There was a profile of Chris Rufo in New York magazine today. It glossed over the reporting out there that links Rufo with extremists. A thread follows that recaps my reporting along those lines nymag.com/intelligencer/…
In his pursuit of Claudine Gay, Rufo promoted criticisms made by Jonatan Pallesen, and also interviewed him. Pallesen co-authored several papers with with a network of scholars who have been broadly criticized as scientific racists. theguardian.com/world/2024/jan…
Rufo still links from his Substack to Aporia, and has appeared on the outlet's podcast. At the time I summarized expert and critical opinion by calling it "an outlet for scientific racism", but there have been some developments. theguardian.com/world/2024/jan…
I was part of a team that last week published a series of stories that drew on undercover reporting from Hope not Hate. We reported that the organization behind Aporia, the Human Diversity Foundation, has been funded by Seattle tech rich guy Andrew Conru theguardian.com/world/2024/oct…
Hope Not Hate went deep, and showed that HDF is a direct continuation of the Pioneer Fund, which funded anti-immigrant, white nationalist, and scientific racist organizations for decades investigations.hopenothate.org.uk/race-science-i…
Rufo is apparently tight with the publishers and several of the writers at hard right outlet IM-1776. One of their writers played a key role in Rufo's attempt to find evidence for Haitian immigrants eating "dogs" "cats" and "pets" in Springfield, OH. theguardian.com/world/2024/feb…
Here's @JSweetLI reporting on how those efforts fell short dropsitenews.com/p/the-unraveli…
Rufo participated in an X space co-sponsored by IM-1776 last year. Another participant, Charles Haywood, said participants should be prepared to cooperate with hypothetical white nationalist dictator "in order to destroy the power of the left” theguardian.com/world/2023/sep…
Haywood is a retired shampoo manufacturer and would-be "warlord" who played a central role in establishing the Society for American Civic Renewal, a secretive, men-only Christian Nationalist fraternal lodge theguardian.com/world/2023/aug…
Just last month, i reported on plans for "human biodiversity" influencer Steve Sailer to speak at New College of Florida. Ron DeSantis put Rufo on its board in Jan 2023, with a view of remaking it as an explicitly rightwing institution theguardian.com/us-news/2024/s…
But I guess if you ignore all that, your angle could be that he is nothing less than "the most pugnacious, and probably effective, conservative activist of the Joe Biden era".
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