If you have been on Twitter for more than the past couple of years and followed politics in any regard you likely came across Katie McHugh. Katie worked at Breitbart during the alt-right’s so-called rise in media and spent a good deal of time writing in her own words, ‘racist and bigoted tweets.’
This editor may have even had a run in or two with her …
BuzzFeed wrote an entire piece about McHugh and how she has officially left the alt-right. The piece itself isn’t terrible except for the fact the author pretends McHugh was far more important in Conservative media than she really was, LIKELY in an attempt to paint all outlets with the same broad brush.
I've been working for a while on this story about Katie McHugh, the former Breitbart staffer who was fired in 2017, and her journey in and out of the alt-right. https://t.co/xztnSkY1el
— Rosie Gray (@RosieGray) May 2, 2019
From BuzzFeed:
Her story is also about something that has ended. The events she described to me took place mostly between 2013 and 2017, a span of time in which the alt-right rose and fell dramatically as it attempted to go mainstream. “There was a move to have people in the system who were our guys, so to speak,” said Richard Spencer, the white nationalist leader who has made himself the poster boy for the alt-right. “I think that’s failed on a number of levels.” All they’d gotten, he said, were “just a lot of people who just hang out in the conservative movement and don’t accomplish anything.”
But the legacy of this period — the racism, the spread of white nationalist ideas online, and the murder in Charlottesville, Virginia — will affect American politics for a long time to come.
And yet she had so little to do with actual Conservatism or the Right.
This story would be fine if it were't really just trying to create the perception that people like Katie McHugh were an important part of the conservative media infrastructure. https://t.co/zWTbsCu0OY
— David Harsanyi (@davidharsanyi) May 2, 2019
That. ^
In truth, if it weren't for outlets like Buzzfeed, I wouldn't even know these people exist. This woman was a low level staffer who trolled people on twitter and then went to work for a fringe site.
— David Harsanyi (@davidharsanyi) May 2, 2019
And that^. So much THAT. ^
The "libertarian–alt-right pipeline” is more like a dripping spigot.
— David Harsanyi (@davidharsanyi) May 2, 2019
THANK YOU!! It's infuriating. https://t.co/Qg5o3E3qif
— Chickadee, on a Dodge Dart (@pipandbaby) May 2, 2019
True story.
what is up with katie mchugh's eyebrows
— jacqui shine (@DearSplenda) May 2, 2019
Fair question and we have no idea.
Her pals in the ‘movement’ aren’t exactly thrilled with her tell-all.
"The Ninth Circle of Hell is reserved for people just like you. Betrayers." — Katie McHugh
She tweeted this right when she began selling out her friends lol pic.twitter.com/rNpvCIe6ih
— Scott Greer (@ScottMGreer) May 2, 2019
YIKES.
One of our very favorites on Twitter, @AG_Conservative, perhaps threaded it best:
Just read this @RosieGray profile of Katie McHugh and have some thoughts:
I was one of the 1st people on the right to publicly call out Katie for her bigotry in 2015. I took a lot of crap and abuse because of it. With that said, I believe in redemption.https://t.co/w3g75ROug0
— (((AG))) (@AG_Conservative) May 2, 2019
Fair enough.
He’s far more forgiving than this editor.
Of course redemption has to be earned by actions, not just things you say. It's also good for others to see where this path of hatred leads.
The online trolls that cheered KM on at that time disappeared fairly quickly when it came to real life consequences.
— (((AG))) (@AG_Conservative) May 2, 2019
Indeed.
I also think the details in the story reveal a lot. You can see the internal fight within Breitbart. There were good people, like BD, there that tried to fight the direction Bannon took the site in. He allowed and encouraged those views that unfairly stained AB's name.
— (((AG))) (@AG_Conservative) May 2, 2019
The part about Brandon Darby is awesome; that alone is reason enough to read the whole thing.
In addition, DC has some great people who I really like, but the place also had a clear vetting problem at one point and was used as a pipeline for at least half a dozen awful people I can think of to reach mainstream conservative audiences.
— (((AG))) (@AG_Conservative) May 2, 2019
McHugh was not so much an integral part of Conservative media, as the article in a roundabout way claims, but more like a convenient fringe for the Left to use when pretending all people on the Right and especially in Conservative media are racists and bigots.
And clearly, she did far more harm than good.
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