Episode Summary
One of the biggest differences between the left- and right-wing political ecosystems in America is that on the right, they have many more events and conferences compared to Democrats and other left-wing political parties.
The right has always been very interested in political events, but during the COVID 19 pandemic, the divergence between the two sides really began to open up significantly because a number of far-right Christian activists began holding public gatherings in defiance of local laws. Since then, they’ve been expanding their efforts, primarily to support Donald Trump, but also to bring people together, and make a lot of money.
Many are, by their own admission, also trying to renew the positive feelings they experienced on January 6, 2021, when armed Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol Building.
These conferences are attracting millions of people in many different states and including very prominent right-wing political figures such as former General Michael Flynn, former White House aide Sebastian Gorka, and even presidential son Eric Trump. Despite their significant prominence within the Republican political ecosystem, however, reactionary conferences receive very little coverage in the mainstream media beyond specific things said by specific speakers rather than gigantic scene these events have become.
One person who has paid a lot of attention to these right-wing events is Amanda Moore, our guest on today’s episode. At one point, she was undercover in MAGA for a year, and since then has continued going to conferences, including recently at the Rod of Iron Freedom Festival in Greeley, Pennsylvania, which is overseen by a religious cult run by a man named Sean Moon, who is the son of the late “Moonie” leader, Sun Myung Moon.
It was a very strange sight to see, including the younger Moon running around with crowns of bullets and cult members regarding guns as sacred objects.
The video of this discussion is available, the transcript is below. Because of its length, some podcast apps and email programs may truncate it. Access the episode page to get the full text.
Related Content
Amanda Moore’s Nation article about the Rod of Iron Freedom Festival
Turning Point USA’s America Fest blends concerts with Christian nationalism and political activism
How far-right Christian media brainwash evangelicals
Charlie Kirk and Turning Point USA are building a reactionary cult for young people, does anyone on the center-left care?
Why debunking far-right activists with millions of followers is not “platforming” them
Megachurch pastor Jack Hibbs tells followers “Satan himself” is behind trans rights movement
How fascist “groypers” were on track to take over Republican youth politics in 2019
Audio Chapters
00:00 — Introduction
06:05 — Going undercover in MAGA
07:56 — Mainstream journalism hasn't figured out that activists have almost all the power in Republican politics
17:43 — Covering extremism is more difficult than traditional political reporting
23:43 — Far-right conferences are trying to relive the "magic" of January 6th
28:38 — RFK Junior is getting into the MAGA rally scene
34:11 — Republicans' new "post-left" grift targeting uninformed leftists
39:07 — Turning Point USA rallies: A closer look
43:44 — MAGA's new push to get followers to have children ASAP
46:08 — How Nick Fuentes and fascist "groypers" have taken over young Republican groups
Audio Transcript
The following is a machine-generated transcript of the audio that has not been proofed. It is provided for convenience purposes only.
MATTHEW SHEFFIELD: You were at the Rod of Iron Freedom Festival in Greeley, Pennsylvania recently. For people who haven't heard of it, which is probably most Americans, what is this Rod of Iron Freedom Festival? What did you see there? What was it like?
AMANDA MOORE: It was bizarre. It was a bunch of speakers many of them fairly mainstream like Michael Flynn or Sebastian Gorka, but it was being held At the Tommy gun warehouse and that was being led there's pastor Sean moon who starts the days off with a sermon while he's clutching a gun. And so it's just a very unique [00:03:00] experience and like anything I'd ever seen before.
SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Well, and also a crown of bullets.
MOORE: Of bullets, right. I got my photo taken and the little they have it set up. So there's cutouts for your face and then you're wearing the bullet crown, so I did that. That was fun.
SHEFFIELD: Well, okay. Yeah. So now did they explain in any of the sermons that were at the conference, what was up with this crown of bullet stuff and all the AR-15S and guns and all over the place, did they talk about why they're doing that at all?
MOORE: Well, it's mostly it seemed like it was because Jesus would want you to have an AR. That was really the predominant reason that we were given. The sermon was pretty short from Moon. But it really was, the crux of it was, you need to have guns. God would want you to have them and we need Donald Trump to win today.
[00:04:00] So there was not a lot of going into detail about the nuts and bolts of, why they believe what they believed.
SHEFFIELD: Well, now these people who were there, like, was it, how much of this was a mix of, like members of Sean Moon's cult and just regular Republicans who have no affiliation with him?
MOORE: So I, I think it's like a fairly, like, strong mix. I mean, you can tell some of the people who are in the cult they're all together, like, all that stuff. But you can also tell there's like people that just live in the area that are coming out. They advertise pretty heavily. So, you're staying 20 minutes away, 30 minutes away, you still see advertisements everywhere.
And it's a free festival. Gorka's there, Jack Pasovic's there, names that people recognize are there. And so if you live locally and you're a Republican, why wouldn't you come out to the Free Festival to see all these super cool, fairly mainstream Republicans give, speeches at the Tommy Gunn [00:05:00] Warehouse?
And most people that I talked to that struck up conversation with me, I mean, nobody who's involved in the actual cult struck up a conversation with me, but people who like just live locally and were there because they thought it would be a cool thing to go to, I mean, that's literally how they described it was that I saw the signs and I saw that General Flynn was going to be here.
So I showed up.
SHEFFIELD: Yeah, when it's I mean it is just yeah incredible and we'll get into this Later in the, conversation, but you know, this is one of at least a hundred right wing festivals that happened every year across the country. And there's like, maybe 1 left wing festival that isn't, I mean, it is like, it is just like incredible how much the right is good at creating this sort of ecosystem. For, political activists and journalists and, I mean, well, whatever they call themselves content creators that, they, just [00:06:00] make it so easy to earn a living doing what they're doing, promoting their message. And i
Going undercover in MAGA earlier
t's just astonishing. And you've been on the right wing. Conference and festival circuit for a few years now including when you were undercover at going to a bunch of these things tell us a little bit about that, I know it's a bit of a throwback, so,
MOORE: Yeah. I spent basically like November, 2020 until October, 2021 undercover. So I was at of course, January 6th and the Stop the Steal rallies. Then I was also paying to go to CPAC to, like QAnon John had a conference in Dallas. That was four days that I went to, I was going to the Clay Clark conferences that were Reopened America.
Then once America was reopened, it was reawakened America. They just had to keep kind of evolving what they were calling it. So I've been to, I went to a bunch of those kinds of things. Just as a participant, as a ticket holder, not as a [00:07:00] journalist. So people didn't know they were talking to a journalist when they would talk to me.
And of course, ever since then, I'm very recognizable. Especially to the demographic that I cover predominantly. So now I go to things like CPAC and I get instantly thrown out. Though I was able to stay for the whole weekend. Greeley this past weekend, but generally I'm no longer, I'm no longer welcome inside.
SHEFFIELD: well, you're not, yeah, you're not welcome generally because you tell the truth like that's fundamentally what the objection is that like there's this you know like the right wing reactionary radicals who control the republican party They don't want regular normie republicans or independent political independents to know what they're doing And what they think, I mean, that's what this comes down to.
And
like,
Mainstream journalism hasn't figured out that activists have almost all the power in Republican politics
SHEFFIELD: Yeah.
there's, and you can even see that with [00:08:00] Trump himself, like, in the, as we're coming into the few weeks of the presidential campaign here, Trump actually, he stopped doing mainstream media interviews, like Weeks ago. The only people he talks to now are right wing podcasters and, Fox news host, and he's refused explicitly refused to do any more mainstream interviews, refused to do a debate, even on Fox news, he refused to do a debate with Kamala Harris.
Because the whole point is that, we're, going to speak to our crazies and. And then, unfortunately, a lot of the mainstream media just doesn't cover this stuff.
I mean, you have been to a ton of these conferences. Like, how much mainstream media presence have you seen in all the ones you've been to?
MOORE: I mean, it really varies. I mean, the thing is like, so, there's Turning Point USA and they have all of these events. And there's, they have a couple of big ones every year. They have a big one in the summer and they have a big one in the winter and they have a big one also in the summer, but just for [00:09:00] women.
And I'm not allowed in, but they're pretty well covered. I mean, there's a lot of press at them. But what I go to these events for is that people like white nationalist Nick Fuentes will hold their events next door to piggyback on the audience. They'll do it. He'll do it at CPAC. He'll do it at Turning Point.
And it's at those events, where there's really not a lot of press covering what's going on at that kind of thing. This thing this past weekend, the Moonies, it was It's mostly local and like videographers and photographers, cause it's good visuals, it's exciting visuals. But
SHEFFIELD: are people with machine guns. yeah,
MOORE: yeah, but you know, like magazine writers don't want to go stand outside at a, rally all day.
They don't want to go to a riot. They don't want to go to a gun festival. I do, but it's pretty much not the norm. And so I think there's editorial pushback as well as it's just not something that, you Writers themselves wish to do
SHEFFIELD: [00:10:00] Well, or that, I mean, I've seen editors, I think are the main problem with this, that they're like, oh, well, these are fringe figures. Like who
cares what they're up to? And it's like, well, actually, if you paid attention to this stuff and knew what you were talking about, you would see that, Donald Trump's sons have
been to this freedom
MOORE: we could spit it whole we could do four or five hours on editors I mean, I went to a Nazi rally and there were Texas RNC delegates there were people who have been going to Mar a Lago their entire lives. There were people running for office There are people who hold positions At this Nazi rally and I had a pitch 26 outlets and then finally the intercept took it I was told that the rally had happened two weeks ago.
It was old news. I was told we have a lot on our plate right now. And these are people they're throwing sick isles. So, yeah, I have a lot of like editorial, like, I have a lot of negative things to say in that regard. But I also do think that like, I've been to riots where there are people who are [00:11:00] writers and they're like, this is too much for me.
I have to leave. And I'm like, there's nothing going on. I'm not even wearing a gas mask. So I think it's a little bit of, once you actually have somebody willing to go, like willing to assign it, they're still like, it's, it's got to be, I think, in some ways, a passion project.
Cause. It's hard to cover this without having a vast amount of knowledge about it. And that really requires a specialized specific beat. And if you don't love it, you're going to do a shitty job, I think.
SHEFFIELD: Yeah. And it's also, I think that a lot of political journalism, especially mainstream media journalism about politics is it's based on an antiquated model that, in their opinion, the people that you cover are the, the, political party people. So the candidates themselves and, the, party consultants. And that's it. Like nothing else is, real.
And it's like, [00:12:00] that's literally not how the right wing, political ecosystem works, that it is the opposite way that right wing media is kind of the boss of Republicans. And it's both the, like it is their megaphone, but it also does tell them what to do at the same time.
And these activists who go to these conferences. They're the ones who set the agenda. It's not the people in DC. Like Mike Johnson is a figurehead. I mean, Donald Trump even is a figurehead. He doesn't know anything about politics. Doesn't give a shit about policy. But what he does is that he knows that he has certain people who are very strong supporters and if they want something, he's going to try to give it to them because they support him.
And it's like, this is not. What, these editors who, came up and went to journalism school in the nineties like this is not the party that they were trained on, you know, like, because this is a different Republican party and how it operates and, who has the [00:13:00] power. Yeah.
Yeah.
MOORE: Yeah. Yeah. And it's, a lot of it too, you would think I would think at least there would be more crossover. I mean, take Jack for example, he he's involved with Trump force 47. There was a law change back in March and it basically allowed campaigns, presidential campaigns to kind of outsource their Everything as far as I can tell, it really seems like the whole purpose is to kind of obfuscate who's on payroll for the campaigns, because now, instead of being paid directly from Trump 2024, you're paid by your state GOP, or you're paid by the RNC.
And it's extremely difficult to go through all of this. But Trump 47, Trump force 47 gets very little mainstream attention. I'm constantly explaining what it is to people. I feel crazy because I'm explaining what it is to journalists who I feel like should. No. But Jack Posobiec runs trainings for them and then he's speaking at the Mooney's retreat, on, on Saturday and on Thursday, he was speaking with Steve Saylor, [00:14:00] who was just a race science guy, and, he's literally involved with the campaign.
That's what it is. He's a surrogate of the campaign. And so you'd think that they would realize that there's way more crossover. Yeah. And like, in an official capacity at this point, and of course, the campaign has told me that Pasovic is not being compensated for what he's doing, but like, do you need to be getting a check from the RNC, or there are maybe other benefits to running these campaigns and, adding it to your list of credentials?
Who can say? But yeah, you'd think that they would start to realize, because they really are just pulling in these media people. Roseanne Barr is doing trainings for Trump Force 47, for the Trump campaign, and she's out of her mind. And there's just still like a refusal to acknowledge how, things are run and kind of who is, who, who is in charge of stuff.
SHEFFIELD: And again, they, do have this mentality that these are just fringe figures, [00:15:00] And it's like, Jack Posobiec and, Nick Fuentes and, all these other literal Nazis They have more, they have a bigger social media following than Ted Cruz. Like they have more fans than Josh Hawley.
They have more people who love them than, any of these members of the house of representatives, that that you often see put forward as some sort of representative, like Dan Crenshaw is a nothing in Republican politics in terms of like the Republican base. Loathes Dan, Crenshaw. Like he's hated, he's a hated figure. He's not representative of the Republican party at all. And yet you see in, people like him or Lindsey Graham, put forward as some sort of representative of the Republican party, like Republican party hates, they don't just not like them.
They, loathe them. And, these guys are like, I call them the [00:16:00] fictitious Republicans, like that they're just sort of cardboard cutouts to go and talk to the mainstream media and, make them think that this is what the Republican Party is. But the Republican Party is the people at these conferences that you're going
MOORE: Yeah, nobody is pledging to rape, kill, and die for Dan Crenshaw, but I'll tell you what, they're doing that for Nick Fuentes. So,
SHEFFIELD: but yeah. and like Sean Moon, the, cult leader who was running the conference that you went to this week, past weekend that, he. Was a huge had, a huge role in January 6th and he worked very closely with Doug Mastriano, who was the Republican nominee for governor. So like, and these are not fringe figures.
These are people who are integral to the Republican party and how it runs and who is picked as their
MOORE: and one of the speakers, I mean, the first day of the conference was technically just Saturday, Sunday, but Friday night was the screening of Flynn's movie. He, so obviously general Flynn was there. [00:17:00] And so it was Ivan Ranklin who ran the Q and a with him because they're touring the country with this movie.
And the next day, Ivan was a speaker and Ivan is the person who came up with the pence card. He's the person who was like, I actually think that Mike Pence can stop. can stop, the election. Mike Pence can be the one, if Mike Pence has the courage, that's Ivan Rankin. And he's there as a speaker, and, they were bragging about how they were involved in January 6th and how they were sending people down for January 6th.
It's not, and this is being live streamed, I'm there to cover the atmosphere and, the stuff that, you can get the, speakers to say, like when they're not on the stage, but the stuff that's being said on the stages, they're proud of it. They're sending it out. They're hoping that you watch it.
Covering far-right activists is much more difficult than taking notes at Republican party events
SHEFFIELD: Yeah, well, and there's another difficulty to go back to one thing you said earlier, which is that for the press that you know these The knowledge that you have to have so not only are there, you know A thousand different figures who are constantly moving around and paying each [00:18:00] other it's also that they have these very bizarre doctrines and beliefs and like you, you actually really have to pay attention to them to know what they're talking about.
So like, like Sean Moon, I mean, as famously is of course the, son of the founder of the Mooney called Sun Myung Moon. And he is, he and his brothers have this, they've got multiple different branches of the moon now. And Sean's case, I mean, it's. It is just absurd.
Like this is a group that markets itself to hardcore Christians, which also believes that Sean Moon is Jesus. Like they're not Christians by any conventional in any conventional sense. But you never hear that about them. And like, I'm sure if any of these, regular Republicans from Northeastern Pennsylvania, they probably didn't know that John Moon thinks he's Jesus.
MOORE: No chance. I mean, the people that I talked to, literally, I could [00:19:00] have, like, I, talked to some people in town who were like, oh, you're here for the thing with the Moonies, and they knew, but like, they weren't at the conference, like people who were there were largely like, completely unaware of like, Whatever they were told, whatever Sean Moon said on stage would probably been the extent of their knowledge of where they were and why they were there.
And it was pretty limited information that, you were given. So, yeah, I, they have no idea. And the thing is, that everybody's really nice. I'm, banned from all these events. Because specifically, I think, a lot of when I was undercover, I just kind of happened to meet the people that I was like, you are going to be very important a few years, and just by chance, that's who I met.
And I was correct. And so I kind of have a lot of dirt on people who are trying to be more mainstream now.
SHEFFIELD: Like who I just
MOORE: like I write about this, like, I mean, I guess I'm going to be names that, like, right. Unless you're familiar, like with my work, but like there's Gavin wax, who's the head of the New York young Republican club, there's all these people who are [00:20:00] now filling in positions and packs in Michigan and Texas and New York, and they're, doing all this stuff and it's like, well, I have all your chats where you're like, Hitler was cool, and so there's, a lot of animosity towards that. within like QAnon circles or cult circles, there's not that same level of hatred of me because I'm not, I don't super dig into that. But that being said, like, I think all the journalists there would agree that these people were extremely kind.
the press lady was very accommodating. I mean, I emailed at like Wednesday, 10 PM and I was like, Hey, Can I cover this? And with the next morning, like probably the first thing that she did was email me back and say, of course, so nice when I was there, everybody's so nice. And so, of course, if you're just walking into it, it just seems like this is great.
We've got all these great speakers and everyone's so friendly and so accommodating and there's, like, it's just I think it's hard to once people go to something like that and they have a nice time and [00:21:00] everyone's friendly to them to then be like, well, when you peel it back, this is what actually is going on.
People don't want to hear that. They don't want to, people don't want to feel tricked and they also don't want to feel like jerks, because it kind of, It feels bad when people were so nice to me, and now I know they suck.
SHEFFIELD: Well, yeah. I, Maybe there's some of that in I mean it is, yeah. But the, doctrines though, are just so obscure in particular, I mean, like when you were going to, so you went to the Reawaken America conference, which Eric Trump spoke at many of their, particular rallies. And and again, so like these are not. These are not fringe figures in the Republican party. These are, this is the Republican mainstream. Like why would Eric Trump speak at something that was, his, family and even Donald Trump. Didn't he at one point actually go to one of these rallies at one point or phone it in or something like
MOORE: maybe, I don't know. It would have been after I was going to them. I'm banned from them, so [00:22:00] I'm not familiar at this point, but I mean, at the end of the day, like, Michael Flynn is a mainstream Republican figure. I mean, Michael Flynn is an ally of Donald Trump. Like, that's very factual, and like, to debate it is like, asinine, so, I will say, at those Clay Clark events They're not so nice, so it's probably easier to convince people, but when, like, something like, like, like Sean Moon, where you really have to go into a lot of detail to explain stuff to people, you've got, if someone had a positive experience, you've got about five sentences to get their attention, to change their mind, to get them to listen to you, and Sean Moon needs more than five sentences, right?
So it, I think it just gets, So I don't know. So complicated. But yeah, I mean, I can't imagine a world in which somebody could make a reasonable argument that Michael Flynn is not part of the mainstream Republican party. Yeah. And Sebastian Gorka, I mean, Sebastian Gorka's like famous. He's had a show like as long as I've been alive, I, his, wife is the head of like her, like, Maybe Fairfax County's like GOP, like these are mainstream people.
I mean, Candace Taylor, [00:23:00] who, when I was undercover, I was at events, watching her on stage saying that like the Lord had sent her Linwood to replace her dead father. And she was all about guns, God, and, babies, she's like the, chair of the Georgia GOP or something now. I mean, it's
SHEFFIELD: Well, and she was the lieutenant governor
MOORE: yeah,
well,
yeah, she was like running at the time.
She was like saying this stuff
SHEFFIELD: all right, yeah, not the nominee She was in the
MOORE: yeah. So I mean, yeah, these people are extremely like mainstream. Jack Po. Soc, like I said, is working with the campaign. I mean, there's, it's. I don't know how, like CPAC is republicanism. That's what it is.
Far-right conferences are about trying to relive the "magic" of January 6th
SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Well and yeah, and I think also that there is a normalcy bias a lot of people in this Center to left have like they that It's, like they, you don't want to think that you [00:24:00] share a country with people who are completely insane who are, religious zealots who talk about dying for Jesus every single day and who fantasize about being killed. Or killing others, these are core to who they are. And these people have significant power in the Republican party. And it is, horrifying. I mean, like, I, won't lie. Like, sometimes when people ask me, what do I do for my job? I say, I stare into an abyss and tell people what's coming out. And, a lot of people don't want to hear that. I, there is, especially I think in mainstream journalism, there's this fantasy that many of them still have that the Republican party, it's just going to go back to the way it was. If Trump loses, things will be, go back to Mitt Romney, and this whole Trump and we'll forget this whole night, long national nightmare will be over and it's just as delusional and removed from reality [00:25:00] as. Sean Woon stuff, I think.
MOORE: Yeah. I've, I've thought, okay, well, if Trump outright wins, I can go on vacation until January. And if Trump loses, I will just never go on a vacation again. Because it's going to be, I mean, it's like you've got people out hunting FEMA. I mean, it's not going away. These people are not going to just disappear.
And there's a very clear path. A lot of these conferences, what they're leading up to is they want to recreate and capture the magic of January 6th. If you're in to Trump and overthrowing the government. January 6th was cool as hell. I mean, everyone I've ever talked to who was there, who's not a journalist, says it was one of the best days of their lives.
Every journalist I know who covers this stuff and missed it regrets it with, like, the full, like, force of the world, it is something people who are in prison say this. Prison for January 6th, say it was one of the best days of their lives. And, they want to chase [00:26:00] that high. They want to have that again.
And it's, all these conferences are really, like, That's what it's leading up to. It's leading up to, the next January 6th won't be January 6th. It's not going to be a bunch of boomers like, walking down to the Capitol or whatever. It's going to be much more calculated. It's going to be, these convoluted legal plans and, voter suppression and all of this other stuff, but that is what they are building up to.
And so, even if. Even if Trump loses in a landslide, it doesn't matter. They're not going to go away.
SHEFFIELD: no, they aren't and yeah, it's just this fantasy of the Moderate left conservative mainstream media types. It's just it is a delusion and , there are so many of these events that are happening now like not only are they making lots of money for the activists and the content creators, they're also firing up the people who are going to them.
The hardcore manga [00:27:00] extremist, reactionaries. They're probably, like, maybe 15 percent of America, and so if you have this mentality, and this is all you think about every single day, you're kind of alone, generally speaking, unless live in the deep south or something, but generally speaking, you don't have people in your life that you can talk about your fantasies of killing Nancy Pelosi and so, these conferences really do bring these people out and keep them energized and allow them to network and make friends. And I mean, like, people were getting dates out of these conferences, right? They were dating each other and hooking up, right?
MOORE: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's like camp. It's fun. And during the pandemic, it was a lot of everything else is closed, but you know, this is completely open, but now it really is just like, it's just fun to be around people who, think what you're thinking or whatever. But it's, a complete social movement.
And I think that was actually really interesting about this past weekend is that usually there's [00:28:00] not. activities, right? So you got to go down to the range and like shoot ARs and that was pretty cool. But usually you're just stuck listening to all the speeches, but now there's like a fun component on top of it.
Usually there's not that the activity is like you go to the bar or something when it's over. So that was.
SHEFFIELD: said, I had a kid's kid stuff there too.
MOORE: Yeah, there was a petting zoo. There was a petting zoo. There was a big lizard and I think a goat or something Maybe a lamb. I don't know. I didn't go to the petting zoo But yeah, there's you know, just fun activities and we were painting pumpkins and stuff like that.
So Usually that's not the case.
RFK Junior is getting into the MAGA rally grift
SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Well, and so one of the other ones that you had gone to recently was the make America healthy tour of Robert Kennedy jr. And that tell us about that experience. How was
MOORE: Yeah, so what I went to it was the God like whatever basically a year ago In February 23, there was a, what I would call [00:29:00] a pro Russia rally that was an anti war rally. It was called Rage Against the War Machine. So the organizers of that, Wanted to recreate that magic the first time they tried to do it funding didn't work out So they couldn't do it on the one year anniversary.
Then they did it like the end of September they had Saturday was the rage against the war machine 2. 0 and Saturday was our Sunday was Make America healthy again with RFK jr. And it was awful. I mean, first no one showed up to the war rally on Saturday. There was like a couple dozen people there, literally, that's it.
And then the rally the next day, the weather sucked. It was very poorly organized. People I think were frustrated with how poorly organized it was, but it was supposed to be, oh, we're nonpartisan, we, both sides, well then everybody's gonna be up there and saying, if you don't vote for Donald Trump, this country is going to be over forever.
Tulsi Gabbard. It was a speaker who had, of course, she has fully endorsed [00:30:00] Trump and is very proud of it. Russell Brand, who has been credibly accused of assault and rape. He was there, he told us, he's found God and magically right after, all these accusations came out, he found God and he decided that Donald Trump was the way forward.
Also Jesus.
SHEFFIELD: And also he's still a socialist and left winger. He also says that too.
MOORE: totally. Yeah. And you had Matt Taibbi there who, used to work for Rolling Stone like years ago. And so that's, see, we're completely nonpartisan. We, represent both sides and both sides say you have to vote for Donald Trump.
SHEFFIELD: Yeah, and, it is, well, and I would be, I'm interested to hear though, of the people that were there, the attendees like, so, I mean, did they, were these people who were just standard issue Republicans who were showing up for this or were they, kind of, Woo hippies who are mad that Democrats, actually support science.
Or like who was, who were these people?
MOORE: I would [00:31:00] imagine a mix of both. I mean, like it, it was. That's the thing is there's no target. So the first rally, like last year had this problem where everybody had a different reason for not wanting to support Ukraine. Some of those reasons included being funded by the Kremlin. Literally, there was somebody there who worked for Sputnik, who was a speaker.
Some of those reasons included dating Miss Russia. So like a, wide variety of reasons. Some included like literally just Nazi stuff. Yeah. And nobody wanted to offend anybody or step on toes or, hurt the Alliance. And so you got this really fractured kind of set of speeches.
And it was worse this year, I think, that rally of all these people talking and, everybody has, first, they've got a griff that they're trying to push. Every single person, you've got people selling stuff. They've got supplements, they've got DVDs, they've got t shirts, they've got, Yeah.
School programs, they've got whatever
. And so you've got that going on and then [00:32:00] they also have nothing in common. So I was there for a set of speakers, including Jack Posobiec and Jimmy Dore, who is a failed comedian turned podcaster who used to be on the left and is now just like, on the right.
And, so I got frustrated because he's a big name, and, they announced him and he didn't come out. And so I like yelling out like, where's Jimmy door? Does anybody know where Jimmy door is? And other attendees are like, where the hell is Jimmy door? Like, no one got mad at me for heckling.
They're like, I don't know who the hell this is on stage. Like I'm here for Jimmy door. You've got some woman on stage yelling about, MSG and Doritos and no one gives a shit. That's not what they're here for. And so I, I don't think that the audience, I think people in the audience
. But there were a variety of reasons tied exclusively to the speakers that they came to see and so, I, it, that was part of why it seemed like such a failure.
Is that there wasn't a demographic for it in a very specific way. [00:33:00] The only unifying thread was like. I'm going to vote for Donald Trump. That was really it. So whether your background is that you've already voted for Trump twice, or whether your background is that you were all in with RFK and you trust him, so now you're going to vote for Trump because he said to, or, you just really liked forgetting Sarah Marshall or something, and you wanted to see Russell Brand, like, that was, it was just so fragmented.
There wasn't and it was, I mean, the rally was really like clearly composed to be like, it's okay to walk away from the left and to the right. You had Brandon Strzok, who was there, who literally runs the walk away campaign. You had Matt Taibbi, Jimmy Dore, all these people who were on the left and who are now on the right.
But it didn't even really, I don't think they did a good job kind of making that feel welcoming. I mean, even Brandon Strzok, when he got on stage, he said, I don't usually talk to, mixed, crowds. I usually only talk at MAGA events, and it's like, oh, when, and it's like, why would you give away the game like that?
Like, it was very,
SHEFFIELD: just admitted your whole [00:34:00] thing is
fake.
MOORE: right, exactly. So, I, think that yeah, I think people came for the names they wanted to see, and then they were just kind of stuck along for the ride with a bunch of stuff that they didn't get care about.
Republicans' new "post-left" grift targeting uninformed leftists
SHEFFIELD: One of the other kind of unifying aspects of these. post left figures, I think we can call them, whereas they sometimes call themselves that is that Russia loves them. And, it was recently exposed by the various it was recently exposed by federal prosecutors that, Russia was paying, literally paying several of these. allegedly post left, but still we're still on the left. But we're, just so in love with Trump and Republicans. But we're still on the left that Russia was paying them. I mean, like that's, it is, I don't know, like I don't, I feel like the shockwave of that still hasn't fully set in that, These people are largely Russians and or they're [00:35:00] dupes.
MOORE: Dave Rubin, who is one of those people who walked away from the left, he was at the RFK rally. And so it was Tim Pool, and neither one of them were announced speakers. I don't think Temple ever spoke Dave Rubin. I was not there for the pre show because it was already like a nine and a half hour day, but he came on early, a couple hours before it started, I think, and like said a couple of words.
But yeah, you see a lot of that crossover and all of these events,
SHEFFIELD: Yeah, and it's interesting like there is I mean, it's like these so there's this gigantic, multi billion dollar right wing Media and activism behemoth that exists that is almost Nothing, no counterpart to that on the left. But then also they've got so much money. They're also creating this separate little smaller machine designed to gas light leftists.
I mean, even on Twitter, like there are some of them that call themselves mega communist and like that [00:36:00] are really trying to tell uninformed. Low information, left wing, probably college students and, young people that well, actually Donald Trump really is, he likes socialism and, if you want to have a socialist revolution, supporting Donald Trump is the way to do that.
And these people are all over the place and, like we're going out there and saying things like, well, if you're really concerned about Gaza, the civilian deaths in Gaza then you need to support Donald Trump. And it's like, They never bothered to answer the question of, well, why are you supporting Benjamin Netanyahu's preferred candidate? Why would that help Gaza in any way? Like they didn't even address that. It's just, it is incredible the gaslighting that they can pull.
MOORE: that, that, RFK rally at the day before the rage against war machine 2. 0, people did mention Israel and often in very antisemitic ways that were jaw dropping. But the [00:37:00] Sunday, the, RFK rally, the main one. It took until Jimmy Dore for someone to say Israel. I mean, it literally took six and a half hours at this pro peace rally for someone to say a single thing about Israel.
And when he did, he made some joke. He said, a lot of my Zionist friends will say to me, Jimmy, like, don't you know that Israel is the only place in the Middle East that accepts, LGBTQ. And don't you love that because you're a liberal, blah, blah, blah. And they'll be like, what do you say to that?
He's like, well, I tell them great point. We should slaughter all the Gaza's children. You're right. And the crowd, like, there was some applause. But it was not the overwhelming experience because, I mean, in that crowd Israel's doing nothing wrong and you don't even mention it, you can't even, bring that up.
So another disjointed, interesting thing, but yeah, like it's, of course, I mean, who put the, who, Jerusalem, they put the embassy in Jerusalem. I mean, [00:38:00] there's not, Donald Trump is not a friend. So Palestine is not a friend to gods and children. that's, crazy. And they just lost right on over it.
SHEFFIELD: yeah, well, and okay. So, but I guess maybe another unifying theory was their belief in conspiracy theories generally, but maybe they all had a different one that they believed. I mean, was that what it, what was the difference?
MOORE: Yeah. Yeah. Everybody has their own thing. They've got their own stuff. And it's like, in general, I think the RK rally was really interesting to you, especially on the Israel thing, just because. Usually, that like, come, walk away from the left thing, it caters to people through that Israel Palestine door right now.
Like, that is really the, pull, I think. And that rally didn't even bother with it obviously because RFK is a supporter of Israel. But the like, general conspiracies, I mean, really, they just, they were all over the place. Everyone's got their own, like, little pet conspiracy with [00:39:00] absolutely no cohesion.
I, so that's, yeah, it was such a disaster, such a bad rally.
SHEFFIELD: Yeah.
Turning Point USA rallies: A closer look
SHEFFIELD: Well, and somebody who puts on much more organized and cohesive rallies is Charlie Kirk and his Turning Point Empire, which has an annual budget of combined with all the different groups of over 100 million a year with no left wing counterparts.
And you've been to one of his rallies, which he, I think he's doing like maybe 30 a year, but you've been to, one of them. Which one was that?
MOORE: In July of 2021, I went to the Turning Point Action Student or Turning Point USA Student Action Summit in Tampa. And so every summer, there's a Student Action Summit. And every winter there's America Fest. And those are like the two big ones that he has. I have a lifetime ban from all Turning Point USA and Turning Point Action events.
So earlier this year, I did go to Turning Point USA. I went to Detroit while it was there, but I didn't have access to inside because I'm [00:40:00] banned. But,
SHEFFIELD: Are they support free speech? Remember?
MOORE: it's free speech as long as it's not from Amanda. so I, and in this December I will be flying out to Phoenix, Arizona, and I will be sitting in the lobby of the hotel across the street from turning point USA is America fast, which I will also not be allowed into.
So I, you could say like a groupie, I guess that some of them say that I'm a groupie. They make fun of me that way, but it's true. I do go and sit in the hotel across the street from them. Though I've only been allowed inside once.
SHEFFIELD: Well, the one time that you went in were allowed in, which is obviously the reason you got banned, like, what did you see and report out of it?
MOORE: That is not why I got banned. I got banned because a bunch of Tyler's friends, Tyler, the COO of Turning Point Action are guys I knew undercover, so. They're basically, like, what Turning Point is doing is they are taking people who have in the past said things very positive about Hitler, for instance, or very positive about Nick [00:41:00] Fuentes, and they are helping kind of whitewash these people's reputations.
And so they are saying, I mean, it looks from the outside, what it looks like is it's put the Hitler stuff behind you, make the optics a little better, we'll give you a position and here we go, spit you out. And I guess there's a, world in which Turning Point is doing this by accident, but they've done it enough times.
with people that I have seen who used to love Hitler and who are now deeply involved in Turning Point, that I, do question if maybe it is an accident or not. And so I think there's a little animosity with me there. When I was there, it was Like being at a concert. Okay, you've got all of the lights flashing, you've got all of the loud music Yeah, you've got James O'Keefe who's now disgraced James O'Keefe.
Very sad coming out in his heyday He's wearing his bulletproof vest and he's all like, the crowds going wild people are like, oh, you're so brave I love you so much and it's like 2 p. [00:42:00] m And this is what we're doing, and it's absolutely bonkers. And it's really, it's geared for college students, but also like a lot of boomers love it.
They love to come in and give their money and they love to be, they feel like they're part of the youth culture because they're there at the youth event. And it's just completely over the top. It's so, So ridiculous that it like, I couldn't, I mean, I would not go to something like this for fun in general.
It's just not who I am. But if I was really into democratic politics and I really wanted to go to stuff and I went to something and it was presented in such a, goofy manner to me, I wouldn't be able to take it seriously, but the demographic is 20 year olds and not me. So it seems it seems to work.
SHEFFIELD: Well, what was the breakdown? a percentage of older people versus actual students.
MOORE: I mean, it's, I would say. It's a lot, so they, subsidize students [00:43:00] going, right? So obviously students are broke. So they will give you a stipend to go the younger you are, the higher your stipend is. And so that kind of helps like get people in the seats. And then it's also, it's like a way for you to escape being at home with your parents during the summer.
You get to go on a little vacation, people are hooking up, people are drinking, they're having a good time. They're like 21 years old, they're doing what 21 year olds do. And then you'll have like a bunch of older people that come in. I don't really know what the exact demographic breakdown would be, but they also have like VIP events and those will be, the ticket will be 50 for a student, but maybe like 500 for an adult or something. And so that kind of also filters how many people are willing to pay all that money to get in.
SHEFFIELD: Yeah
MAGA's new push to get followers to have children ASAP
SHEFFIELD: . Well, and another thing that they often say at these events is, like they're really heavily pushing now to tell the younger people who go, you need to have children. You need to have children. Have children. Get [00:44:00] married. Have children. Get married. Like, that's. I mean, it is like a drumbeat now from these conferences at Charlie Kirk's in particular.
MOORE: Yeah. Even in 2021, when I was at that one Lauren Bobert was up on stage talking about how all the girls needed to like have babies immediately or whatever. And it's like, lady, you're like, A congresswoman, you have a job, you're up here acting like you're a trad wife, but you have a job and it just, very bizarre to hear a woman who is an active, like, current.
sitting national politician, pretend like, Oh, I just, all, women should just have babies right away. Girls, the most important thing you can do in this room, the most important thing any girl in this room can do is, have a baby. And it's like, you are a person. So, it's been constant, a drum beat.
It's very gross, I think.
SHEFFIELD: Well, and yeah, definitely very hypocritical. I mean, I do have to think though that, [00:45:00] I mean, a lot of the reason why they've shifted to this type of messaging is that, they re they've realized a couple of things. One is that Gen Z women are now the first generation in American history to be less religious than men of their age cohort. And so basically the goal is to, get them pregnant and married as soon as possible. And, going to these brainwashing churches to keep them. in basically mental chains, if you will. And because otherwise once they can see what's available to them, they won't choose to worship Charlie Kirk
MOORE: Right.
SHEFFIELD: of these other people.
MOORE: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, completely, if you can keep them busy and distracted and if you've got a kid at 20, you're going to be you're not going to really care about politics. He's not going to have time to even think [00:46:00] about voting, honestly, like it's just going to be a lot and that's better.
That's better for them.
SHEFFIELD: It is. Yeah.
How Nick Fuentes and fascist "groypers" have taken over Turning Point USA
SHEFFIELD: so to talk about the, sort of char Charlie Kirk versus Nick Fuentes thing, which you were touching on earlier. So, and one of the, more interesting dynamics with this sort of rivalry between Charlie Kirk and Nick Fuentes is that Nick Fuentes, he actually probably represents the Republican young activists more than Charlie Kirk does.
I mean, you can just go through Charlie Kirk's Twitter and the guy has almost no engagement. People don't actually really like Charlie Kirk in the Republican movement. They really don't. And like I remember like that was why he hired Candace Owens because people actually liked her and they wanted to see what she said, and they would, engage with her content a lot more.
And of course now she's a black Nazi. [00:47:00] But you know, like that's, and that's what I'm saying, like Charlie Kirk and I wrote about this in 2019. I said that Charlie Kirk's organization is being, sort of attacked by Nick Fuentes and Nick Fuentes in his mentality is going to win I mean and that's and Nick Fuentes has said that correctly that he has won and I mean You just keep seeing this like Charlie Kirk He fought at first to keep the Nazis out and now he's tried to embrace and extend I guess is that the right word for it?
Or what do you think?
MOORE: Yeah, I actually, I mean, so when I was at AFPAC, which is Nick's event outside of Turning Point in June this year in Detroit I mean, of course I, reach out for comments at Turning Point and there's nothing, they don't say anything, you've got a Nazi rally happening in front of your venue.
Basically the venue that Nick was supposed to have AFPAC at failed when they realized who he was. They said, we don't host political events at all. We certainly wouldn't host a Nazi rally. We were going to [00:48:00] start, that wouldn't be the first one. And, so outside you've got Kobo or whatever the convention center in Detroit is called now.
You've got, Trump inside Kobo speaking, Alex Jones inside speaking. And then outside across the street, you've got Nick on top of a hotel roof talking down to everybody, and you've just got like a sea of people. They're not wearing masks. They don't give a shit. They're not worried.
There was a time where stopping and standing slack jawed, staring up at Nick Fuentes in front of Turning Point would have gotten you removed from Turning Point USA, and it didn't get anybody removed. And one of the things I wrote about in The Intercept was that palling around with Nick all day was a guy named Alec Beaton.
Alec Beaton is the youth chair for St. Clair County, Michigan's GOP. He's also the former president of his college's Turning Point chapter, which he founded. He's no longer the president because I think he's graduated. And he's inside with Nick. He's got his badge on. His face is completely, he goes on Nick's streaming [00:49:00] platform.
Turning Point didn't care. They didn't give a shit. They didn't kick him out. They didn't kick out Jake Shields. They didn't kick out any of the people that were in Nick's circle. They didn't kick out me. They took away my press credentials. They accidentally gave them to me and then took them away like a day later.
But you know, and then I, Nick had a VIP event. It was inside and I sat out front of it. And I waited for people to walk out. And when they did, I knew who I was looking for. And when I had those names, that's what went in that article. And Turning Point didn't give a shit either. There were people who were at, who were like, guests of, AFPAC.
A VIP guest of AFPAC. Whose company, whose 501c3, is a vendor at Turning Point. Almost every conference. They didn't care.
Something you can look at when you're talking about 2019, the Gripper War there's a specific moment where Rob Smith, who's a black, gay, conservative commentator, is there and [00:50:00] you've got, someone comes up and says, how does anal sex help us win the culture war?
And Charlie is like, obviously offended, but he doesn't really know how to handle it. And he's like, I'm going to let the gay man deal with this. But I wouldn't say he like strongly has Rob's back, but he has his back and probably the best capacity that Charlie Kirk is capable of doing. And he says at the end, when, Rob is answered, Charlie's like, we're not dealing with this.
We're not putting up with this here. That's not what this is. And he like does lay down like the law to some degree and fast forward to December, 2023. And that same guy who was at AFPAC as a VIP guest, Mark Avanio, whose organization Republicans are national renewal is a vendor at turning point events.
They have a party across the street from Turning Point. They invite Rob Smith as a featured guest and when he gets there they surround him and they call him slurs and make fun of him for being gay. And then that's that. And when news outlets across the country reach [00:51:00] out to Charlie Kirk, he says, you know what?
That wasn't an official Turning Point event. I have no comment. Now, Rob Smith used to be your friend, Charlie. What happened here? And the answer is, Groypers won. Nick says it all the time. He says, he'll share stuff from Charlie. He'll share stuff from Matt Walsh and he'll say Charlottesville one groupers one, and he's right.
They did. They won this demographic. And it's, that like active, passionate sub 30 male demographic within Republican politics. Like there are certainly people who are like 25 and are going to vote Republican because that's what their parents did and they've always done, but the ones who were like, I need to go to everything.
I love this shit. I'm obsessed with it. Like, they are, that's, that, it's that demographic that's winning, this like far right battle. So yeah, and I actually have a piece coming out fairly soon about even more of this, like, engagement between Nick's group and, Turning Point and his like, takeover.
I, I was going to say hostile takeover of Turning Point, but I don't think it's particularly hostile at this point.
SHEFFIELD: No, it isn't. Well, [00:52:00] and yeah, and it all comes down to that, another thing that I think a lot of we'll say, center to left Christians, especially do not want to accept, which is that, these far right Christians, They really do believe that Christianity will be illegal. They really do believe that, they're going to be forced to, be gay or, made to become, transgender. Like they really do believe these things. And. People on the center to left, especially establishment left. They don't want to look at this stuff. They don't want to believe it's real, but you're absolutely right. Like turning point USA is kind of the place where all future Republican politicians will come out and Nazis are welcome in this organization. Like that's the future of the Republican party, welcoming Nazis with an open door. Yeah.
MOORE: I mean, look at Turning Point and CPAC both, [00:53:00] both organizations that have banned me. And at a personal level, because at CPAC, CPAC, they said, we're going to revoke a bunch of left wing media's press credentials, so you'll have to buy a ticket. So when my press credentials got revoked, I bought a ticket, like a bunch of other people did.
And only I got kicked out. Everyone else is allowed to stay. I got removed almost immediately. Who's allowed to stay? Well, there's Ryan Sanchez. And he, Hitler saluted on me in the lobby at CPAC. He also got kicked out of the United States Marine Corps for being too much of a Nazi, which is like really difficult to do.
Okay. It's really hard to get kicked out of the Marine Corps for being too much of a Nazi, but he did it. He did it. And he's welcome at CPAC. He's welcome at turning point. They don't give a shit. When, Ryan Hitler saluted on me at CPAC, the video went viral and still. CPAC, Matt Schlapp, who runs ACU, which is who puts on CPAC, he doubled down on it.
And he was like the only people here who, are anti Semitic are, the left wing journalists, [00:54:00] whatever the hell he said, some dumb stuff, you've got that. I, have a stalker. I have a neo Nazi stalker who's currently in prison and he was at CPAC and he was running a podcast and it was a Twitter space and it was called neo Nazi infiltrate CPAC.
Okay. And he was welcomed at CPAC. Matt Schlapp wouldn't condemn him. And this guy is a guy in jail for stalking women who has multiple times tried to shoot up high schools. And he's been under investigation by the feds for like a decade, and that's fine. That's completely welcome. And there's no shutting the door.
Everybody is welcome. As long as they say the main talking point, which is that we are correct. I'm voting for Donald Trump. Great. Don't give a shit. What else? Come on in, the door. It's, that's you create the culture that you deserve.
SHEFFIELD: yeah, And I, applaud you for being one of the few people being willing to say that full story. It's ironic people on the right love to talk about how things are being censored and censorship, [00:55:00] industrial complex and whatnot, but actually telling the full truth of what the Republican party is doing and who they are becoming. That's the most censored story in America. All
MOORE: Yeah.
SHEFFIELD: It's been a harrowing discussion, but I think a necessary one.
So for people who want to keep up with your stuff, Amanda, what are your recommendations for that?
MOORE: I'm on all social media platforms as @noturtlesoup17. And then I have a sub stack that's turtlediaries.net,
SHEFFIELD: All right. Well, I encourage everybody to check those out. Thanks for being here.
MOORE: Of course, thanks for having me.
SHEFFIELD: All right. So that is the program for today. I appreciate everybody joining us for the conversation. And you can always get more if you go to theoryofchange.show with the video, audio, and transcript of all of the episodes and my thanks especially to everybody who is a paid subscribing member.
You have unlimited full access to all the episodes and I thank you very much for [00:56:00] your support and I'll see you next time.
Far-right conferences are radicalizing millions, with almost no mainstream media coverage