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Considering Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel’s claim that the Hamas-led terrorist attacks on Israel presented a “great opportunity” for GOP candidates, it seems conservatives are eager to use the conflict to their rhetorical and political advantage.
Other GOPers have used the Middle East war to dubiously bash President Joe Biden and to baselessly accuse liberals of antisemitism for urging peace in both Israel and Gaza.
All the while, Republicans have been dealing with their own scandals related to their relationships with well-known white nationalists and other antisemitic figures.
Two things, in particular, come to mind.
All the while, Republicans have been dealing with their own scandals related to their relationships with well-known white nationalists and other antisemitic figures.
One involves the “ReAwaken America” tour stop this weekend at former President Donald Trump’s Doral resort in Miami, with speakers including conspiracy theorist Mike Lindell and former national security adviser Michael Flynn.
One of Friday’s scheduled speakers was Ian Smith, whom Forbes writer Molly Bohannon described as a “a fitness influencer who spreads antisemitic propaganda and gained notoriety after he refused to close his gym during the Covid-19 pandemic.”
Bohannon added: “Smith is popular among the far-right and has recommended neo-Nazi propaganda such as a World War II movie that paints Germany as the victim and questions the taught history of the war, posts memes denying the Holocaust on social media and said on an episode of the far-right The Pete Quinones Show podcast that Jewish people are behind ‘all of these things that are used to control us.’”
But that wasn’t the GOP’s only such controversy this week.
The Texas Tribune has been covering an ongoing rift in the Texas Republican Party after the head of Defend Texas Liberty, a right-wing political action committee that donates large amounts of money to state and local GOPers, met with white nationalist Nick Fuentes, who has openly compared himself to Adolf Hitler and spread antisemitic conspiracy theories.
Some Texas Republicans have said they will give away their donations from Defend Texas Liberty, but Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick — who has received $3 million from the PAC — is refusing to do the same.
In a statement Monday, Patrick condemned Fuentes but also called for the resignation of Texas’ Republican House speaker, Dade Phelan, who has criticized the lieutenant governor for keeping the money.
Patrick, with no apparent sense of shame, accused Phelan of using the war in Israel for “political purposes,” while seemingly doing just that himself.
But that type of deflection seems par for the course for today’s Republicans, who are able to look at the Israel-Hamas war and think to themselves: “Great opportunity.”