GOP candidates call vaccine effort 'persecution' on par with Holocaust

Prominent Republicans in multiple states have compared President Joe Biden’s recent announcement of vaccine mandates and increased testing to the actions of the Nazi regime in Europe during World War II.

Biden on Sept. 9 announced a plan to be enforced by the Department of Labor requiring, among other efforts, that employers with 100 employees or more to ensure workers are either vaccinated against the coronavirus or tested weekly for it. The new initiative came in response to increased numbers of coronavirus infections, particularly due to the highly contagious delta variant infecting people who have not been vaccinated against the virus.

Mark McCloskey, who is running for the Republican nomination for the Missouri Senate seat held by retiring Sen. Roy Blunt, took offense at the executive order.

“Actually accusing us of being the enemy. That this is ‘a pandemic of the unvaccinated.’ I mean, if we had Stars of David on our chests 70 years ago, it would be absolutely no different,” McCloskey told the audience at a candidate forum on Wednesday. “They’re singling us out for persecution, prosecution, and eventually forced inoculation.”

Vernon Jones, a Republican candidate for governor in Georgia, sounded a similar note in an interview broadcast Sunday on former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s radio show.

“We look at what Joe Biden is doing, he wants to mandate the COVID vaccination, and not even for Congress, they’re exempt, his staff is exempt. He’s acting like Hitler. This is not a police state,” said Jones.

The comments echo other recent claims from Republican candidates like Ohio Senate candidate Josh Mandel, who tweeted, “Do NOT comply with the tyranny. When the gestapo show up at your front door, you know what to do,” and Pennsylvania Senate candidate Kathy Barnette, who posted a photo of a couple with stars sewn to their clothing, a quote from the 1998 Holocaust documentary “The Last Days,” and the phrase “Americans are like the frog in boiling water.” In May, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) said rules requiring vaccinations or the use of masks were “just like” the Holocaust.

The Holocaust refers to the period before and during the Second World War during which the Nazi regime and its supporters murdered 6 million Jewish people and millions of others considered inferior or undesirable.

Although Republicans continue to compare vaccine safety measures to Nazi persecution, the Biden administration’s efforts are based on constitutional authority of the federal government that has been reaffirmed under judicial scrutiny. Donald B. Verrilli Jr., who served as solicitor general under President Barack Obama, told the New York Times, “The constitutionality of this regulatory effort is completely clear.”

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.