IREHR’s report, Breaching the Mainstream, in the PhillyVoice;
Kira Lerner, democracy reporter, writes, “More than 1 in 5 Republican state lawmakers in the United State have joined at least one far-right Facebook group, according to a new report.”
Lerner continues, “The report identifies 40 Pennsylvania Republican lawmakers who joined such groups, a number that accounts for nearly 16% of the membership of the 253-member General Assembly.”
Devin Burghart, IREHR’s President, was quoted in the PhillyVoice;
“We knew we had a problem on our hands, but we hadn’t been able to quantify the depths of it,” said Devin Burghart. “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.”
“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.”
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