This past week, the GOP again got embroiled in questions about its ties to and support of white nationalism and Nazism, which you’d really hope wouldn’t be an issue anymore! During an appearance on MSNBC, Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) explained his confrontation of conservative commentator Candace Owens and the GOP at large over those questions during a House Judiciary Committee hearing this past week.
The hearing had been meant to explore the rising issue of hate crimes and white nationalism in the United States, and kicking off his questioning, Lieu played a clip of Owens trying to explain away some of Adolf Hitler’s behavior as not really nationalism, “legitimizing” it in the process, Lieu suggested. The Congressman explained on MSNBC that he had meant to shine scrutiny on the GOP’s choice to bring Owens before the committee to discuss an issue on which she couldn’t even seemingly figure out which side she was on. During the hearing with Lieu, Owens insisted that she believed Hitler to be a “homicidal, psychopathic maniac that killed his own people” — and that’s great but when you get to the point where you have to remind people that you don’t like Hitler, it’s really not a good look in the least!
As Lieu put it:
‘This was a very serious House Judiciary Committee hearing on white nationalism. The point I was trying to make is that the Republican Party gets to select its own witnesses, and out of all the people they could have picked, they picked Candace Owens, who had been criticized earlier this year for making those exact statements about Hitler. So my point was really about the Republicans who happened to choose her out of of any witness they could have.’
It’s true — Republicans could have picked anyone, and they picked a woman who besides seeming unsure about whether politically analyzing Hitler’s behavior is a worthwhile endeavor, doesn’t even believe that white nationalism is a problem at all.
During the hearing, she insisted:
‘The hearing today isn’t about white nationalism, it’s a preview of a Democrat 2020 election strategy, same as the 2016 election strategy. If they were really concerned about white nationalism, they’d hold hearings on antifa.’
What? The whole point of anti-fascist organizers and demonstrators is that they’re… wait for it… opposed to the fascism represented by white nationalism. A significant organization aligned with the sprawling movement asserts that they are “a movement of people coming from diverse perspectives, united in our recognition that the Trump/Pence Regime poses a catastrophic danger to humanity and the planet,” adding in their commitment to non-violent protest.
Indeed — it’s not the anti-Trump protesters who are responsible for a whole array of prominent incidents of violence, no matter how many conspiracy theories the president and his allies drag out about their supposed secret subversion.
In 2018, every single killing perpetrated by extremists in the United States had ties to right-wing ideology, the Anti-Defamation League shares. Every single one! Yet, the GOP decided to bring someone before Congress who thinks it’s all no big deal, even as similar violent incidents across the world continue to rage. It’s not that long ago that a white nationalist killed 50 people in a terror attack targeting New Zealand Muslims.
Featured Image via screenshot
