1) There are so many books, memoirs and tell-alls about the rise of Donald Trump, the GOP's devolution over the past decade, the emergence of right-wing populism, ex-Republicans denouncing their old party as evil, and so forth.

THE MAGA DIARIES is not one of those books. 2) Yes, it's a memoir about my time in right-wing activism (and how I left). But I wrote THE MAGA DIARIES to answer two questions I always get asked:
Q. How do you report on MAGA with the depth that you do?
A. Well, I was in conservative activism as a kid.
Q. Wait: YOU? HOW?!

NEW from me:

My assignment was to watch One America News (OAN) for a full day: 7:30 a.m. to 11 p.m., no turning the television off, no leaving my apartment and no channel-switching whatsoever.

Here is what I learned.
politi.co/3cOdQm5 I’m fine, everything’s fine, I haven’t had this playing in my head all day, thank you for your thoughts and prayers

NEW from me: The controversial 1776 Report contains at least three instances of recycled and copied work.

An entire page of the report was lifted, near-verbatim and unattributed, from a 2008 article by one of the Commission's members.

politico.com/news/2021/01/1… in internet terms, the 1776 Report was a right-wing copypasta

I'll caveat w/this: there are lots of things that I didn't see. There are lots of convos between LEOs and MAGA ppl I didn't hear. But judging from past hi-security events I've attended at the Capitol, the security clearly did not match the size and intensity of this crowd. (12/x) And all I can say is that it was peaceful and boring with maybe a few hundred people and I was going to leave at like 1 PM after filing a story out of an empty cafeteria. And then in the span of five minutes, it was not. (13/x)

As someone who had been at the Capitol from 9 AM until just now, I'd have to push back against the claims that the Capitol Police are being permissive with this crowd. From what I witnessed, they were vastly undermanned today. (1/x) There was a strong police presence this morning, for sure but not as many barricades or officers as one would see during, say, Inauguration. Mostly metal fencing -- the kind you see at concerts -- barred people from getting onto the lawn. (2/x)

I have a very close friend who’s a researcher studying public health at a major NGO, and he told me that this was THE week to practice as much social distancing as possible, even if you don’t have to go to work.

I asked him to explain why. Sharing his answers w/ permission (1/x) (2/x)