Greene campaigns with GOP congresswoman who had to apologize for praising Hitler

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), forever in hot water over her antisemitic comments, headlined a massive fundraising event on Thursday for Illinois Republican Rep. Mary Miller, who is perhaps best known for a speech in which she gave credit to Nazi leader Adolf Hitler’s strategies. Just months ago, Miller vowed to be a “strong advocate and ally of the Jewish community.”

According to Greene, her appearance in Effingham, Illinois, raised “over $100,000” for her fellow first-term representative’s reelection campaign. “We need more #AmericaFirst patriots like Mary in DC to help Save America and Stop Socialism!” she tweeted.

“I’m so thankful for her, and I love having Mary Miller as a friend,” Greene told the fundraiser attendees, according to WBEZ Chicago.

“We aren’t the popular girls in Washington,” she added, and are “not considered nice girls in the swamp.”

Both have come under fire for extremist views and antisemitic remarks.

Days after being sworn in, Miller made national news for praising Adolf Hitler at a rally urging Congress to overturn the 2020 presidential election results.

“If we win a few elections, we’re still going to be losing unless we win the hearts and minds of our children. This is the battle,” she told pro-Donald Trump activists on Jan. 5. “Hitler was right on one thing. He said, ‘Whoever has the youth has the future.'”

After bipartisan condemnation, Miller offered a partial apology but also scolded critics for trying to use her praise of the Nazi leader to make her seem antisemitic.

“I sincerely apologize for any harm my words caused and regret using a reference to one of the most evil dictators in history to illustrate the dangers that outside influences can have on our youth,” she said in a Jan. 8 statement.

“While some are trying to intentionally twist my words to mean something antithetical to my beliefs,” she added, “let me be clear: I’m passionately pro-Israel and I will always be a strong advocate and ally of the Jewish community.”

Greene’s short tenure in Congress has been even rockier than Miller’s.

On Feb. 4, 230 of her House colleagues — though just 11 Republicans — voted to strip her of all of her committee assignments “in light of conduct she has exhibited” that did not reflect “creditably on the House.” That conduct included a well-documented history of backing the dangerous QAnon conspiracy theory movement and making antisemitic, Islamophobic, and racist comments.

These included false claims that a prominent Jewish banking family caused deadly California wildfires with secret space lasers and spreading an anti-Muslim video on social media that smeared Jews as scheming to destroy Europe through “immigration and miscegenation.”

Greene did not apologize for her record, but assured colleagues that her previous comments “do not represent me,” “do not represent my district, and they do not represent my values.”

In May, Greene earned more public criticism, even from many of her Republican colleagues for new comments comparing masks mandates to curb the spread of COVID-19 to “Nazi practices.”

After a visit to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in June, Greene publicly apologized for the “offensive” and “hurtful” analogy. “There is no comparison to the Holocaust,” she told reporters.

But that did not stop her from tweeting Tuesday that President Joe Biden’s attempts to make COVID-19 vaccines available to people who have not yet gotten them was like Nazi “brown shirts.”

Miller has also come under scrutiny for her ties to far-right militia groups. In March, she claimed criticism of her and her husband’s connections with the Three Percenter militia, a Southern Poverty Law Center-designated antigovernment group, was just an effort “to scare conservative Christians, especially, to be quiet and don’t get involved.”

In a joint press release on Thursday, Democratic Party of Illinois executive director Abby Witt and Illinois Democratic County Chairs Association executive director Dan Kovats called on Republicans to condemn both representatives, as they “purposely spew hate concerning statements referencing Hitler, the Holocaust, and Nazi ‘Brown Shirts’ into their remarks.”

“The Miller and Green [sic] show are now fundraising together in Illinois, continuing their grift and conspiracy theory partnership,” they wrote. “If they are the Republican Party, they don’t represent the majority of middle Americans and they don’t belong in Congress spewing hate and division.”

Anti-Defamation League Midwest regional director David Goldenberg also condemned the duo, telling WBEZ Chicago on Thursday, “We’re at a point right now where it’s critical that we reject the politics of hate. And politicians and elected officials who continue to tout conspiracy theories and bigotry and racism need to be rejected loudly, clearly, universally … It’s nuts.”

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.