A general rule of thumb I've developed over the years is "Try to live your life in a way that you're not listed as a keynote speaker at a white nationalist celebration of Hitler's birthday". I'm fairly sure that's pretty easy to do, but I'll be damned if GOP Rep Paul Gosar of Arizona can figure it the fuck out.
Prescott Republican Congressman Paul Gosar was listed as a “special guest” with the white nationalist American Populist Union at an event that will be on a date popular among white nationalists and Neo-Nazis: Hitler’s birthday.
The American Populist Social will be held in Tempe on April 20, a date revered by white supremacists and Neo-Nazis.
But Gosar’s campaign says he isn’t attending and it doesn’t know how he was listed as a guest of honor, even though Gosar promoted his scheduled appearance on social media.
The American Populist Union is closely aligned with groypers, a group of white nationalists who strive for their ideas to become a part of the Republican mainstream and are largely followers of 23-year-old white nationalist Nick Fuentes. In 2021, Gosar was the first elected official to speak at Fuentes’ America First Political Action Conference in 2021. This year, the conference saw speeches by Gosar, Rogers and U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene.
Earlier this month, Gosar said his March video message to attendees of AFPAC was the fault of a staffer who sent his video message to the wrong group. He distanced himself from Fuentes, telling Politico that the young Holocaust-denying racist “has a problem with his mouth.”
Fuentes shared the story on the encrypted messaging app Telegram with the message “April Fool’s!” and later said in a livestream that he and Gosar will continue to “collaborate behind the scenes.”
American Populist Union has connections to Fuentes ideologically and through its members. The group hobnobbed with Arizona politicians in December when it held an event across the street from Turning Point USA that attracted a slew of fringe activists and groypers.
The other featured guest at the event, John Doyle, has allied with and promoted groypers, and he organized a “Stop the Steal” rally in Michigan with Fuentes. Doyle, a YouTube personality who runs a show called “Heck off Commie,” regularly advocates far-right ideology. He has said that Martin Luther King was “not a hero” and has claimed that liberalism is linked to satanism.
Weird, Rep. Gosar happily tweeted that he was going to the actual Hitler barbecue and potluck shindig, and his campaign is like "Well I don't know what you're talking about, I'm just a regular guy and not a Nazi."
This is the GOP, folks.
For ens of millions of American voters, this isn't a dealbreaker.
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