Recall Newsom effort has ties to far-right movements, including QAnon and virus skeptics

[dalton99a]

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-01-23/recall-newsom-effort-qanon-antivaxxer-extremist-ties

Recall Newsom effort has ties to far-right movements, including QAnon and virus skeptics
By Anita Chabria, Paige St. John
Jan. 23, 2021

SACRAMENTO — As the pandemic continues to shutter businesses, close schools and upend lives in California, Gov. Gavin Newsom has become a target of angry frustration for some, driving a grassroots effort to recall him from office. What once started as a pipe dream is beginning to look like a political threat for the Democratic governor.

But a Times investigation found that recall campaign leaders, seeking to capitalize on the darkening public mood, allied with radical and extreme elements early on to help collect signatures. Those included groups promoting distrust of government, science and medicine; peddlers of QAnon doomsday conspiracies; “patriots” readying for battle and one organization allied with the far-right extremist group, the Proud Boys.

The recall gave those fringe factions a higher profile and a shared villain. They helped energize the campaign with large and often inflammatory rallies over masks, in support of Trump and against the election they falsely say was stolen from the former president — ripe venues to harvest petition signatures.

The Times found:

- Hardline activists from the anti-vaccination movement. Two leaders, Denise Aguilar and Tara Thornton with the Freedom Angels, organized and participated in numerous rallies at the state Capitol that promoted the recall effort. At these events, speakers denounced vaccines and health orders. The Proud Boys, who have been involved in protest violence, from street brawls in Sacramento to the incursion of the nation’s Capitol, are also often present. Aguilar has said they provided security.

- The recall campaign itself provided a safe harbor for the propaganda and violent rhetoric that riled the Republican voter base and spilled over into the Capitol riot. An organizer in El Dorado County is a Three Percenter — an anti-government extremist movement, according to the Anti-Defamation League. Until social media crackdowns and questions from reporters at The Times, the recall’s ostensibly bipartisan Facebook pages repeated the surreal conspiracies of QAnon as fact and asserted the national election was rigged despite all evidence to the contrary. Those pages have also likened the daily disruptions of COVID-19 to the Holocaust and the governor to Hitler, framing their struggles as if they were on par with the massacre of 6 million Jews.

[MustLoveBeagles]

1. K&R

[2naSalit]

2. No surprise there.

[Vivienne235729]

3. Well, of course they are. Q and RWNJ are always trying to get rid of Democrats

[roamer65]

4. I can't say how I would behave to a recall petition for Gov Whitmer here in MI.

Probably the same as if I were a Californian to a petition to recall Gov Newsom.

It would be very uncomfortable for the petitioner.

[Initech]

6. The people that run these petition booths are exactly how you would suspect.

Typical of the Trump crowd.

[roamer65]

7. They don't have the guts to go out and canvass, eh?

[Initech]

8. No they setup booths at supermarkets and street corners.

The last one I drove by I think had maybe one person stop at it.

[roamer65]

9. Mmmm...not that I advocate this behavior.

But I do know I would berate them and cuss at them.

I speak only for myself.

[Initech]

10. I have given the finger at a couple of them.

And also at one of those idiotic Trump merchandise booths. I just hope my windshield doesn't get bashed in!

[roamer65]

11. The drive by bird.

Oh yeah. That would be a given with me.

[Initech]

5. Oh yeah it's a partisan power grab all right.

[still_one]

12. The LA Times has been on top of this from the start, and a dark money complaint has already

been filed:

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-01-04/california-campaign-watchdog-complaint-newsom-recall