
Undoing “Trumpism,” is undoing 30+ years of toxic and divisive messaging that people have internalized since they were kids, riding in the car with their parents.
Excellent news, Biden just fired the Trump appointee who was sabotaging work in the Social Security Administration and delaying checks to SS beneficiaries.
We began trying to raise alarms about this - and point out that there was a path for action - about 3.5 months ago, so this is excellent, and very welcome news!
Notice in these videos, Republicans focus on an ideological commitment to blocking the will of the majority, claiming that’s the basic reasoning behind our republic.
This is how they’re able to avoid talking about *what* specifically they are blocking.
This is similar to the way libertarians take one core part of the constitution - “the right to do what I want” - and then ignore the rest of it, taking a sliver of truth and turning it into an ideology, nearly religious in nature.
It is similar to the way propaganda is created.
Taking HR-1 as an example, we know that the bill itself is highly popular, even among conservatives - based on their own internal polling.
This is why they are very careful to frame their language, sticking to the ideology and avoiding the actual policy.
“We had to wonder: Is this the best sort of partnership we can get from the Americans? This group of shady characters working for a close ally of Trump?” says Novikov, the former aide to Ukraine’s president. “It felt like the worst America had to offer.”
Another piece of this story that should not be missed: the two Ukrainians who Prince chose to work with, are both Russian assets: Andriy Artemenko and Andriy Derkach.
And both are under criminal investigation for their role in the 2020 election.
The legal dream team that Trump has assembled here makes it pretty clear this whole effort is just a charade.
There is no real effort to win any cases against “big tech.” It’s just a grift for taking money, and another way to generate propaganda. Abusing the courts.
You will also see parallels with the way Kushner brokered the sale of our only nuclear reactor manufacturer, Westinghouse.
It wasn’t until after the fact that people were able to dig into the labyrinthine corporate structures involved, and realize who was behind the purchase.