Antisemitic and Nazi-sympathizing comments made by a Republican state representative in Alaska, who likened Covid-19 safety measures at the state capitol to the treatment of Jewish people in Nazi Germany, brought widespread rebuke and, eventually, an apology.
Alaska’s legislature is due to return on Monday and representatives were told by email they would be asked to undergo screening as they entered the building. Those who are screened will be given a sticker to show completion. Those who refuse will not be given a sticker.
In an emailed reply to the new measures that was obtained by the Alaska Landmine, Ben Carpenter, a Republican wrote: “If my sticker falls off, do I get a new one or do I get public shaming too? Are the stickers available as a yellow Star of David?”
The reply drew instant rebuke from colleagues in the house.
“This is disgusting. Keep your Holocaust jokes to yourself,” replied Grier Hopkins, a Democrat.
Carpenter initially declined to apologize and in an interview with the Anchorage Daily News made remarks that appeared to show Nazi sympathies.
“Can you or I – can we even say it is totally out of the realm of possibility that Covid-19 patients will be rounded up and taken somewhere?” he said.
“People want to say Hitler was a white supremacist. No. He was fearful of the Jewish nation, and that drove him into some unfathomable atrocities.”
On Sunday, facing a national backlash, Carpenter apologized in an op-ed for a local paper.
“I take my responsibility as the voice of the people who elected me very seriously,” he wrote. “I also hold the Jewish people in the highest regard.
“I do not take myself so seriously that I cannot recognize that the words I wrote, and those attributed to me, do not adequately reflect the esteem I hold for either group of people. I hope to correct that error now.”
Source: US Politics - theguardian.com
