Calling itself the “free speech social network,” Gab was founded in 2016 by Andrew Torba, who once worked in Silicon Valley. “I didn’t set out to build a ‘conservative social network’ by any means. But I felt that it was time for a conservative leader to step up and to provide a forum where anybody can come and speak freely without fear of censorship,” Torba told The Washington Post in 2016.
A recent report from Stanford’s Internet Observatory described Gab as “Extreme anti-Semitic, racist and homophobic content rife, with open praise of Nazism, encouragement of violence against minorities, and ‘Great Replacement’ narratives. Many of the memes cited by the Buffalo shooter’s manifesto are indistinguishable from content on Gab, and such content appears even in ‘mainstream’ user groups.”
Torba is also a big fan of Greene. In a July appearance on Gab, Torba said of Greene, “Now, Marjorie Taylor Greene is also coming under attack, you know, she is getting loud with the explicit Christian nationalism, and I love to see it. This is great stuff.” The Anti-Defamation League reported in February that Greene and Torba appeared at notorious white nationalist and Holocaust-denier Nick Fuentes’ America First Political Action Conference.
While it’s disturbing how connected at the hip Trump and his sycophants, like Greene, are with white nationalists and white supremacists, the Republican Party can’t seem to extract itself from them.
As we speak, Kevin McCarthy is desperately clawing his way to the top of the trash heap as speaker of the House. And he will do whatever it takes to make that happen.
In a Sunday morning appearance on CNN’s State of the Union, House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff blasted McCarthy over his unrivaled loyalty to Trump and the MAGA camp.
When asked about whether McCarthy would kick Schiff off the Intelligence Committee because of the investigation into Trump’s collusion with Russia, Schiff said “McCarthy’s problem is not with what I have said about Russia. McCarthy’s problem is, he can’t get to 218 without Marjorie Taylor Greene and Paul Gosar and Matt Gaetz. And so he will do whatever they ask. And, right now, they’re asking for me to be removed from our committees. And he’s willing to do it. He’s willing to do anything they ask. And that’s the problem.”
McCarthy “has no ideology. He has no core set of beliefs. It’s very hard not only to get to 218 that way. It’s even more difficult to keep 218. That’s his problem. So, he will misrepresent my record” and those of Democratic Representatives Eric Swalwell of Connecticut or Ilhan Omar of Illinois, Schiff added. “Whatever he needs to do to get the votes of the QAnon caucus within his conference.”
