At first glance, Caleb Oriet’s social media accounts look typical of a young member of the fringe, online right, featuring likes and reposts of far-right influencers and white nationalists expressing incendiary and bigoted views about racial and religious minorities.
The account belonging to the 21-year-old Montanan and self-proclaimed “Anglo-Saxon Protestant” and “menace to society” liked, for instance, a tweet that refers to Black Americans as “the most criminal, dependent, and socially destructive part of the population” and attacks GOP efforts to connect with Black voters.
But Oriet isn’t just a denizen of the far-right fringes of social media. He’s also a staffer for one of the Republican Party’s top candidates to flip control of the U.S. Senate this year.