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The Connection Between Mastriano and Gab

Doug Mastriano

The website states, “Welcome to Gab.com. A social network that champions free speech, individual liberty and the free flow of information online. All are welcome.”

It has become a favorite of conservatives, the alt-right and some extremists and has been criticized for hosting hate-filled, violent speech.

One of its more prolific users – Robert Bowers – regularly posted neo-Nazi propaganda and calls for violence against Jews, whom he called the “children of Satan.”

In October 2018, Bowers followed through, killing 11 worshippers at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh’s Squirrel Hill.

Since then, Gab’s founder – Andrew Torba – has doubled down on his rhetoric. “We’re building a parallel Christian society because we are fed up and done with the Judeo-Bolshevik one,” he tweeted last year, using a term popularized by the Nazi Party in the 1930s. In February, Torba was a featured speaker at a white supremacist conference in Florida, where he used “great replacement” rhetoric.

So why is Torba receiving a $5,000 donation from Doug Mastriano for “campaign consulting”?

The GOP candidate for governor in the Keystone State has not distanced himself from the group. Far from it. Mastriano recently did a 16-minute interview with Torba. Now it appears he is getting new followers on the site.

Every new account currently being created on Gab automatically follows Mastriano. HuffPost created five new accounts on Thursday. Each one automatically followed the same seven accounts: those belonging to Torba, a handful of far-right media outlets, and Mastriano.

A scroll through Mastriano’s recent followers on the site shows many of them to be anonymous accounts created this month. Moreover, an archived version of his page from early April, before the campaign paid Gab, shows him with only 2,300 followers. Mastriano now has nearly 37,000.

Right after the interview, Mastriano claimed Gab and Torba “has a reach of like 4 million people, which is fantastic, and apparently about a million of them are in Pennsylvania, so we’ll have some good reach.”

Mastriano has promoted conspiracy theories related to QAnon, the COVID-19 pandemic and the 2020 election. He was a prominent figure in Trump’s effort to overturn the results of that election, and was subpoenaed by the House Jan. 6 committee over his attempts to send fake electors to Washington to deny a victory for President Joe Biden.

Media Matters contacted Torba for clarification about what exactly Mastriano paid his company to do. He replied: “Do you accept Jesus Christ as your Lord, Savior, and King? Otherwise I don’t speak to reporters who are not Christian.”

Torba did reply via email to HuffPost, but not about the fee, writing “We’re taking back this country for the glory of God and there’s absolutely nothing you can do to stop us. We are playing the long game and unlike most of you, we have children and thus the future belongs to us because we are raising them up with a Biblical worldview.”

“Keep writing,” Torba continued. “You’re only making us stronger and galvanizing support from the base. After six years you guys still don’t get it and it’s hilarious. Repent now and accept Jesus Christ into your heart. Every knee will bow, yours included.”

10 Responses

  1. Secondary Infektion with a dose of clerical fascism. Dark web anonymous trolls from who knows what countries (ahem Russia) sprinkled with white supremacists, neo-nazis, and anti-goverment militants all claiming to be “True Patriots” while spreading disinformation and misinformation and making a mockery of what it means to be Christian. Judge not lest ye be judged, and the scales of your heart are between you and God, but in this world your deceit must not go unanswered. A warning to the faithful, Jesus taught LOVE. Those who claim the name of Christian and yet use it to spread hate and sew division are “christian” in name only. Politics aside I find it abhorent that those so far from LOVE would claim to act in His name.
    John 4:16
    And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him.
    Politics included it basically comes down to a bunch of people that seem to be Trump or bust. If a party becomes a person, that’s a lousy party. Trump hides his crimes in the open by accusing others of committing them. Team Trump wants to rig the election, claim it was stolen. Then lose 60+ court cases in Powell’s BS “Kraken” lawsuits and still claim it was stolen? A violent mob invades the Capitol and yet somehow this is acceptable? Trump turned on his own VP because he wouldn’t go along with a coup and sent a lynch mob after him. So much for WWG1WGA. That basically sums up Trump’s sense of loyalty. Obey or he’ll feed you to the wolves. Americans, regardless of party, should be outraged, but I guess if you only get your “intel” from a bunch of trolls that fear the light of day then what can you expect.
    https://go.recordedfuture.com/hubfs/reports/cta-2021-0817.pdf

    https://int.nyt.com/data/documenttools/senate-intelligence-committee-russian-interference/8cf58e574d235164/full.pdf

    https://www.justice.gov/usao-dc/capitol-breach-cases

    https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-shared-psychosis-of-donald-trump-and-his-loyalists/

  2. Go back to Israel and stay there. Jews Have Been Expelled From 111 Countries

    Now, imagine if a student had been expelled from 111 colleges. Would it not be reasonable to suggest that the common denominator in all these expulsions is the character of the student, and not the arbitrary dislike of this student from 111 individual college headmasters?

    1. Wow. Exactly the kind of antisemetism that people are concerned about. Some of these people seem to talk alot about Jesus and yet are basically the definition of honors with the mouth while the heart is far. Love thy neighbor as thyself. Turn the other cheek and forgive thy enemy.
      John 4:18
      There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love.
      Matthew 5:46
      For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same?

      How people try and reconcile that with nazi propaganda is beyond me. Fair warning, there are consequences.

      Proverbs Chapter 6
      These six things doth the LORD hate: yea, seven are an abomination unto him: A proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, An heart that deviseth wicked imaginations, feet that be swift in running to mischief, A false witness that speaketh lies, and he that soweth discord among brethren.

  3. Would it also be acceptable for Dung Mastriano to write a $5000 check for consulting to KKK? In PA GOP, probably. Anybody who has a “following” is OK, when you have no scruples and only want power. You can always kill them off once you have the guns of power. Hitler did.

  4. God Bless Doug, our next governor. Lockdown Shapiro will be another left wing nut job looking towards higher office.

  5. There should be no doubt that Josh Shapiro must be the next Governor of Pennsylvania. Doug Mastriano, or Ding Dong Doug as I call him, is unfit for elective office. Republicans should have nominated McSwain. Really, someone should be filing legal papers to remove Ding Dong Doug’s name from the November ballot for being an Insurrectionist. The evidence is clearly there.

    1. So what does this say about the Republican Party, and many of its supporters, generally?

      We have a cancer in these United States, a cancer of the sort that has no problem embracing values contrary to what the United States, for all its original sins, stands for. And a vote for a Republican, any Republican, is a vote that says there’s no objection to what the PARTY stands for now.

      In this election, and those to come, vote Democrat, from the President to the dog catcher, and do so again and again and again until the GOP is dead, Dead, DEAD!

  6. This is proof of some incredibly serious connections to an organization a candidate for Governor should not be associated with and to pay $5000 from Mastriano campaign to the organization for campaign consulting?. In years past, the information in this article would end a campaign but not so in today’s political climate. “Do you accept Jesus Christ as your Lord, Savior and King? Otherwise I don’t speak to reporters who are not Christian.” Our country was founded to get away from religious intolerance and not to create more intolerance.

    1. I agree, except with your last detail. The first religious groups coming here were not seeking religious tolerance. They were forced out of their home countries because they were so intolerant of other religions that they were not accepted in polite society. They were the “Doug Mastrianos” in Europe.





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