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November 29, 2020 04:34 pm

What Hunting Bigfoot Taught a Republican Congressman about Misinformation, Political Extremists, and Grift

Republican congressman Denver Riggleman was once a defense contractor for America's National Security Agency. But in 2004, he paid more than $5,000 to join an amateur expedition searching for Bigfoot. Not because he believed in the mythical ape-like creature said to live in the woods, according to the Washington Post, but "to indulge a lifelong fascination: Why do people — what kind of people — believe in Bigfoot?" "Now in one of his last acts as a Republican congressman from Virginia, Riggleman is asking the same questions of QAnon supporters and President-elect Joe Biden deniers."Months after his ouster by Rep.-elect Bob Good (R) in a contentious GOP convention, Riggleman has become one of the loudest voices in Congress warning of the infiltration of conspiracy theories into political discourse... To Riggleman, the book, "Bigfoot... It's Complicated," mirrors the way pockets of the country are falling into conspiracy wormholes — everything from extremist fringe groups such as QAnon and the "boogaloo" movement to President Trump's claims of widespread voter fraud. Like the Bigfoot hunters in the Olympic National Forest, they see what they want to see... Bigfoot believers have plenty in common with political extremists on both the far right and the far left, Riggleman said, lambasting a political ecosystem where, oftentimes, "facts don't matter." "They're all bat---- crazy. Right?" he said, not really joking. "All of them ascribe to a team mythology that might or might not be true. And they stay on that team regardless. And that is what's so dangerous about politics today. That's what I've been trying to say." Riggleman also criticized political operatives "asking for donations to help in a mythological quest of things that can't be proven," arguing this shared mythology can turn into a grift. "I saw it with Bigfoot. I'm seeing it with QAnon. It's about money. And sometimes crazy and money live in the same space."

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