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Trump endorses QAnon supporter Marjorie Taylor Greene after Republican primary win

Her campaign has been dogged by controversy

David Maclean
New York
Wednesday 12 August 2020 09:39 EDT
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Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene speaks to a GOP women's group in Rome, Georgia
Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene speaks to a GOP women's group in Rome, Georgia ((John Bailey The Rome News-Tribune via the Associated Press))

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Donald Trump has endorsed QAnon conspiracy theorist Marjorie Taylor Greene after she won her Georgia congressional primary, calling her a "future Republican Star" who is "strong on everything and never gives up".

Ms Green will replace retiring incumbent Tom Graves as the Republican candidate in Georgia’s 14th Congressional District after Tuesday's primary runoff, despite a history of bigoted remarks and publicly supporting the QAnon conspiracy theory.

The 14th Congressional District is considered to be a safe Republican seat, as multiple nonpartisan political forecasters have classified it as “solid or safe Republican".

Her campaign has been dogged by controversy, after hours of videos she uploaded to Facebook that showed her making offensive comments were uncovered by Politico in June.

In them she made a number of racist, Islamophobic and anti-Semitic remarks, such as claiming that African Americans are “slaves to the Democratic Party”.

She also suggested that Muslims should not work in government and claimed that Democratic donor George Soros, who is subject to numerous anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, is a Nazi.

She has also embraced the far-right QAnon conspiracy theory, whose movement has been identified by the FBI as an extremist group, and whose followers claim a deep state is plotting against president Donald Trump.

A full explanation of the conspiracy can be found here. QAnon conspiracy posts tend to focus on the president and the things going on around him. Q appears to be a Trump supporter, and many of the posts complain about the fact the “deep state” is blighting his work.

But they spread out in to a vast conspiracy theory, which links up to people including Hillary Clinton and Robert Mueller, who is running the investigation into Russian interference in the election. It borrows from other conspiracy theories – such as Pizzagate, which accused a variety of well-known people of running a paedophile ring, and the long-running false claims about the death of Seth Rich – and adds yet more on top.

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