People For’s Right Wing Watch has been recognized as a vital tool for monitoring and disrupting the Far Right. In his tribute to People For founder Norman Lear, Mother Jones magazine Bureau Chief David Corn called Right Wing Watch “essential.”
Recently, Right Wing Watch’s reporting on MAGA Republican officials’ connections to white nationalist and Christian nationalist figures has generated media coverage and activism that is undermining far-right political leaders. Here are just a few of the important accomplishments Right Wing Watch has achieved recently.
Capturing Video of Mike Johnson’s Extremist Positions at Christian Nationalist Gala
Right Wing Watch reported in November that newly elected Speaker of the House Mike Johnson agreed to keynote a gala for a leading Christian nationalist group, the National Association of Christian Lawmakers, which RWW has covered since its founding two years ago.
Johnson ordered his Dec. 5 speech closed to the press, but Right Wing Watch captured video the group accidentally streamed online (and since took down), allowing Americans to hear what Johnson had hoped to reveal only to a small audience: that God had spoken with him and raised him up to be an American “Moses” at a “Red Sea moment” for the country. Right Wing Watch also reported on anti-LGBTQ speakers who came on before and after Johnson.
Right Wing Watch clips from Johnson’s remarks generated massive media coverage of Johnson’s ties to far-right Christian nationalists, and have been viewed 8 million times online, disrupting Johnson’s efforts to hide his extremist positions with a soft-spoken “winsome” demeanor.
Exposing Far-Right Nick Fuentes’s Extremism to Challenge His GOP Allies
At the end of 2022, Right Wing Watch reporting on the antisemitism and antidemocratic agenda of far-right America First figure Nick Fuentes proved essential to reporters covering Fuentes’s dinner with Donald Trump, spurring Rachel Maddow to call Right Wing Watch “a fire alarm system for the whole country.”
This fall, the Texas Tribune used Right Wing Watch documentation of Fuentes’s extremism in its piece exposing influential GOP strategist Jonathan Stickland’s seven-hour strategy meeting with Fuentes. The political fallout deepened divides within the Texas Republican Party and exposed the extremism of party leaders’ refusal to back a resolution against meeting with neo-Nazis. Reporting on the scandal also drew on Right Wing Watch coverage of fracking billionaire Farris Wilkes, who funds efforts to push the state GOP further to the right.
Documenting White Nationalist History of Politician Now Facing a Recall Election
In Oklahoma, progressive activists succeeded this fall in gathering signatures to force a recall election of Enid city councilmember Judd Blevins, who was elected earlier in the year. Shortly before his election, local media discovered and reported on a Right Wing Watch exposé of Blevins’s previous role as state leader of a white nationalist group and his participation in the deadly 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville. Reporters and activists demanded that Blevins acknowledge the evidence compiled by Right Wing Watch and apologize, which he refused to do. Activists launched a successful signature gathering campaign, with Blevins now facings an April 2, 2024, recall vote.
This Vital Work is Only Possible Through the Support of Our Members
This is only a small sample of the work being done by Right Wing Watch. And with the historic 2024 election on the horizon, Right Wing Watch’s tireless reporting will truly be essential. You can ensure our ability to expose far-right extremists and disrupt their political power-building plans by making a donation today. Every dollar helps us in our mission to defend democracy from authoritarianism.