The Mid-Terms: 1. Groomers

The Coming Storm

BBC

Documentary, Society & Culture

4.8 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 6 November 2022

⏱️ 42 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

As America goes out to vote for the first time since the tumultuous aftermath of the 2020 election, Gabriel Gatehouse is back in the deep undergrowth of the US political scene, in a bid to understand where the dark energy underpinning the January 6 assault on the Capitol is going now.

Some of the energy from the QAnon conspiracy theory about a satanic cabal of paedophiles is morphing into a grassroots political movement against ‘groomers’ – the idea that LGBTQI+ sex educators and trans healthcare advocates are indoctrinating young people into a sexualised culture.

The battleground is America’s school boards and the prize could be a galvanised Republican base with a new crusade. At a conference in Miami of thinkers shaping the future ideas of the right, Gabriel finds the issue top of the agenda.

And across the country, a slate of candidates linked to QAnon is running for office – how will they fare?

Producer: Lucy Proctor

Transcript

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0:00.0	BBC Sounds, music radio podcasts.
0:05.5	Hello, I'm Gabriel Gatehouse.
0:08.2	Welcome back to the coming store from BBC Radio 4 and World Service. The podcast about a mad conspiracy theory called
0:16.9	QAnon and a plot to steal an election. What happened to that? Well, it's actually happening and it's happening now.
0:27.0	Last year after the storming of the capital, after the failed coup to try to reinstate Donald Trump,
0:39.0	we went to a Q-Anon conference in Dallas.
0:44.0	There we met Renegade General Mike Flynn, who urged QAnon supporters to infiltrate American
0:50.6	politics from the bottom up.
0:52.3	Get involved in your schools.
0:54.0	Get involved in a school board.
0:56.0	About six months later,
1:01.0	the organizers of that conference put on a sequel in Las Vegas.
1:07.6	I wasn't there, but luckily they put the whole thing online. And then on stage a guy called Jim Marchant told a remarkable
1:20.5	story. Who here thinks Joe Biden was legitimately elected?
1:25.2	Raise your hands.
1:29.2	Nobody?
1:30.2	Jim is an internet entrepreneur turned politician. In 2020 he ran for Congress in Nevada and lost,
1:38.2	but like his hero Donald Trump, he claimed he was cheated.
1:42.2	I was a victim of voter fraud.
1:44.0	So the day after the election, he says, he was in a hotel in downtown Las Vegas.
1:49.0	And guess who showed up at my sweet to blow you away.
1:56.3	You saw him Saturday, you saw him yesterday.
	...

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