Amanda Moore spent a year undercover attending rallies, events, and conferences in the trenches of MAGA Nation. She hung out with Proud Boys, got up close and personal with QAnon grifters, and got invited to join a fascist grassroots organization while attending a Turning Point USA event. She was also present at January 6th. She joins Brad to share what she saw and heard. They play clips she recorded secretly while at these events and talk about why we should all be worried about the future of the nation.
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Welcome to Straight White American Jesus.
My name is Brad Onishi.
I am faculty at the University of San Francisco.
Our show is hosted in partnership with the Kapp Center at UCSB.
And I'm joined today by Amanda Moore, who is a journalist, somebody who's done something just sort of completely extraordinary, and we're going to get to that in a minute.
So let me first just say, Amanda, thanks for joining me.
Thanks for having me, Brad.
So we need to sort of explain to folks who you are and what you did.
You did something to me that is pretty incredible.
So about a month and a half ago, you sort of revealed yourself as somebody who had spent An entire year undercover, basically in the clenches of MAGA Nation at events, at rallies, at various places.
You attended everything from QAnon sort of gatherings to, you know, rallies for political candidates, places where the Proud Boys were gathering, celebrating, cavorting, and so on.
And you have incredible audio footage of this whole year undercover.
Let me just start by asking you this.
You are now sort of somebody who's online and telling your story about your time undercover in MAGA Nation.
You spent an inordinate amount of time doing this.
I mean, this was basically your life full-time for a year.
I'm sure there's people wondering, okay, like what motivates somebody like you to basically spend every waking hour in the sort of teeth of MAGA Nation getting secret audio, you know, from both big and small fish in that world?
I mean, what led you down this path?
Sure.
So, I mean, it was COVID, so what else was I going to do?
I work in live events, and so my job was completely gone.
And there wasn't really anything for me to fall back on at all, because the entire industry was destroyed.
There wasn't a different plan.
And I've always had an interest in politics.
I used to run a blog, I used to, you know, write or run blogs for like law firms and stuff.
And I live in DC and the first million mag of March was right by my spin class.
So I just walked on over and that's kind of how this started.
So you go to this first March and you're just like, this is crazy.
And I'm just going to like chase this sort of like, uh, this feeling.
Kind of.
So I had been to Trump rallies when he was running for president.
Laura Loomer was here in D.C.
a couple years ago, and I went to that, and I just record everything, and people, I'm not press, because I'm not a real journalist.
So nobody really questions me, and I look like, you know, I fit in, so it's not a big deal.
Nobody's asking me what I'm doing there.
So after that first rally, I actually, a podcast had asked me to grab some audio from the second one, since I'm right there.
And so I did that for them.
And then I went to the third rally, which ended up being the insurrection and kind of just escalated what I was willing to do.
At that point, I was like, well, I should probably go to CPAC and see what else we can find out.
So you, um, I mean, I guess what I'm getting at, I mean, I want to come back to obviously the insurrection, but kind of a big deal.
Um, but you, I mean, I guess one of the things I'm, I'm, I'm teasing out here is like, You know, you go to a couple rallies.
The third one is a January 6th rally that ends up being a day of infamy in American history.
Is it fair to say that after that, you're like, okay, I'm willing to spend money and like, go to CPAC.
I'm willing to spend money and go down to Georgia or, you know, go over to wherever the Proud Boys are hanging out in Virginia.
And just like, Chase down these stories and chase down what these people are saying when they think they're behind closed doors and just around folks who agree with them.
Is that kind of the hero origin story?
Is this where this happened?
So kind of.
I had had COVID previously because live events.
Everyone I've worked with had had COVID before it was a big thing, I guess.
That March of 2020, it was all of us.
And so I figured I had at least some immunity, and then I got vaccinated in February.
And so kind of with CPAC, I thought, well, I'll probably be able to go, and I know a lot of outlets won't send journalists, or the journalists won't want to go, and there's probably, like, possibility to sell video or audio to a podcast, or, you know, like, A quick clip to CNN or something.
That was kind of what I thought.
But while I was there, a guy talked to me about helping out with his grassroots fascist organization.
And that's when I was like, okay, I'm all in now.
This is a real thing that I'm doing.
And that's really how it escalated.
Yeah, so just very casual.
Like, we're at the bar.
Hey, just met you.
You're Amanda.
Great.
Hey, I have this fascist organization.
Hey, do you want to come on out and, you know, give us a hand?
OK, so that makes total sense.
So at this point, you're like, you've gone from like, hey, I'm going to go see what these folks are yelling about at a rally to I'm at CPAC and somebody is soliciting me to say, hey, do you want to join our fascist group and help out?
And at that point, you're basically like, I'm all in because This is, this is a dangerous thing in my country and there's, as you're saying, it's kind of hard for press at the moment to kind of get into the trenches here.
So if I can infiltrate and I can get sort of in there, I'm going to do it.
Is that, does that sound kind of like what happened?
Yeah, absolutely.
And you know, even with, um, Even if press had been able to go to CPAC, I mean, that kind of infiltration is not really commonly done and a lot of outlets won't allow it, even without a virus.
And so, yeah, it was definitely an opportunity that I knew I only was able to have because I'm not a real journalist.
Yeah.
One of the things that I do want to mention, just because of the nature of our show, is that you do have a kind of religious background that is somewhat relevant, and I know it's not, you know, we've discussed this kind of off-air, that it's not an overriding, perhaps, part of your biography, but it is probably worth mentioning that you do have some evangelical kind of experiences in your past.
Would you mind just Giving us a little insight into that.
I mean, not necessarily because it has a dominant effect on your life now, but I think it does maybe provide you a little bit of horizon of understanding when you do meet some of the people that you meet in all of these various places.
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