On Right Wing Militias & Working with the Radical Right: Jayne Egerton responds to Kara Dansky
Jayne Egerton responds to the discussion of right wing militias in Dansky’s latest blog, and to WDI USA’s response to her 2021 essay about feminists and the religious right.
In autumn of 2021, The Radical Notion, a feminist quarterly journal, published an essay by UK journalist Jayne Egerton entitled, “Women and the Religious Right in the USA” which was republished in July 2022 at Women’s Place UK website. Her article traces the connections between some women’s groups in the US that are organizing against gender identity policy, and Council for National Policy (CNP) networked organizations that are part of the Christian nationalist movement to establish what journalist Anne Nelson calls a “pluto-theocracy.” Egerton draws on Nelson’s book Shadow Network to describe the growing power of this movement, points out the connections between some US women’s groups and their counterparts in the UK, and warns of a “worrying travel of direction.”
Her article was not well-received by several of the women’s groups mentioned in her essay, including the US and UK chapters of Women’s Declaration International, and each posted a response. After Kara Dansky, president of WDI USA, again discussed the matter in her August 6th blog, Egerton decided to issue a response. In this essay she replies to the discussion of right wing militias in Dansky’s latest blog, and to WDI USA’s response to Egerton’s original essay.
Guest post by Jayne Egerton
I’ve so far not written anything in response to the statement from the US chapter of Women’s Declaration International (WDI USA) about my article ‘Women and the Religious Right’ which was first published in The Radical Notion in December 2021, but am doing so now, after reading Kara Dansky’s latest blog on “Radical Feminists Working with the Right.” Katherine Acosta has written a detailed response to Dansky’s latest defence of working with the radical right so I’m going to focus mainly on a couple of themes - the repudiation of far right militia as “protectors” of “women’s rights” events and her misrepresentation of my views about Women’s Liberation Front (WoLF) & WDI USA’s ties to the Council for National Policy (CNP).
Far Right Militia and Women’s Events to Protest Gender Identity Policy
Firstly, I welcome Dansky’s latest blog, in as far as it expresses total opposition to radical feminists collaborating with far right militias, (a surreal sentence which was never on my bingo card). She is referring specifically to a forthcoming Sovereign Women Speak (SWS) event at which 3 Percenters are going to act as security, whether in paid or voluntary capacity. SWS posted the information on their own website.
In fact, this is not an entirely new situation. At least one 3 Percenter acted as security for Kellie-Jay Keen’s (aka Posie Parker) US Let Women Speak tour when she stopped off in Austin, Texas. I wrote about these alarming developments in a post for the public Facebook group, Actual Gender Critical Left (AGCL), a group which was set up by women who want to oppose the right wing drift, (stampede, in some cases), of some gender critical and radical feminists.
Dansky’s blog is building on her previously expressed views. She refers back to a speech she made in autumn 2022 at a Let Women Speak event at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. In it she stated:
If anyone here is a neo-Nazi, I do not want them in this fight. If anyone here is a member of the Proud Boys, I do not want them in this fight… I know that Kellie-Jay [Keen] does not wish to impose any conditions on the women or men who attend her events and that is totally her right to do.
So Dansky is signaling a clear departure from Kellie-Jay Keen’s “all hands on deck” views because she recognizes the dangers inherent in this position. By the time she made that speech it was already known that Proud Boys had attended previous Let Women Speak rallies. In Chicago, Keen was snapped in a selfie with Proud Boy, Edgar J. Delatorre, a Jan 6th insurrectionist. In Miami, she gave the mic to Chris Barcenas, a former Proud Boy who also took part in the assault on the Capitol. (He proceeded to rant about paedophila and satanism). Needless to say, trans activists are rather quick to notice this unfolding horror show.
So the presence of far right goons at trans-focused “women’s rights events” isn’t an unprecedented phenomenon but has been brewing for a while. (In the UK context, we might add to the list, Hearts of Oak, a far right group, live streaming from a Standing for Women rally in Brighton, UK in September 2022, & a neo-Nazi group pitching up in Melbourne in support of what they termed an “anti paedo rally” during her tour down under. Australian Left Feminists, “a group of radical feminists campaigning on women’s issues from a leftist and anti-racist perspective,” wrote a sharp analysis of her trip and the consequent fall out.
So is the appearance of far right actors at “women’s rights” events simply an occupational hazard for those engaged in challenging transgender ideology? Or does this hazard specifically afflict those women who fail to distance themselves from far right politics, including those of the American Christian Right? At this stage, Keen is mystified as to why we don’t all embrace organisations such as the Heritage Foundation. During her US tour she met with them to discuss joint working.
But if January 6th has taught us anything, it’s that it’s not possible to ignore the mainstreaming of far right politics under Trump’s presidency and the consequent wafer thin division between its “respectable” representatives and the insurrectionists. Politico reports:
Those likeliest to support violence on the right feel most connected to the Republican Party according to a November 2021 Bright Line Watch survey.
Michelle Evans, who ran for election to the Texas House of Representatives in 2022, helped organize the Texas stop on Keen’s US tour and was responsible for bringing in the security detail. In a FB post Evans says, “We roll with the alphas; we stay strapped.” Evans is the founder/President of Texans for Vaccine Choice, a group which spreads anti-vax disinformation, and Moms For Liberty, a “parental rights” group with ties to far right extremist groups including the 3 Percenters and the Proud Boys.
During Keen’s US tour she met up with Christine Drazan, a Republican politician who served in the Oregon House of Representatives until 2022. Drazan campaigned with a far-right militia leader and received money from a man who bankrolled one of the main organizers of the Jan. 6 rally.
As ever, Keen will say she doesn’t research the people she meets but her ongoing lack of curiosity isn’t the issue here. The point is that it is specifically the Christian Nationalist wing of the Republican party who meet with, platform and otherwise work with Keen, WoLF, WDI USA and many US-based “gender critical” groups, and there is less than 6 degrees of separation between some of these smartly dressed operatives and their extremist brothers. Sometimes there’s no separation, at all. Referring back to Keen’s Miami event, (former) Proud Boy Chris Barcenas is also a member of the Miami-Dade Republican executive committee. The Republican Party, after all, has been captured by people driven by a theocratic, authoritarian and anti-democratic ideology. In its current incarnation it represents an ongoing threat to democracy.
On WOLF & WDI USA & Working with CNP Organizations
Turning to Dansky’s strongest objections to my TRN piece (and to a section that was cut but which I later posted in the AGCL FB group) - these relate to my analysis of the Council for National Policy. I relied on Anne Nelson’s exemplary book , Shadow Network: Media, Money, and the Secret Hub of the Radical Right, for my understanding of the CNP and how it connects "the manpower and media of the Christian right with the finances of Western plutocrats and the strategy of right-wing Republican political operatives.”
I need to quote from both the WDI USA statement about my piece, as well as Dansky’s new blog:
The way that Egerton attempts to link WDI USA to CNP is through CNP’s membership. Egerton states, correctly, that a 2014 leaked membership list reveals that its 2014 members included Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council (FRC) and Michael Farris of Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF). It is true that WDI USA has had conversations with staff members of both of those organizations, though we do not personally know either of those individuals. We certainly had no knowledge of their membership in the CNP in 2014 (six years before WDI USA launched). (WDI USA statement)
I can well imagine that nobody in WoLF had heard of the CNP in 2014. It’s a secretive network and our knowledge of its members has depended on leaks. My article, however, was published in 2022 and Dansky maintains an ongoing ignorance:
WDI USA has never had anything to do with the CNP (nor had any of us as individuals even heard of it until we read Egerton’s piece). (WDI USA statement)
Between 2017-2022, the CNP were profiled repeatedly in a wide range of publications including the New York Times, the New Yorker, Washington Post, New Republic, Salon, Intercept, Time, Truth Out, DeSmog, Politico, Documented, the Daily Beast, the Guardian and Reuters. The specific organisations, and some of the individuals, with whom WoLF works were also name checked. It’s hard to credit that a politically savvy feminist organisation could be this ignorant, unless they were boycotting all mainstream media or living off grid.
The suggestion that WDI USA is somehow connected to the CNP and, by extension, to Trump himself, is absurd on its face. (WDI USA Statement)
This is very far from being absurd. WDI USA and WoLF have partnered extensively with CNP members & affiliated organizations, the most notable of which is the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), and these groups played a leading role in setting Trump’s agenda, including the selection of Supreme Court justices. The ADF crafted the legislation which led directly to the overturning of Roe v Wade, with catastrophic consequences for the lives of many women and girls.
Above all, Dansky seeks to minimise the nature of these connections. She states that WDI USA had conversations with staff members of the Family Research Council (FRC) and the ADF “though we do not personally know either of those individuals.”
Firstly, whether WDI members personally know Michael Farris, President and CEO of the ADF from 2017-2022, or Tony Perkins, the President of FRC, and former President of the CNP, is irrelevant. What matters is the comprehensive ties between the organisations - these are not denied. Indeed, Dansky expresses pride about these working relationships, ones which she forged during her time at WoLF. However, the claim that she has no direct knowledge of either of them is untrue. In May 2019, in her capacity as a board member of WoLF, she spoke alongside both of these men at a Republican press conference on Capitol Hill to oppose the Equality Act. In addition, as I recorded in my TRN piece, then WoLF board member (now advisory council member), Jennifer Chavez, appeared with Tony Perkins on Washington Watch in May 2019 to discuss how radical feminists and the FRC could work together to thwart the “dangers of the Equality Act.”
At one point, Dansky concedes I might be right when I say that “The ADF, FRC, CWA, and the HF are a constant in the history of the CNP and were at the heart of Trump’s administration, even to the extent of the HF dictating his appointments.” But she goes on to say:
[I]f so, [it] would be utterly unremarkable in the context of American politics. These groups are always involved under any Republican administration.
The point is that these groups gained unprecedented leverage and power under Trump, not that they never had any ambitions to do so under previous Republican administrations. The CNP celebrated their many ‘victories’ post Trump’s election with a scorecard!
Dansky wants to make a distinction between individuals and organizations:
[F]rom what we can tell, CNP members appear to be individuals, not organizations… When doing coalition work, it hardly makes sense to hold coalition members responsible for the organizational membership statuses of individuals who work at other coalition member organizations. No one would ever get anything done…
Penny Nance of CWA probably attends a church as an individual.. Is WDI USA somehow responsible for whatever that church might say or do? Someone who works at the Heritage Foundation might belong to a Parent Teacher Association or a sports team. Are we responsible if the Parent Teacher Association makes a bad batch of cookies? Is it our fault if that sports team loses? All of this is preposterous.
I’m sure that operatives of the theocratic right have ‘time off’ and engage in activities which aren’t related to their core political aims, (they are human beings, after all), but membership of the CNP is not the same as belonging to the PTA. Was that even a serious point? When they partner with WoLF, or WDI USA, or any other “radical feminist” groups, in whatever capacity, (co-signing petitions, filing joint briefs, sharing platforms, co-hosting rallies, donating funds), they do so as representatives of Christian Right organisations and as part of the CNP “hub.”
Whilst insisting that membership of the CNP doesn’t matter, Dansky then goes on to suggest that I haven’t provided enough evidence of said membership:
Egerton then states, without providing any evidence whatsoever, that Penny Nance of Concerned Women for America (CWA) and Jim DeMint, former president of the Heritage Foundation (HF) were also CNP members as of 2020. We have no idea whether or not that is true.
My article was heavily sourced and footnoted but I concede that the edited version failed to include a link to the 2020 CNP membership. Apologies, let me rectify that right now with a link to the 2020 membership list. This list proves that both Jim DeMint and Penny Nance are Executive Committee Members. Nance is of particular interest as she co-hosted a press conference in August 2019 with WoLF at an ADF-organized rally outside the Supreme Court. This rally was in support of a funeral home which had sacked a trans-identified employee who wore “women’s clothes” at work. It was also in support of two employers which had sacked gay workers - not the greatest optics for WoLF if they ever hoped to appeal to the broad mass of LGB people. I thought all feminists believed that gay, trans-identified and gender nonconforming people were entitled to protection from discrimination at work but apparently not.
To recap, Nance is both the CEO of CWA as well as an executive committee member of the CNP. According to Dansky’s eccentric analysis, her participation in an ADF organized rally, alongside WoLF, is as related to her CNP membership as if she had chosen to go to a baptism at her local church. The point is she is not simply an ‘individual’ when she engages in political actions alongside WoLF or WDI. This is not a leisure activity.
Dansky reserves her angriest criticisms for a section of my TRN piece, which was cut for reasons of length, that I posted on the AGCL Facebook group. It explores the threat to US democracy posed by CNP members and affiliated organisations.
Let’s be clear: A small group of radical feminists are working with the very same organisations which contributed to the events which led up to the assault on the Capitol. Current and former members of the CNP organised and promoted so-called "Stop the Steal" protests in order to build a movement to question the legitimacy of the 2020 Election:
“Over the previous year the CNP and its members and affiliates organized efforts to challenge the validity of the election, conspired to overturn its results, and tried to derail the orderly transfer of power.”
“In the days leading up to the Jan. 6 mayhem, and on the day itself, the connection between CNP and Stop the Steal—and the campaign’s influence on the White House—became more apparent.”
“At least six current or former members of the Council for National Policy ….also played roles in promoting the rallies that preceded the deadly riot.”
“Michael Farris, the CEO of the ADF, played a critical role in last minute efforts to overturn the election of Biden.”
“The Heritage Foundation is crafting voter suppression laws around the country – laws which disenfranchise African Americans, in particular.”
Meanwhile WoLF’s twitter account offered a self interested defence of these same organisations, taking their disingenuous claims at face value.
‘The political stakes are now so high that we need to sound an alarm. A 2020 report from the Department of Homeland Security named white supremacists as the gravest terror threat to the United States.”
There can be no conceivable justification for partnering with people providing cover and ammunition to white supremacists who are intent on destroying representative democracy. Why have we reduced the rights and interests of women and children to one issue alone? We might well ask ‘which’ women & children. Certainly not those migrant mothers separated from their children at the US-Mexico border.
WDI USA claim I suggested that they might bear some moral culpability for the heinous and treacherous violence that was perpetrated on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.
This is an insinuation that by working in coalition with the American Christian right, WDI USA bears some moral culpability for the disgusting events of January 6th.
In Dansky’s latest blog post she again suggests that I insinuated that “WDI USA was somehow complicit” in the attack on the Capitol.
Let’s be blazingly clear: If I held WDI USA culpable, or complicit, in the events of January 6th, that is precisely what I would have written. The only people responsible were the assortment of far right wing thugs and their enablers. Although Kellie-Jay Keen signal boosted Sebastian Gorka’s endorsement of a propaganda film which alleges massive ballot fraud by the Democrats in the 2020 election, I have not seen any WoLF or WDI members sharing material which promotes such false allegations, even if they sometimes work with people who have done so. I hope I can take it for granted that all feminists were shocked by an invasion of the US Capitol by pro-Trump supporters in which the building was ransacked, Congress were forced to seek safety and several people died. To date, nearly 500 people have received sentences.
What I did suggest, however, was that the CNP were implicated in the assault on the Capitol and I questioned why radical feminists would work with representatives of CNP affiliated organisations at such a perilous moment for US democracy. I also linked to a thread from WoLF’s twitter account which hoped to demonstrate that the groups they worked with eschewed political violence – by relying on the self-serving statements of those same organisations. But let’s remember that:
at least five members and leaders of the Council for National Policy (CNP) worked to turn out MAGA extremists and were scheduled to speak at the rally after Trump exhorted the crowd to march on the Capitol.
Furthermore,:
In the lead-up to the January 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol, the board of the Council for National Policy….instructed its members to “pressure Republican lawmakers into challenging the election results and appointing alternate slates of electors.”
Since I wrote my piece on women and the religious right, the already high stakes have risen higher. Donald Trump still hopes to run for President, in spite of being indicted on four separate federal charges related to his alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election and the subsequent January 6 attack on the Capitol. Meanwhile, the 2025 Project is openly planning for an authoritarian Executive branch makeover should one of their candidates win in 2024. Housed at the Heritage Foundation, with a $22m investment sponsored by 22 organisations and led by Trump loyalists you will see some familiar names - in addition to the Heritage Foundation, the list includes the ADF, the Family Research Council, Family Policy Alliance, Concerned Women for America and the Independent Womens Forum - as ever, the groups which work with Dansky and her political sisters.
Their wish list includes the desire to deconstruct all sectors of the federal government– including environmental policy. Their ultimate goal is a one party theocracy reflecting the interests of wealthy, white Christian men. If we were to clutch at straws we might note that Christian Nationalists continue to “know what a woman is,” but, as Katherine Acosta points out in her latest blog, “Every fundamentalist religious regime agrees that ‘woman’ means ‘biological female:’ that acknowledgement alone is no guarantor of women’s rights.”
So I see absolutely no reason to revise or apologise for my original TRN piece, or for having posted an edited section of that piece in the AGCL FB group. I certainly feel no shame for being a socialist feminist, an identification that’s come to be derided and scorned by many of the women who are apologists for working with Christo-fascists. I’d also stress that you don’t have to be a socialist to oppose the anti democratic turn of the Republican Party and far right politics. All decent anti racists, liberals, centrists and, yes, conservatives, stand in opposition to everything they represent. Radical, left-wing feminists have always done so.
No one needs to work with oligarchic theocrats to keep men out of women's prisons. Edgerton is right that some compromises or limited aliances can be fatal to women's liberation. Rights assume the existence of a liberal (small-L) state to support & defend them. The GOP would dismantle that state. A national abortion ban would be 5 min away. Most amendments to the constitution would be shredded. What do we think "one vote per household" really means? No issue, and no activism, exists in isolation from the wider political context. Pretending so is at the least, least!, a act of diqualifying naïvety.
This is a very well written writeup. This comment is related more so to a couple of particular sentences of the article - despite knowing that Trump is dangerous, I was completely unaware of the 2025 plans.
I would also like to add that the whole thing with Three Percenters acting as security (or needing security in general) would just go away if TRAs would stop attacking women. But of course, they keep assaulting us at our events, leading to the hosts hiring sometimes dubious security, which only goes to strengthen their accusations of “TERFs are fash!”. And then they assault us again, rinse and repeat.
That being said, transactivists and the radical right are two sides of the same coin. Both hate women, and it is absolutely pointless to side with them on even one issue because they will inevitably try to sneak their own ideologies in there. We agree with TRAs that trans people should have the same civil rights afforded to anyone else, but we also clash with them in that we criticize gender and don’t actually agree that transmen are men, or that transwomen are women, or what have you. Likewise, we agree with conservatives that “gender affirming” treatments are dangerous and shouldn’t be pushed onto minors, who can’t make medical decisions for themselves - but we criticize transgenderism for extremely different reasons and ultimately, right wing groups have ulterior motives such as bringing an end to abortion which directly contradicts what we believe as feminists.
It can be daunting, trying to run a grassroots organization with no big names as allies, but what Kara Dansky, Kellie-Jay Keen, and many of the other women kowtowing to the right need to learn is that these people hate you just as much as the TRAs - they just hide it because they’re using you to strengthen themselves and push an agenda on the side which opposes your beliefs. They are not your friends. They only see you as useful idiots, and they will turn on you once you are no longer of value to them. If you choose to continue eating at the same table as them instead of building your own, don’t be surprised when they take your food away.