In no other state is MAGA control of the Republican Party as complete as it is in Arizona. The state party is filled with apologists for anti-Semitism and outright anti-Semites. The very prospect of these people coming to power should alarm any decent person.
The Israeli newspaper Haaretz is sounding the alarm:
The Republican candidates for the Grand Canyon State’s senatorial, gubernatorial, attorney general, secretary of state and several House races have each trafficked in tropes and dog-whistles on the campaign trail. Additionally, many of them had been accused of antisemitism prior to running for office...
He has also been endorsed by leading white supremacists such as Daily Stormer publisher Andrew Anglin and Gab CEO Andrew Torba, both of whom are considered the most prominent platformers and enablers of antisemitism. [Y52 NOTE: Gab is deeply involved in the Mastriano campaign in Pennsylvania.]
Blake Masters, Nazi-Adjacent Arizona Republican Senate Candidate
Masters, a protégé of Peter Thiel — the Silicon Valley billionaire and quasi libertarian who wrote, “I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible” — has floated a variety of insane and racist theories. He has straight-up said Donald Trump won the 2020 election and suggested January 6 was a false flag directed secretly by the FBI. He blamed gun violence on Black people. (“We do have a gun-violence problem in this country, and it’s gang violence,” he said. “It’s people in Chicago, St. Louis, shooting each other. Very often, you know, Black people, frankly.”) He has endorsed the “great replacement” theory. And he has echoed far-right positions on foreign policy, opposing American entry into World War II and blaming American entry into World War I on a secret plot directed by the “Houses of Morgan and Rothschild.”
Masters rejected the endorsement of anti-Semite Anglin, but did so in such a way as to deflect blame on the media for noticing the endorsement. Here’s who Anglin is:
To be clear about this, Anglin is not just kind of racist, nor is he appealing to racists with Tucker Carlson–like dog whistles. He is an obsessive advocate of eliminationist antisemitism. “This is the Jews for you, people. They are a vicious, evil race of hate-filled psychopaths. When you do something they don’t like, they will use the power of the media to come down on you, assassinate your character,” Anglin wrote in what the New Times called “a 30-article series that advocates genocide of Jewish people.”
Masters is not a Nazi. But Nazis see him as a vehicle to advance their agenda and bring them closer to political respectability. And they are obviously correct to do so.
Masters claimed he didn’t know anti-Semite Andrew Torba, the CEO of Gab. Rolling Stone calls bullshit:
Blake Masters, Donald Trump’s pick for Senate in Arizona, swore last week that he doesn’t know Gab CEO Andrew Torba, calling him a “nobody” that “nobody cares about.” Torba — who has endorsed Masters’ Senate run and once said he’d vote for Masters over Trump for president “in a heartbeat” — insisted Masters was “flat out” lying.
Thanks to leaked audio obtained by Jewish Insider, it’s now clear that Masters was lying about his association with the far-fight social media entrepreneur, whose platform is a playground for those whose extremist views have gotten them booted from mainstream platforms like Twitter and Facebook. The pair had an extended exchange earlier this year on Twitter Spaces, in which Torba explained in detail how Gab had been booted from mainstream app stores, and Masters expressed sympathy for the right-wing entrepreneur, railing against the power of Big Tech, and telling Torba: “That’s obviously super messed up.”…
Torba is the founder of the far-right social network, and openly anti-Semitic. He recently made headlines by insisting that Christians are “done being controlled” in “our own country” by the “2 percent minority” — by which he meant Jewish people — adding: “We’re not bending the knee to the 2 percent anymore.”
An unabashed Christian nationalist, Torba positions Gab as a social network for “free speech.” The Anti-Defamation League decries Gab, accurately, as a “haven for extremists, conspiracy theorists and misinformation.”
Masters’ primary opponent tried to warn people about Masters:
Kari Lake, the extreme Right-wing radical MAGA running for governor of Arizona is hardly much better. Again, from Haaretz:
Lake has frequently invoked George Soros on the campaign trail, saying the Jewish billionaire and Cindy McCain (the widow of Sen. John McCain)
were conspiring to destroy the United States and promoting a “globalist agenda, a new world order.”
She, like Masters, has also promoted the idea of “great replacement theory,” which claims white Americans and Europeans are being “replaced” by immigrants. The conspiracy theory was considered a primary motivation behind the deadly 2017 white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, the 2018 massacre at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue, the 2019 mass shooting in El Paso, Texas, and this year’s shooting at a Buffalo supermarket.
Lake was also criticized for the endorsement she gave to a vicious Oklahoma anti-Semite named Jarrin Jackson.
Jackson is the same guy who said—among other rants, “All Jews, will go to hell, if they don’t believe the gospel of Jesus Christ…just like everybody else,” Jackson wrote in a January post.
Jackson proudly displayed Kari Lake’s endorsement.
Now the GOP gubernatorial candidate for Arizona is reporting a “Jewish Voices” coalition in an attempt to repair some of the damage after her Jackson endorsement and after her subsequent delay of addressing the public outrage as well as a reportedly lukewarm statement about Jackson’s “reported” statements—and finally, Lake reportedly addressing the Jackson endorsement after several days.
The Republican candidate for Arizona Secretary of State, Mark Finchem, is openly dog whistling about Jews:
Folks, remember what it means when a Right-winger says “Soros”:
Finchem is brazen about his hatred. He
accepted the endorsement of Gab owner Torba, and has
maintained his endorsement of Oklahoma anti-Semite Jackson. When Loews Hotel canceled a fundraiser for Josh Hawley
he compared that action to the Holocaust. He is also a member of the
Oath Keepers, and he was at the 6 January 2021 rally before the Insurrection.
Finchem tries to deny his anti-Semitism. From azcentral:
Mark Finchem, the Republican candidate for Arizona secretary of state, has claimed again and again and again that rich Jews are financing his opposition.
But he says this does not make him antisemitic.
Finchem claims that rich Jews are directing the media.
But he says this does not make him antisemitic.
Finchem says, essentially, that if you don’t vote for him, rich Jews will control the government.
But he says this does not make him antisemitic…
He published a tweet reading, “Democrat politicians on the ballot in Arizona are liars and deceivers. They want total control over you and our state. Their loyalty is to George Soros and Mike Bloomberg. They want Arizona to be like California. Do not be deceived.”
The Republican candidate for attorney general is radical MAGA Abraham Hamadeh, who maintains that the 2020 election was “stolen” (as do all the Republican candidates in Arizona). He uses the Soros tactic often. From the Jewish publication Forward:
During this year’s primary, Hamadeh repeatedly assailed Jewish billionaire George Soros, who has been the target of antisemitic tropes and touted as a boogeyman by the far right. Earlier this month, Hamadeh shared a screenshot of a segment from Tucker Carlston’s show on Fox news about Soros. “It’s true. George Soros has destroyed our streets and turned our cities into Gotham,” Hamadeh wrote in a Aug. 5 tweet. “Here in Arizona, I’ll stop him.” In a June tweet, Hamadeh warned that “Soros is on the cusp of dominating Arizona.” He also claimed that Soros, Michael Bloomberg and Tom Steyer, all three leading Jewish political donors, are funding the campaign of his Democratic opponent.
Perhaps the most utterly blatant of the Right-wing Arizona anti-Semites is the horrible Paul Gosar. Gosar also invokes Soros frequently, is linked to both the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers, and is friends with outright Nazi Nick Fuentes. Here is Nick Fuentes in action:
Gosar has appeared at fundraisers with Fuentes as well:
It seems that Fuentes has several friends in the Republican Party:
While you’re at it, look into AZ State Sen. Wendy Rogers, who has attended an America First conference and has been on TruNews’s streaming platform. (TruNews is blatantly anti-Semitic.) At the AFPAC meeting, which she attended virtually, this was her stance:
She addressed the AFPAC crowd remotely, speaking from Arizona, where she said she was busy pushing legislation. Rogers effusively praised Nick Fuentes, the event’s racist organizer, who she said had been “de-platformed everywhere” because he says things that upset “the media and the far left.”
“I truly respect Nick because he’s the most persecuted man in America,” she said to loud cheers, adding later that he was “standing up to tyranny” by creating AFPAC.
Fuentes, an advocate of turning America into a nation only for white Christians, is one of the leaders of the so-called “groyper” movement — along with the founder of American Identity Movement, a white nationalist group formerly known as Identity Ervopa — and Rogers is one of its emerging icons. The groyper movement is a collection of white nationalists who seek to normalize racism and make it a part of mainstream conservative political ideology.
Or look at House candidate Mary Ann Mendoza, who lost a speaking gig at the 2020 Republican National Convention for promoting Protocols of the Elders of Zion (!) and saying that the Rothchilds wanted to take over the world and enslave non-Jews. (!!)
HORRIBLE. SIMPLY HORRIBLE.
The Arizona Anti-Defamation League has noted a tragic side effect of this rampant anti-Semitic hatred in the state:
ADL’s annual Audit of Antisemitic Incidents issued today found that Arizona continues to witness an alarming number of antisemitic incidents, seeing a 155% increase from 2020. The audit counted 56 total incidents (up from 22 in the previous year), including 41 incidents of harassment (up from 15 in 2020) and 15 incidents of vandalism (up from 7 in 2020).
“The numbers aren’t surprising when they come from a state with elected officials who actively contribute to Arizona’s antisemitic rhetoric,” Regional Director of ADL Arizona, Tammy Gillies, says.
Ms. Gillies refers to the multiple instances of elected officials including representatives, state senators and school board members, drawing comparisons between the Holocaust, which resulted in the death of 6 million Jews, and vaccine mandates, aimed at ending the COVID-19 pandemic.
ENOUGH IS ENOUGH. Our campaign against the Republicans in Arizona is not just a fight against MAGA insanity and cruelty. It is a fight against one of the oldest prejudices in the world, hatred of Jews. We must make our stand for decency—and for all fair-minded Americans.
GET MAD—AND GET OUT THE DEMOCRATIC VOTE!