https://www.timesofisrael.com/trumps-rnc-showcases-conspiracists-backer-of-husbands-controlling-wives-votes/
An advocate of “household voting” in which husbands get the final
say. A woman who has argued that school sex ed programs are “grooming”
children to be sexualized by predators like Jeffrey Epstein. A candidate
who has peddled in racist tropes and bizarre QAnon conspiracy theories.
US President Donald Trump has long surrounded himself with
controversial characters who hold out-of-the-mainstream views. But the
decision by the party to elevate some of those figures by featuring them
in prime-time spots at the Republican National Convention or inviting
them to witness this week’s events is drawing new scrutiny.
Monday’s opening night, for instance,
featured Rebecca Friedrichs, an elementary school teacher who railed in
her remarks against teachers unions. In a July opinion piece in the
Washington Times, Friedrichs argued that public schools groom kids for
sexual predators like Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, his longtime
companion, who stands accused of facilitating the abuse of girls by the
now-deceased sex offender, by teaching them basic sex education.
And then there are the invited guests. On
Tuesday, Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican congressional nominee from
Georgia who supports the QAnon conspiracy theory, revealed that she had
been invited to the White House to attend Trump’s marquee acceptance
speech.
Greene has a long history of bolstering the
baseless pro-Trump theory, which centers on an alleged anonymous,
high-ranking government official known as “Q” who shares information
about an anti-Trump “deep state” often tied to satanism and child sex
trafficking. She has also made a series of racist, anti-Semitic and
Islamophobic comments.
CNN reported Tuesday that, before she ran
for office, Greene promoted the debunked “Pizzagate” conspiracy and
speculated that the deadly 2017 white nationalist rally in
Charlottesville, Virginia, was an “inside job.”
Trump has praised her as a “future Republican Star.”
