IREHR in Daily Montanan: “Report says hundreds of state legislators have joined far-right Facebook groups” – May 20, 2022

IREHR’s report, Breaching the Mainstream, was cited in the Daily Montanan;

Kira Lerner, democracy reporter, writes, “The Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights, a think tank that defends democracy and human rights, identified 875 lawmakers who have joined at least one of 789 Facebook groups, including white nationalist groups, groups tied to QAnon, groups that spout conspiracy theories about COVID-19, and others that promote former president Donald Trump’s “Big Lie” that voter fraud cost him the 2020 election.

Lerner continues, “The state lawmakers are also spread out in all regions of the country. Currently, 221 of them represent districts in the Midwest, 191 in the Northeast, 264 in the South and 200 in the West.”

Devin Burghart, IREHR’s Executive Director, was quoted in the Daily Montanan;

“It’s a nationwide phenomenon,” Burghart said. “Far too often, people think of this activity as being relegated to the deep South or the Pacific Northwest, but there are legislators in all 50 states who have joined these different Far-Right Facebook groups.”

“We knew we had a problem on our hands, but we hadn’t been able to quantify the depths of it. This was a first attempt on our part to wrap our heads around it, and it was pretty striking in terms of the various pipelines that have opened up to pump disinformation and far-right ideas into legislatures.” Said Burghart

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