Kari Lake gets called out for her antisemitic associations
We pretend that evaluating politicians is complicated.
It’s not.
We can know all we need to know about someone running for office by following a maxim we heard as a child from our mother or father, or a teacher, or a coach:
“Show me your friends and I will tell you who you are.”
On Tuesday the nonprofit watchdog group Media Matters for America published an article under the headline, “Kari Lake has embraced numerous antisemitic media figures in recent years.”
It then goes on to list a rogues gallery of white nationalists and antisemites with whom the former news reader, failed Arizona governor candidate and current U.S. Senate candidate has associated with at one time or another.
Lake's associations are no surprise
Then again, if you’ve followed Lake’s campaign for Arizona governor, you know a lot about this already.
For example, Lake has said of Republican Rep. Paul Gosar, “Congressman Gosar is ‘the GOAT.’ We need strong, America First Patriots like Gosar at every level of government.”
This is the same Gosar who used his official House newsletter to post material from an extremist website that praised Hitler and called the Holocaust “the Holohoax.”
The same Gosar who has had a cozy relationship over time with white nationalist Nick Fuentes.
She called Wendy Rogers a 'hero'
Lake also refers to Arizona Republican State Sen. Wendy Rogers as a “hero.”
She even did so at the same time she was trashing the late Sen. John McCain, saying, “We don’t have any McCain Republicans in here, do we? Get the hell out! It was the party of McCain. It was bad. Arizona has delivered some losers, haven’t they? But we have some winners as well. We have Wendy Rogers … who is the toughest woman I know. We have so many heroes just like Wendy here in this state.”
Any grown-ups running for Senate? It's not Lake or Gallego
Rogers is also a pal of Fuentes. She has spread QAnon lunacy, backed Alex Jones over the parents of murdered children in Sandy Hook, and even tweeted a photo of herself next to a dead rhino branded with the Star of David.
Lake embraced the social media platform Gab, founded by notorious antisemite Andrew Torba, once writing: “Join me on Gab. So much less vitriol than Twitter and easy to use.”
They'll still chase the antisemitic vote
She’s a frequent proponent — as are so many others — of antisemitic tropes invoking the name of philanthropist George Soros, sometimes even combining them with childish insults.
Like when she said, “I’m really truly not trying to be mean here, but has anybody noticed that she (Hillary Clinton) is looking more and more like George Soros? I know that they think alike, and they’re starting to look alike. It’s like an old married couple. They’re starting to look alike.”
Between now and next year’s election, Republican candidates like Lake — and there are a lot like her — will tone down such rhetoric.
If an opponent brings up their associations with white nationalists or antisemites, or some past use of ugly tropes, they’ll call it dirty politics or, in the Donald Trump vernacular, fake news.
But make no mistake.
While they’ll make every effort not to appear like a white nationalist or an antisemite, they’ll actively be courting the votes of individuals who are.
Reach Montini at ed.montini@arizonarepublic.com
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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Kari Lake gets called out for antisemitic associations
