Gosar's Block Backfires

Arizona Republican Rep. Paul Gosar

Thanksgiving and Christmas are just around the corner and the holiday season could be a bit awkward for the members of Republican Congressman Paul Gosar's family.

The alarming comments he made earlier this month in an interview with Vice about his strange theory about who was behind the Neo-Nazi rally in Charlottesville, Virginia has thrust the representative of the reliably-conservative leaning state of Arizona into the national media spotlight lately.

And not for good reasons either.

The problem started when Gosar tried to muzzle members of his own constituency from posting critical things about him on Facebook.

As Elspeth Reeve wrote for Vice, during the interview Gosar was trying to defend his having blocked J'aime Morgaine, a U.S. Army veteran, liberal activist and resident of the Arizona 4th Congressional District that Gosar represents, from commenting on his Facebook page.

She made headlines over the summer by driving two and a half hours from her home in Kingman, Arizona several times a week to peacefully protest at Gosar's Congressional offices in Prescott by bringing a brick or block with the words "Please stop blocking your constituents." written on them. 

When that didn't work, Morgaine filed a federal lawsuit against Gosar in September, arguing that his blocking her from posting criticism of the job he's doing in Congress violated her 1st Amendment right to freedom of expression.

After months of Morgaine's old school grassroots protests, as it became clear to Gosar and his staff that trying to muzzle one of his own constituents was not winning the PR battle, in October he finally relented and unblocked her - along with a number of other critics he'd blocked on Facebook as well.

J'aime Morgaine leaving a "block" at Gosar's office

But even though Morgaine's resolve won her the battle over the right to confront her own Congressman in a public forum, she still hasn't dropped her lawsuit.

As she told Phoenix New Times reporter Antonia Noori Farzan two weeks ago:

"In fact, the lawsuit is more important than ever. The fact that he has unblocked us doesn't change how unconstitutional the block was. It also doesn't change how completely unaccountable he has been to his constituents." 

During the October 5th Vice interview, Gosar suggested he'd blocked Morgaine and others because of the potential danger posed by left-wingers.

Gosar is an unapologetic lackey of the National Rifle Association who co-sponsored legislation that would allow non-citizens of a state who have concealed carry permits to carry concealed weapons in that state (funny how selective Republicans can be about "states rights").

But he suggested to Vice that Louisiana Congressman Steve Scalise being shot in the leg by a disturbed individual with a semi-automatic rifle in Virginia while practicing for a Congressional softball game a few months ago was evidence that liberal-leaning critics posed a physical threat to his safety.

But after bringing up the antifa (anti-fascist) movement to bolster his questionable reasoning for stifling the 1st Amendment rights of his own constituents, Gosar really dipped his toe in the swamp when he tried to suggest to Vice that the organizer of the alt-right / Neo-Nazi Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Jason Kessler was "an Obama sympathizer". 

Unite the Right organizer Jason Kessler

Kessler is publicly known as an advocate of the "white genocide" theory frequently bandied about by the alt-right community.

According to Vice, that "theory"posits that: 

"a shadowy elite are trying to replace white people by denigrating white identity and encouraging immigration." 


Does that sound like someone who voted for Barack Obama to you?

An article about Kessler by the Southern Poverty Law Center reports that he started a campaign to unseat Wes Bellamy, the only African-American city councilman in Charlottesville after Bellamy advocated removing a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee.

It's troubling enough that a member of Congress would try and suggest that the collection of alt-right, KKK and Neo-Nazi rabble that marched in Charlottesville was organized by an Obama supporter.

But Paul Gosar dove into the swamp when he had the gall to suggest that billionaire liberal activist and philanthropist George Soros was a financial backer of the Unite the Right rally, telling Vice:

"You know George Soros is one of those people that actually helps back these individuals. Who is he? I think he's from Hungary. I think he was Jewish. And I think he turned in his own people to the Nazis."  

Philanthropist George Soros

Suggesting that George Soros, who is an actual survivor of the Holocaust, used his own considerable resources to promote Neo-Nazis marching in modern day America is frankly as absurd as it is offensive.

As the DailyKos reported on Tuesday, Gosar's seven siblings, collectively published a letter denouncing their brother's wacky and totally unsubstantiated anti-Semitic accusations - they also made clear that his comments in no way represent the beliefs their parents taught them growing up in Wyoming.

In fact, one of Paul Gosar's brothers David, a Wyoming lawyer who told the Phoenix New Times that his brother's comments made him "look insane", actually offered to help represent J'aime Moraine in her federal lawsuit against his brother.



Gosar's younger brother Pete, who also signed the letter, used to chair the Wyoming Democratic Party - so obviously he was horrified over his brother's accusation that Soros was a Nazi collaborator.

Oh to be a fly on the wall for the Gosar family Thanksgiving.

Outside of conservative Washington insiders, people in his home state and members of the anti-abortion community, Gosar doesn't have a lot of national name recognition.

He was one of the many Tea Party candidates swept into office during President Obama's first term on a wave of extremist hatred and angry clamoring for rigid, far-right ideology.

The fact that he was endorsed by Sarah Palin and former Maricopa County Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio should tell you something about his political leanings and values.

As Vice rightfully noted, Gosar basically repeated a totally fabricated anti-Semitic myth popularized by Alex Jones, a quasi-delusional right-wing wind-bag who uses his media platform to espouse kooky nut-job theories so absurd they border on lunacy.

Jones essentially tries to paint kooky alternative theories around modern violent events that get linked to right-wing ideology as "liberal plots" including the Oklahoma City Bombings and the Sandy Hook Massacre.

Infowars host Alex Jones

So it's both sad and remarkable that Congressman Paul Gosar is watching way too much Infowars because his comments to Vice make it sound like he's confused the delusional crackpot theories regularly floated by nutbag host Alex Jones with fact.

Not that actual facts really matter all that much to the right-wing extremists that now control the Republican Party.

A party that now elevates ideology over truth.

But if sport-shirt-wearing alt-right haters are going to march alongside members of the KKK and Swastika flag-carrying Tiki Torch Nazis chanting ignorant slogans like "Jews will not replace us!", then Republicans like Gosar better damn well own up to that because it's being channeled by the same masters that he and Trump both serve.

The idea that the far right is engaged in a half-ass Goebbels-like campaign to pin the blame on Democratic supporters for the shocking display of racist buffoonery the world saw in Charlottesville, including an angry alt-right asshole intentionally ramming his car into a crowd of protesters killing Heather Heyer and injuring many others, is a sad indicator of just how far the Republican Party has sunk.

Like the absurdity of Trump, whose own son, son-in-law and top campaign officials met with Russian players during the 2016 presidential campaign to get damaging info on Hillary Clinton, now expressing righteous indignation over allegations that DNC and the Clinton campaign paid researchers to find damaging info on Trump.

It's the deepest kind of delusional hypocrisy intended to undermine our democracy.

But as J'aime Morgaine's campaign demonstrates, trying to block criticism and dissent is a violation of the very principles Republicans so often claim to hold dear, but repeatedly trample.