stunning story of a racist troll
https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/en...amy-mek-mekelburg_us_5b0d9e40e4b0802d69cf0264
Trump's Loudest Anti-Muslim Twitter Troll Is A Shady Vegan Married To An (Ousted) WWE Exec
@AmyMek anonymously spread hate online for years. She can't hide anymore.
By Luke O'Brien
She was supposed to be a Russian bot. That seemed like the best explanation for @AmyMek. No normal person could be so prolific and prejudiced.
For five years, the mysterious Twitter account ― which has more than 200,000 followers, including Sean Hannity, Roseanne Barr and the personal account of Sarah Huckabee Sanders, and has earned endorsements from Donald Trump and Michael Flynn ― has tirelessly spewed far-right propaganda and, above all, Islamophobia. Around 25 tweets a day, sometimes more, the majority of them designed to stoke hatred of Muslims.
And thousands of others. The bigotry was garden-variety Islamophobia: memes about Sharia executions and child rape, genital mutilation and Muslims torturing and butchering various life forms while dusky columns of Saracens, every one of them a potential jihadist, march into Western lands bent on pillage. What made @AmyMek special was her industriousness. She never took a break.
“She’s a major cog in the Islamophobia machine,” said Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Muslim advocacy and civil rights organization that @AmyMek often attacks.
Her Twitter timeline was one long screed that reflected the collective id of the Make America Great Again movement. Tea party rage, evangelical hokum and white supremacy ― it was all there. In sufficient volume, this kind of hate can now turn any no-account right-winger into a star on social media. And it worked for @AmyMek.
But who was she?
Even her Twitter bio, which features a grainy photo of a blond woman who claims to be a vegan, gun-loving psychotherapist and “fixer” fighting for the “wrongfully incarcerated,” felt janky. “[A]n ideological theme park map” is how Maureen Erwin, a political consultant who wrote about her search for @AmyMek last year, described it.
There is a real person, however, behind the bio. The headshot is real, if dated. And the Twitter handle, surprisingly, differs little from her actual name: Amy Jane Mekelburg.
Mekelburg, who declined multiple requests from HuffPost to comment, has managed to keep almost all of her personal information off the internet. The 45-year-old resident of Fishkill, New York, grew up in a Jewish family in East Brunswick, New Jersey, a fairly affluent community not far south of New York City. Her father owns a wholesale business called Mekelburg Co. that sells magnets, keychains and assorted gimcrackery. Her brother runs a popular restaurant and craft beer bar in Brooklyn that also bears the family name.
As a teenager, Mekelburg attended East Brunswick High School, where she stood out for her athletic ability and was a key member of the state championship soccer team. She graduated in 1991. East Brunswick High, according to one former classmate, was not a diverse school. “It was predominantly white with a large Jewish population,” the classmate said. He estimated that less than 1 percent of their nearly 500-person class were Muslim.
https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/en...amy-mek-mekelburg_us_5b0d9e40e4b0802d69cf0264
Trump's Loudest Anti-Muslim Twitter Troll Is A Shady Vegan Married To An (Ousted) WWE Exec
@AmyMek anonymously spread hate online for years. She can't hide anymore.
By Luke O'Brien
She was supposed to be a Russian bot. That seemed like the best explanation for @AmyMek. No normal person could be so prolific and prejudiced.
For five years, the mysterious Twitter account ― which has more than 200,000 followers, including Sean Hannity, Roseanne Barr and the personal account of Sarah Huckabee Sanders, and has earned endorsements from Donald Trump and Michael Flynn ― has tirelessly spewed far-right propaganda and, above all, Islamophobia. Around 25 tweets a day, sometimes more, the majority of them designed to stoke hatred of Muslims.
And thousands of others. The bigotry was garden-variety Islamophobia: memes about Sharia executions and child rape, genital mutilation and Muslims torturing and butchering various life forms while dusky columns of Saracens, every one of them a potential jihadist, march into Western lands bent on pillage. What made @AmyMek special was her industriousness. She never took a break.
“She’s a major cog in the Islamophobia machine,” said Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Muslim advocacy and civil rights organization that @AmyMek often attacks.
Her Twitter timeline was one long screed that reflected the collective id of the Make America Great Again movement. Tea party rage, evangelical hokum and white supremacy ― it was all there. In sufficient volume, this kind of hate can now turn any no-account right-winger into a star on social media. And it worked for @AmyMek.
But who was she?
Even her Twitter bio, which features a grainy photo of a blond woman who claims to be a vegan, gun-loving psychotherapist and “fixer” fighting for the “wrongfully incarcerated,” felt janky. “[A]n ideological theme park map” is how Maureen Erwin, a political consultant who wrote about her search for @AmyMek last year, described it.
There is a real person, however, behind the bio. The headshot is real, if dated. And the Twitter handle, surprisingly, differs little from her actual name: Amy Jane Mekelburg.
Mekelburg, who declined multiple requests from HuffPost to comment, has managed to keep almost all of her personal information off the internet. The 45-year-old resident of Fishkill, New York, grew up in a Jewish family in East Brunswick, New Jersey, a fairly affluent community not far south of New York City. Her father owns a wholesale business called Mekelburg Co. that sells magnets, keychains and assorted gimcrackery. Her brother runs a popular restaurant and craft beer bar in Brooklyn that also bears the family name.
As a teenager, Mekelburg attended East Brunswick High School, where she stood out for her athletic ability and was a key member of the state championship soccer team. She graduated in 1991. East Brunswick High, according to one former classmate, was not a diverse school. “It was predominantly white with a large Jewish population,” the classmate said. He estimated that less than 1 percent of their nearly 500-person class were Muslim.
