Lest you wonder if Roy Moore was a special case, one-of-a-kind, outlier candidate for the GOP, wonder no further. The Republican nominee to run for Illinois’ 3rd Congressional District will be Arthur Jones, who the Chicago Sun-Times describes as “an outspoken Holocaust denier, activist anti-Semite and white supremacist.” But don’t take just their word for it; here is how Jones describes himself and his candidacy:
“Well first of all, I’m running for Congress not the chancellor of Germany. All right. To me the Holocaust is what I said it is: It’s an international extortion racket.”
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Jones told the Sun-Times he is a former leader of the American Nazi Party and now heads a group called the America First Committee. “Membership in this organization is open to any white American citizen of European, non-Jewish descent,” he said.
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[H]e doesn’t plan on seeking support from Illinois’ Republican governor — or the Republican president of the United States.
He said ... he was sorry he voted for President Donald Trump, who has “surrounded himself with hoards of Jews” including his Jewish son-in-law Jared Kushner.
The Anti-defamation League has known about Jones for years:
“Arthur Jones, who proudly displays Holocaust denial, xenophobia and racism on his blog and website, has a long history of hateful, extremist and anti-Semitic views,” said Lonnie Nasatir, the regional director of the Anti-Defamation League Chicago-Upper Midwest Region.
“For example, in 2009, he protested the opening of the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center, and continues to espouse absurd conspiracy theories questioning the deaths of millions of Jews.
“He has spoken publicly at numerous neo-Nazi rallies and events, expressing xenophobic policies based in racial and religious hatred. He is, by every definition, an anti-Semite and unrepentant bigot.”
Since the 1990s, Jones has tried seven times to win the GOP primary in the 3rd District, which is solidly blue and Republicans often field no “official” candidates. Indeed, that is precisely why he will be on the ballot this fall— he is the only Republican who entered the primary.
In a statement to the Sun-Times, the chairman of the Illinois Republican Party disavowed Jones’ candidacy, but if they were truly worried about having a white-supremacist Holocaust denier as their candidate for the US House of Representatives, they could have learned from the last Congressional election: but for some petition irregularities that eventually allowed the GOP to legally remove him from the ballot, Jones would have been their candidate for Congress in 2016.
What a disgrace. The GOP is unredeemable.