It appears Roy Moore won’t remain the most controversial GOP candidate to run for Congress after Donald Trump’s election.
Moore, who lost to Democratic candidate Doug Jones in Alabama’s Senate race after several women had accused him of sexual misconduct while they were in their teens, might have had a troubling history which voters could not get past, but that has not stopped the GOP from fielding an even more controversial candidate in the Illinois congressional race.
Meet Arthur Jones, a self-claimed Holocaust denier and former leader of the American Nazi party, who is poised to be the Republican candidate for the state’s 3rd District, which encompasses parts of Chicago and its suburbs.
“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,” he told the Chicago Sun-Times .
Jones is a 70-year-old retired insurance agent with a dark history of supporting anti-Semite, white supremacist views, and now heads the America First Committee, an infamous group which does not allow non-Whites or Jews to be its members. His campaign website calls Holocaust the “biggest, blackest lie” in history , and lists out some deeply dubious documents in support of his view. One document calls the Holocaust “political pornography,” a complex monolithic system of deceptions and lies conjured by powerful rabbis to help secure global domination. Another document says such lies have polluted young American minds for decades, calling the Holocaust “quite a racket.”
“Yes, the ‘Holocaust,’ is quite a racket. Millions of dollars are made each year by the Jews telling this tall tale of woe and misfortune — in books, movies, plays, TV and so-called ‘reparations’ from the government of Germany, Austria, and Switzerland among others.”
Arthur Jones is set to run unopposed in the GOP’s primary challenge, probably because the 3rd District has historically shown heavy support for Democrats. But even Jones himself is amazed that the GOP is not even attempting to field a primary challenger and hopes to secure the nomination on March 20. He previously attempted to run for office but has never even come close to becoming a viable contender, but now things appear to have changed within the GOP following Donald Trump’s unprecedented rise in American politics.
Even so, the Illinois Republican Party acknowledges Jones’ racist, bigoted views, with chairman Tim Schneider opposing his candidature even as he is poised to become the party’s candidate for Congress.
“The Illinois Republican Party and our country have no place for Nazis like Arthur Jones. We strongly oppose his racist views and his candidacy for any public office, including the 3rd Congressional District,” he told the Sun-Times.
As reported by Forward , the Anti-Defamation League has been tracking Arthur Jones’ past activities, and in 2009, he protested against the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center and spoke at many neo-Nazi rallies garnering support for his views.
He has also been a vocal supporter of President Donald Trump but criticized him for surrounding himself with Jews such as son-in-law and White House political adviser Jared Kushner.