OPINION: Congressman Andy Harris has an Anti-Semitic and White Nationalist Problem
Rep. Andrew P. Harris (R-MD1) has represented the Eastern Shore for the past 10 years. Throughout his time in office, he has developed ties to White nationalists and anti-Semites. In this letter, I will detail Congressman Harris's problematic associations with extremist and hateful ideologies.
On January 16, 2017, Harris joined Congressman Phil Roe (R-TN1) for a meeting with White nationalist activist Chuck Johnson. Johnson is widely known for his hateful and dangerous ideology including being a Holocaust denier, believing that Muslims are “genetically different in their propensity for violence or rape,” and being linked to stories about how African Americans “possess a ‘violence’ gene.” These views have been proven to be debunked pseudoscience from as far back as 1920. Yet Rep. Harris took time out of his day to meet with such a radical extremist.
Read more about it here.
This is not the first time that Rep. Harris has openly worked with someone with anti-Semitic and White nationalistic views. Since taking office, Harris has been a major collaborator with Hungarian dictator Viktor Orbán. Harris has assisted Orbán in his efforts to erode democracy and seize power in Hungary. Prime Minister Orbán, during his power grab, was famous for using anti-Semitic imagery around his nation, claiming that “powerful Jewish financiers are scheming to control the world.” He also led smear campaigns that openly ran Jewish leaders, businesses, and institutions out of the country. Orban’s anti-Semitic horror show doesn’t end there. Throughout his time in office, Orban has started efforts to revise history in order to “sanitize” the record of Hungarian participation in the ghettoization and deportation of the country’s Jews to concentration camps during World War II. During this period, Hungary was allied with Nazi Germany. Despite these authoritarian and openly anti-Semitic actions, Congressman Harris still proudly promoted and supported anti-Semites in their effort to rewrite history, harass the country’s Jewish community, and seize power in the nation.
Read about Harris’ collaboration with Viktor Orbán here.
Read about Viktor Orbán’s anti-Semitic views here.
Rep. Harris’s efforts to support foreign anti-Semites don’t stop in Hungary. In 2018, the congressman attempted to meet secretly with Tomio Okamura, the leader of the Czech Nazi Party (Svoboda a přímá demokracie). Not only was this meeting in Prague going to be paid for by U.S. taxpayers, but this party is also by far the most extreme that Czech politics has to offer.
You may be asking yourself, why is this party so bad? The party has a long history of advocating for the violation of human rights and extremism such as anti-Semitism. The secretary of the party, Jaroslav Staník, openly called for the gassing of “Jews, gays, and Roma,” which would be nothing short of a modern-day Holocaust. Party’s leader Okamura has called on the Czech people to walk pigs and dogs in Muslim neighborhoods and mosques (Muslim religious doctrines call for practicing Muslims to avoid interaction with these animals). To have people walk pigs and dogs in their community would be nothing short of harassment and open terrorism. Okamura has also advocated for the end of religious freedoms and wants to ban Islam and other religions he views as undesirable. The fact that our congressman would set up a meeting with an extremist who openly goes against American values of freedom and peace is disgusting and a clear sign he holds these beliefs himself.
Read about Rep. Harris’s planned meeting with a political party calling for the mass murder of Jews, Romas, and members of the LGBTQ community here.
In the simplest terms, the situation with our congressman is untenable. The first time Rep. Harris met with or attempted to meet with an anti-Semite or White Nationalist leader or organization, it was at least somewhat believable that perhaps Harris and his staff were incompetent and didn’t know how to vet people before setting up meetings. But not even Harris could be this incompetent. There is no reason not to believe that he holds these anti-American views himself. There is a saying for people like Rep. Harris: if there’s a Nazi at the table and 10 other people sitting there talking with him, you have a table with 11 Nazis. We can’t afford to continue electing a congressman who sympathizes with White nationalists and anti-Semites.
Jared Schablein is the Chair of the Lower Shore Progressive Caucus.
COMMENTS on this article:
Jared Schablein’s article (“Congressman Andy Harris has an Anti-Semitic and White Nationalist Problem”) complains that Rep. Andrew Peter Harris (R-MD1) “attempted to meet secretly” with Czech Nazi Party leader Tomio Okamura. Because this meeting never took place, and because there are so many, many other reasons to complain about what Harris HAS done while in elected office, why should Schablein complain about something Harris HASN’T done?
Gren Whitman
Common Sense for the Eastern Shore
