Marjorie Taylor Greene is recruiting GOP members for white supremacist caucus

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), alongside Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ), is currently recruiting members to join the “America First Caucus,” circulating a platform for the group that includes overtly racist and white supremacist points of view, according to a draft obtained by Punchbowl News.

Greene’s spokesperson appeared to confirm the recruitment effort in a statement to NBC News and suggested the platform is a draft that is still being worked on.

“Capitol Hill is full of dirty backstabbing swamp creatures willing to leak gossip to borderline tabloids like Punchbowl,” Nick Dyer, Greene’s spokesperson, told NBC News, referring to the newsletter outlet started by former Politico Playbook authors. “Be on the look out for the release of the America First Caucus platform when it’s announced to the public very soon.”

The platform includes nakedly racist statements and white supremacist beliefs.

For example, the platform says:

America is a nation with a border, and a culture, strengthened by a common respect for uniquely Anglo-Saxon political traditions. History has shown that societal trust and political unity are threatened when foreign citizens are imported en-masse into a country, particularly without institutional support for assimilation and an expansive welfare state to bail them out should they fail to contribute positively to the country.

This comment appears to reference the “Great Replacement” theory, the white supremacist belief that “the white race is in danger of being ‘replaced’ by a rising tide of non-whites,” according to the Anti-Defamation League.

Multiple GOP lawmakers have parroted that white supremacist view in recent days, including Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) and Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA).

“This administration wants complete open borders, and you have to ask yourself why,” Johnson said on Thursday, during an appearance on former Trump administration official Larry Kudlow’s new Fox Business program. “Is it really they want to remake the demographics of America, to ensure their — that they stay in power forever? Is that what’s happening here?”

The platform also states the group believes, “An important distinction between post-1965 immigrants and previous waves of settlers is that previous cohorts were more educated, earned higher wages, and did not have an expansive welfare state to fall back on when they could not make it in America and thus did not stay in the country at the expense of the native-born.”

This looks to be a reference to the Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1965, which sought to end racial discrimination in the immigration system by abolishing the national origins quota system.

Before the act was passed, 84% of immigrants were from “Europe, Canada, or other North America” regions, while 6% were from Mexico, 4% were from Asia, and 3% were from Central America, according to Pew Research data. As of 2018, 13% of immigrants were from Europe or Canada, while 28% came from Asia, 25% came from Mexico, and another 25% came from Central America.

The platform also comments on “infrastructure,” noting, “The America First Caucus will work towards an infrastructure that reflects the architectural, engineering and aesthetic value that befits the progeny of European architecture, whereby public infrastructure must be utilitarian as well as stunningly, classically beautiful, befitting a world power and source of freedom.”

The belief that European architecture is superior to other forms has lately been adopted by the alt-right, which, according to a dive into the white supremacist obsession with architecture by Mel magazine, believes that the move toward modern buildings is a “threat to ‘Western values.'”

Greene and Gosar have both espoused racist or white supremacist ideology during their political careers.

In February, Greene falsely claimed while discussing a loan forgiveness program for socially disadvantaged farmers that “white people don’t qualify.”

And in a series of videos posted online before her election in 2020, Greene said Muslims do “not belong in our government” and referred to Democratic wins in the 2018 midterm elections as an “Islamic invasion of our government.”

Greene falsely described Islamic nations following Sharia law as places where men “marry their sisters [and] their cousins” and said Muslim men have sex with “little boys, little girls, multiple women.”

The congresswoman has alleged that “the most mistreated group of people in the United States today are white males.”

For his part, Gosar in January addressed the white nationalist America First Political Action Conference in Orlando, Florida. At the event, the organizer, Nick Fuentes, noted, “White people founded this country. This country wouldn’t exist without white people.” Another speaker, former Rep. Steve King, defended the pro-slavery Confederate flag.

After he spoke, Gosar’s image was used to promote the group on social media.

In October 2020, Gosar told reporters that Americans should stop using terms like “racist” and “racism” and urged people instead to “take a chill pill.”

And in 2018, Gosar traveled to London, where he rallied with an anti-immigrant extremist, blaming the “scourge” of Muslim people for abuse and sex trafficking.

According to Punchbowl News, the duo is actively recruiting for their new effort.

On Friday, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) announced he would join, writing, “I’m proud to join @mtgreenee in the #AmericaFirst Caucus.” In June 2020, Gaetz referred to phrases like “white privilege” as “racist terms to try to tell people to shut up.”

More recently, Gaetz on April 10 mocked Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg for noting historic racial inequities in how highways and roads were built in the past.

Reps. Louie Gohmert of Texas and Barry Moore of Alabama have also agreed to join, according to Punchbowl. They also share a history of xenophobic and racist statements.

Gohmert recently lashed out at legislation that would set up a commission to study the issue of reparations, arguing at an April 14 hearing that the Democratic Party should be forced to pay for the investigation.

He also complained earlier in April about how the U.S. Border Patrol provides food, water, and other emergency services to migrants making the dangerous trek through the desert to the United States.

And he made news when he called for violent action after Donald Trump lost the 2020 presidential election — just days before violence broke out at the Capitol.

After a federal court rejected a lawsuit he filed in hope of overturning the election, Gohmert said, “The court is saying, ‘We’re not going to touch this. You have no remedy’ — basically, in effect, the ruling would be that you gotta go to the streets and be as violent as Antifa and BLM.”

Gohmert in June 2020 had described protests by Black Lives Matter protesters as part of a “Marxist crime wave.”

In January, Moore deleted his Twitter account after being suspended over tweets minimizing the violence accompanying the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.

Prior to his suspension, Moore had written, “Understand it was a black police officer that shot the white female veteran. You know that doesn’t fit the narrative,” but later deleted that tweet.

Moore also praised Kenosha, Wisconsin, shooter Kyle Rittenhouse in an August 2020 Facebook post as someone who “fought back.”

Greene, Gosar, Gaetz, Moore, and Gohmert were some of the most vocal voices in pushing the lies about the 2020 election, and voted to block certification of President Joe Biden’s win — even after pro-Trump insurrectionists attacked the Capitol, leading to the death of one Capitol Police officer and more than 100 injuries to law enforcement officers.

In response to the recruitment effort for the new caucus, Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA) tweeted: “Dear @mtgreenee and @RepGosar: As an immigrant, I served on active duty in the US military to defend your right to say stupid stuff. What makes America great is that we don’t judge you based on bloodline, we look at your character. So take your nativist crap and shove it.”

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.