Candidate's social media complained of Jewish control of media. He denies antisemitism.

A Shawnee Heights Board of Education candidate is defending a Facebook post he says he reshared questioning and alleging that Jewish people are consolidating national and global media, a long-running tenet of antisemitic conspiracy theories.

Troy Showalter, a Shawnee Heights parent and member of the conservative-leaning “Dads 4 Heights” coalition of three challenger candidates, in November 2016 shared a post on Facebook detailing how the then-owners or leaders of various media conglomerates — including Fox Television, 20th Century Fox, Disney, The Wall Street Journal, US News and World Report, and The Washington Post — were all Jewish.

“As it turns out, they’re all Jews,” Showalter wrote. “I’m not smart enough to know if that matters, but it certainly is interesting. This, in my opinion is systematically what they are doing.”

Showalter then listed what he described as an agenda to promote pornography, the “War on Terror,” homosexuality, violence and multiculturalism.

“The Billionair (sic) controlled Media bombards Americans with demeaning Christian religion and values,” the post read. “Seems like a deliberate attempt to erode our once-Christian society. BTW, if you agree with this, you must be a whacko-bigot! Go Deplorables!”

Troy Showalter insists questioning of Jewish media executives isn't antisemitism

The Capital-Journal received screenshots of the post in question, which Showalter claims to have taken down a few months after originally sharing it two days before the 2016 presidential election. The post, however, was still up on Showalter’s Facebook feed as of Friday morning.

The post appears to be in Showalter’s own words, although Showalter claimed to The Capital-Journal that he had simply reshared a story he had seen and added a few comments.

Several of the people listed in Showalter's post aren't, in fact, Jewish, as Showalter's post claims. While figures such as News Corp founder Rupert Murdoch and Washington Post publishers Katharine Graham and her son Donald E. Graham have Jewish ancestry, they were not practicing Jews.

In addition to a list of names, the post also contains low-resolution images of what appear to be each of the executives next to a Star of David.

“Why are their hundreds of studies suggesting violent impressions in youth have a long term negative impact on our kids and yet I can't watch a football game in my own living room with my kids for the commercials promoting their sex an (sic) violence laced programs,” Showalter wrote. “These are the same people funding gun control.”

Defending the post, Showalter said the post wasn't intended to target Jewish people. Rather, he said he has been frustrated by what he says appears to be an agenda to promote violence to young children.

“If all you do is write something that says I’m an antisemitic and I hate Jews, and my name gets trashed — which is a lie. It is 100% a lie. That’s not how I feel, I’ve never felt that way — that is completely different from media concentration, and that is completely different from who decides what’s on these programs, who influences the FCC, what kind of programming we have as a nation,” he said.

“The media concentration is a fact, and the article that I reposted identified specifically who these people are,” Showalter continued. “And I do not care what church they go to. I found it interesting that they all lived within two miles of each other, and most of them go to the same church, (which can be) any church. For me, it has nothing to do with any particular religion. Jews have been persecuted throughout time and history, and I think it’s horrible.”

Rabbi: Troy Showalter's post 'trafficks' disinformation and stereotypes

Although he claims otherwise, Showalter's post "harkens back to age-old racism against Jews that has caused a lot of death and destruction over the past," said Rabbi Moti Rieber, executive director of Kansas Interfaith Action, a statewide, multifaith issue-advocacy organization.

"It’s distressing that someone who wants to be put in a position of trust, particularly in the schools, to be putting forward this type of hatred and misinformation," Rieber said.

Rieber said he was skeptical of Showalter's claims he was simply asking questions and pointing out facts, especially when the facts themselves were incorrect as to some of the listed executives' religions.

"That’s the way he gets out of moral responsibility," Rieber said. "There is no line (between asking questions) because when he’s raising these questions in this way without regard for the truth of the matter, he’s trafficking in these stereotypes, and it can cause real damage to real people. It makes people distrust their Jewish neighbors. It divides us based on religion. It makes people think that (Jewish people) are out to undermine the American way."

After a Capital-Journal reporter explained to Showalter that “control of the media” has long been a pillar of conspiracy theories on a purported Jewish plot to take over the world, the school board candidate said he had never heard of those kinds of conspiracy theories.

Still, he insisted he didn't understand why some might question the post as antisemitic.

“I don’t know about that, and I don’t care about that,” he said. “What I am doing is observing actual life with actual media concentration and actual people. And this is not a theory. That much that I have said — the media concentration, the proximity and that background — have nothing to do with a book about Zionism. I don’t even know what Zionism is. I know that Jesus Christ was a Jew, and all of Christianity should not in any way, shape or form be antisemitic.”

Showalter said his post wasn't meant to question any religious group’s intent, but rather an agenda he says is being pushed by national and corporate media.

“When you say the reason that people are so stirred up is because of this book and this conspiracy theory and all this stuff, I’m oblivious to all that,” he said. “And if that’s what they think I am peddling, I can’t be peddling if I know nothing about it. Now you can argue about the intent of this, and I just did — hopefully, these people are just trying to make a buck selling a movie. I still don’t agree with it during football games. Why do we have to do this during football games, when kids are watching?”

More close to home, though, he said complaints about his post, as well as The Capital-Journal’s coverage of the issue, was part of a local agenda to keep him off the school board.

“What is happening is, they don’t want me to get elected,” Showalter said. “But they have no right to trash my name based on a post I reposted out of media concentration eight years ago and took down two months later that just identified the close proximity of people.”

Rafael Garcia is an education reporter for the Topeka Capital-Journal. He can be reached at rgarcia@cjonline.com or by phone at ‪785-289-5325. Follow him on Twitter at @byRafaelGarcia.

This article originally appeared on Topeka Capital-Journal: Shawnee Heights school board candidate denies antisemitism in social post