This Kanye-Obsessed GOP Candidate Wants to ‘Exile’ Jews

Ryan Bort
·5 min read
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The Republican Party doesn’t seem to have much of a problem with Nazis these days. NBC News recently reported on how they “openly mingled” at last week’s Conservative Political Action Conference. The report was alarming, but not surprising. The event’s keynote speaker and the party’s standard-bearer, Donald Trump, has a history of hobnobbing with white supremacists and antisemites — including Nick Fuentes, the virulently bigoted Holocaust denier the former president invited to dinner at Mar-a-Lago just over a year ago.

CPAC threw a hissy fit over the NBC News report, but it’s undeniable that conservatives no longer feel the need to distance themselves from white supremacy — or even full-fledged Nazism — the way they might have before the MAGA movement fully subsumed the GOP. The party’s tacit-if-not-explicit acceptance of ethnonationalism has spawned an increasingly extreme array of candidates for elected positions. Lori Kauffman, a Republican running to represent Boston’s First Suffolk District on the Republican State Committee, is one of them.

“Don’t forget I’ll likely get voted into office on March 5,” Kauffman wrote earlier this week on X, formerly Twitter. “Long term goals are to ban same sex marriage (never should have been legalized) and trans will be illegal. Yes illegal. I will also exile all Jews.”

Kauffman’s account is rife with extremist content, including unvarnished antisemitism, bigotry against the trans community, and adoration of Kanye West — who himself has espoused plenty of antisemitism. Kauffman has also promoted her alternate X account, @Jews4Ye24, which features more of the same. “Hi, Hitler?” one meme posted earlier this month reads. “It’s 2024 here and we’re requesting your assistance.”

I called up Kauffman on Tuesday. She says that she was raised Jewish but converted to Christianity, citing the “depth and depravity of what’s going on behind the guise of the Jewish religion.” She touched on a litany of antisemitic conspiracy theories, from the idea of a “New World Order” to claiming Jews are behind the Covid-19 vaccine, which she believes gave her brain cancer. “I can’t prove that,” she says of “censorship covering up” the damage the vaccine has done to people, “but it’s pretty suspect.”

“So, would you say you’re a fan of Hitler?” I ask.

“‘Fan’ is a weird word,” she says, pivoting to Holocaust denial. “I’m still learning a lot about what actually happened during World War II. There were no gas chambers. Every single thing we know about World War II is a lie, just like everything we know about our own world we live in today is a lie. I have the same goals as Hitler: Exile the Jews and keep their degeneracy and corruption and lies out of society. It’s destroying us.”

“So, it’s safe to say you’d admire Hitler?”

“That’s still a strong word because I’m still learning about it. I respect Hitler. I like him.”

Kauffman says she got into the race after working on Ye’s pseudo-campaign for president. She claims someone in his “camp” suggested she get involved in the local political scene and “figure out how it works.” She realized everyone was “corrupt as shit,” so she decided to go ahead and run herself. (When I asked what exactly she did for Ye’s campaign, she said “graphic marketing design” and that it is “confidential.” She ultimately said that her work was only part of a “movement that a lot of different people were a part of” and that she wasn’t actually working with Milo Yiannapolous and Fuentes.)

Kauffman’s opponent for a seat on the Massachusetts Republican State Committee is Elizabeth Hinds-Ferrick, a Guayanese immigrant with a doctorate from Northeastern, and who is currently serving as the assistant director in the state’s Department of Transitional Assistance, which assists low-income individuals. Hinds-Ferrick is running alongside Timothy Smyth, the co-president of the New England Young Conservatives and the state committeeman for the First Suffolk District.

Hinds-Ferrick and Smyth are more traditional Republicans. Smyth — whose campaign Facebook page features photos of himself posing with Ron DeSantis, quotes from Tim Scott, and “I Stand With Israel” imagery — describes himself as believing in “Rockefeller, New England Republicanism,” the GOP being a “big-tent party,” and Reagan’s “11th Commandment,” which is not to speak ill of any fellow Republican. He acknowledges that plenty of Republicans are violating this commandment today, but dismisses the idea that Kauffman’s brand of extremism is creeping into the mainstream of the party. “She is very extreme,” he says. “This is a complete anomaly. We showed that with our unanimous support condemning her in December.”

Smyth is referring to the state GOP’s formal condemnation of Kauffman when her views came to light in December. The party released a new statement on Tuesday reiterating their disapproval. “Ms. Kauffman’s reprehensible rhetoric has no place within the Republican Party or in the broader American political dialogue,” the statement read. “The MassGOP unequivocally denounces her vile language and has taken every measure within its capacity to disassociate from Ms. Kauffman.”

Kaufmann may have no place in “New England Republicanism,” but there’s no question that naked antisemitism and white supremacy are becoming more and more prevalent throughout the conservative movement as Trump and his ilk tighten their grip on it. So too is the idea that real change can’t be found within the two-party establishment. Kauffman says she isn’t satisfied with anyone from the “uniparty” in Washington, D.C. — including Trump.

“I wish I liked him more, but he’s a Zionist, too. I think 75 percent of all our problems in the United States comes from the fact that we’re occupied by Israel,” she says, adding that she figures Trump is the “better option” but that this year’s presidential election isn’t going to affect anything.

Her solution, however, is something that has certainly been gestured toward by plenty of elected Republicans. “It’s time to overthrow the government,” Kauffman says. “It’s our constitutional right. I don’t care how ridiculous that sounds.”

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