The hypocrisy of Republicans is astounding. There was a time where they were known as the party of morals and values—a title which was clearly self-appointed, but we are long past the days of the GOP as a party that possesses any shred of moral fiber. Rep. Darryl Issa (R-CA) is a good demonstration of this. After the violent rally in Charlottesville staged by white nationalists, Nazis and the KKK, Issa has asked Congress to investigate white supremacists and other hate groups. It’s noteworthy that it took the death of a white woman to make that happen since blacks, people of color and Jews have been saying this is a problem since forever. But, it’s also important that even though he wants Congress to have hearings on hate groups, apparently Issa is perfectly okay appearing at and speaking at them. In June, he made an appearance at a conference with an organization that the Southern Poverty Law Center has identified as a hate group and a white supremacist organization.
In his letter, Issa called the KKK, neo-nazis, and white nationalists “repulsive hate groups” with “hateful, extremist ideologies.”
“While Congress cannot legislate respect, decency, or acceptance of others, we have an obligation to use our platform to lead our country forward on these matters,” Issa said in his letter.
But in June, Issa gave an interview at a conference put on by Federation for American Immigration Reform. In 1993, FAIR’s founder said, “I’ve come to the point of view that for European-American society and culture to persist requires a European-American majority, and a clear one at that.”
FAIR is the organization that advocates for limiting not only undocumented immigration but also legal immigration. They aren’t interested in bringing any more folks to the U.S.—period. In fact, their current president, Dan Stein, said “Americans would be “perfectly fine” if there was not another immigrant for 50 years.” These people are literally the deplorables Hillary Clinton spoke about.
And their founder wasn’t any better:
FAIR is one of three groups founded John Tanton, an advocate of eugenics, which is a race science that aims to “improve” the human population by breeding for more “desirable” characteristics and the forced sterilization of those deemed “undesirable.”
So it makes one curious as to why Issa would be palling around with these people—at all. Members of his staff say that he wasn’t at FAIR’s conference, that he simply did an interview with one of the attendees. But there is evidence to the contrary. He even tweeted it.
But releases from FAIR and the event agenda make it clear that the radio row Issa participated in was officially part of FAIR’s Hold Their Feet To The Fire conference, and a tweet from Issa himself shows the congressman in person with [Brett Winterble, a conservative radio host] for the interview.
It feels like this really shouldn’t need to be said but these are unprecedented times in our country. So here goes: Rep. Issa, you can’t denounce white nationalists and simultaneously hang out with them. That makes you a white nationalist too, or at the very least, a sympathizer for their cause. Perhaps he didn’t know what kind of organization FAIR was. It’s a poor excuse since almost everyone who has had anything to do with immigration knows who they are. But even if he didn’t, getting a sense of what kind of conference you are going to and who will be attending is Politics 101. It’s just common sense. It’s doubtful that he didn’t know who they were, it’s just that he got caught talking to them. Since Darryl Issa wants to use his platform in Congress to lead the country forward on issues related to racism and hateful ideology, he should probably start with himself. He obviously has a lot to learn.