Public Comment

On May 16, my ears nearly melted in disbelief when I heard KCBS broadcast an ad for Mammoth Nation over my car radio.

In the ad, Mammoth Nation presents itself as a buyer's coop for savings-seeking average Americans—i.e., "Stay informed on hot discounts, new products, and membership perks." But what startled me was the part of the ad that attacked "liberals."

Mein Gott! As if there's not enough partisan division in the country these days! I was flummoxed. I didn't expect to hear such a derisive slam popping out in the middle of a radio ad for cut-rate online shopping.

I went online in search of more information on Mammoth Nation. Here's what I found.  

Mammoth Nation's website is unashamedly overt in openly challenging liberals and leftists. Visitors are directed to a resource called the Institute of Anti-Liberal Facts (IALF): A Resource Center to Help Educate Liberal Democrats.  

The IALF's "resources" amount to a grab-bag of 15 far-right memes that attack the utility of COVID-19 face masks, the futility of Joe Biden's "socialism," and the validity of Biden's election victory.  

Other IALF memes attacked Andrew "Killer' Cuomo, Hunter Biden, and National Public Radio ("We will gladly spend 4 years helping Democrats spread fake allegations.")  

Mammoth Nation (whose logo is an angry-looking prehistoric elephant with an eerie resemblance to Donald Trump) calls "Sleepy Joe" Biden a racist, a fear-monger, and a presidential-election-loser.  

Trump, on the other hand, is portrayed as a great leader, an anti-racist, and the genius behind the success of the COVID vaccination program.  

MN's online spokesperson, Drew Berquist (identified as a former counter-terrorism officer), warns: "What the Liberal Democrats have planned for this country—and your family—would be devastating." He then pledges his allegiance to "conservative candidates… police, military veterans, the Second Amendment."  

Apparently, this allegiance works both ways. In the About Us section of the MN homepage, we read: "We are backed by Conservative candidates and lawmakers who share our goals."  

Echoing the Trump campaign, MN proclaims its goal is to "Keep America Great." The common enemy is Liberal Democrats who are "running wild with impeachment hoaxes and quarantines; K-12 schools and colleges are brainwashing our young; and never before has the media been so devoted to misleading the American public."  

Mammoth Nation appears to stake out a position that aligns with the January 6 Insurrectionists who stormed the US Capitol Building. "[W]e will wrangle for We the People," MN decrees: "We stand strong to right the wrongs done during the 2020 elections and will not be deterred from our mission."  

Mammoth Nation's blog page (all entries authored by "Staff Writer") focuses on police rights, the immigrant threat, gun rights, and liberal "trigger" words.  

Some of the rhetoric is simply baffling. Like the meme that declares: "If you want to stop drunk drivers from killing sober drivers, all you have to do is ban sober drivers from driving. There. Now you know how gun control works."  

Mammoth Nation promotes the odd inconsistency that no one should be required to show an ID to buy a gun but everyone should be required to show an ID to cast a vote.  

A linked essay (all 340 words of it) cites "the rise in mass shootings lately" and suggests that a conspiracy of "liberal members of congress" may be "creating a crisis just to take advantage of it." (That's a pretty wild case of innuendo-on-steroids: suggesting that Democrats pare behind the spike in mass-shootings) 

Staff Writer concludes his argument as follows: "Intelligent people understand that gun laws only take guns out of law abiding citizens hands. If they want to pass a gun law that will actually save people’s lives, they should pass a Mandatory Carry Law. If everyone was properly trained and carried a gun when they're in public, how many shots would this lunatic have gotten off before a good guy with a gun put him down? I’d imagine that you’re going to think twice about trying to rob a convenient [sic] store, if you knew everybody else in there was packing." 

MN concludes: "Again, this is the big difference between Us and the Left. We have and use logic and common sense, the Left doesn’t care about either. They just want to destroy America." 

Postscript: When I contacted KCBS with my concerns and discoveries, a staffer asked for the time and date of the ad's broadcast and inquired if I had heard it on the local news or on the national CBS newscast. She searched her records but claimed that she could not find a posting for any ads place by Mammoth Nation. She promised to send my questions along to KCBS's Press/Media department. I have yet to hear back from KCBS.