Keeping Up With a Jones

 

(By American Zen's Mike Flannigan, on loan from Ari.) 

All summer long in my spare time, I've been reading the bestselling novel, The Librarian of Auschwitz, by Spanish novelist Antonio Iturbe. For those of you who don't typically read Holocaust or historical literature as a rule, this book may prove to be a life-changer. Yes, it's that good. It's everything that a novel should be- Expertly-written, with engaging characters and a compelling storyline.

    Some would unfairly say that Iturbe already had two of those three boxes checked off for him. When writing about Dita (Adler) Krause, the titular character, the librarian of Auschwitz herself, how could one not create a compelling story? Dita, the 14 year-old protagonist in this novelization of her experiences at Auschwitz II, or Auschwitz-Birkenau (the death camp), has been entrusted with the care of Auschwitz's "library"- A pathetic collection of eight tattered books. 

   The person who entrusts her with this extremely dangerous job (being caught with a book is tantamount to an automatic death sentence, always in back of the prisoners', and the reader's, minds), is a young German Jew named Fredy Hirsch, the head of Block BIIb, where 521 children and a small support staff of several teachers are also imprisoned.

    Without giving away any spoilers, The Librarian of Auschwitz is a thrilling real life tale of suspense replete with forbidden love and a quiet resistance, a stubbornness to cling to life and their humanity at all costs. The small library entrusted to Dita, little more than a child, opens up her only windows to an outside world from which the Auschwitz prisoners have been effectively sealed off. It's a slightly fictionalized retelling of a tragically real-life series of events comprising but a tiny fraction of perhaps the most shameful and hideous period of Mankind's already shamefully hideous history.

    But this isn't a book review of what could prove to be Iturbe's masterpiece. This is a stone-cold appraisal of the state of the latter-day Republican Party and how they've wrenched Overton's Window so far to the right, you can see 1933-1945 Berlin through it. This is about neo Nazi Arthur J. Jones, the poor man's Lyndon LaRouche.

    Arthur Jones is, to quote Buzz Lightyear, a "sad, strange little man". For eight years, he was a member of the National Socialist White People's Party. If that still leaves room for any doubt in your mind as to what their mission was, they later rechristened themselves the American Nazi Party. He has run for Congress out of Chicago's 3rd district a total of nine times (the last time was last year when an alarmed Illinois GOP successfully kicked him off the ballot after a $50,000 ad and robocall blitz). He is an infamous Holocaust denier.

    In other words, the sad, strange little subject of today's essay would look at The Librarian of Auschwitz as a purely fictional tale, despite several of the subjects, including Dita Krause, still being alive and ready to give eyewitness testimony. And when one person challenged him on his toxic beliefs, Jones immediately began spitting venom about "the Jew media."

     Jones won the GOP primary in IL-3 in 2018, explaining why the Illinois GOP was alarmed enough to spend a third of their pathetic $150,000 war chest to keep Jones off the ballot in 2020.

Mr. Jones, You and IL-3 Have a Thing Going On

 

Anyone keeping track of Jones' unbroken losing streak that goes back to the Bicentennial when he was still a fresh-faced young storm trooper of 28, would note a disturbing trend in Jones' steadily-rising numbers. Let's look at his congressional numbers year by year:

     In 1984 when he was 36 and already deeply involved in far right politics, Jones ran for IL-3's seat for the first time and won nearly 15% of the vote. That would be considered robust numbers for a fringe candidate and maybe they'd have a case. Encouraged by his third out of three GOP primary showing, he ran for the City Council Ward 13  spot the next year and he again finished dead last with just 3.2% of the vote. But in that race, he ran for the Chicago City Council on a typically nonpartisan ticket.

     Five years later, he ran for Congress again and finished last once again in a five person race with a miserable 2.6% of the vote. But then, just four years later, people in IL-3 slowly started to notice Jones. In the 1996 Republican primary, Jones cracked double digits again for the first time in 12 years, getting 10.3% of the vote. In other words, he got nearly 2900 people to vote for him in a heavily Democratic district.

     Two years later, he ran and, while he finished dead last yet again, he'd grabbed 12.4% or 2401 votes. Undeterred, the Little Nazi That Could ran for that elusive office eight years later and in the GOP primary got nearly 30%, meaning 5242 people voted for the Nazi. In the next election, Jones ran and grabbed about a third of the vote, with 6804 voting for him. Those aren't fringe numbers, those are contender numbers.

     After running four years later and finishing a distant third with 11%, Jones reached the apex of his political career by winning nearly 26% of the vote in the general election because right wing voters hated the Democrat so much. That means Arthur Jones, former head of the American Nazi Party, got 57,885 people who couldn't stand the idea of voting for the incumbent Democrat, Dan Lipinkski.

     Now, one could say the only reason Jones even got that far was because the Illinois GOP fell asleep at the switch and didn't or couldn't field a candidate who didn't spew venom at Jews or deny the Holocaust happened. This was why it was alarmed enough to spend a large percentage of their meager war chest to keep Jones off the ballot last year (he still got 10% of the vote).

     But the fact remains that, largely to due to the IL GOP's negligence, a nasty little antisemitic prick like Arthur Jones was able to get more people in IL-3 to vote for him than could be packed into Yankee Stadium. When Arthur Jones grabbed over a quarter of the vote (and the year after Trump sleazed into the White House), in a year when he was the only game in town, 57,885 people showed they loathed the Democrat so much, they would've rather handed the seat to a literal Nazi.

     And Arthur J. Jones, former head of the American Nazi Party, would've fit in perfectly with the Congressional Republican Party of today.

Es ist nicht mehr verboten

 

Hyperbolic again? Let's review who did get into Congress last year:

     Marjorie Taylor-Greene of Georgia-14, who railed about Jewish space lasers starting the California wildfires and wanted to start an Anglo Saxon caucus that would've been tailor-made for a Nazi like Jones. There was Lauren Boebert, who's married to a flasher, who herself has a surprisingly lengthy rap sheet. Boebert's been charged with harassment, reckless driving, resisting arrest, contempt of court, you name it. She skated away every single time, including when she tweeted Nancy Pelosi's location during Trump's fascist coup on January 6th.

     Madison Cawthorne is, literally, a Nazi tourist, having visited the Eagle's Nest, Hitler's hideaway in the German mountains. As well as being one of the biggest jokes in the history of Congress, Cawthorn is a liar, an ignorant idiot and a failed rapist. And, most inescapably, a Nazi tourist.

     None of these idiots, for all their cringe-worthy shenanigans, have once been publicly upbraided by Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (Q-Trump's lap). This is the same McCarthy who, when Steve King said some breathtakingly stupid things about white nationalism, swiftly moved to strip King of all his committee assignments. Just under two years later, the 117th Congress saw the entry of the three right wing Musketeers and McCarthy has done little but genuflect in their general direction.

     Since then, McCarthy has shown that he has some backbone, after all, by giving the King treatment to Liz Cheney because she refused to go along with Trump's election lies and had more than a slight problem with his failed beer hall putsch.

     Jones is, if anything, even more loathsome than Steve King ever was (and that's saying something). But King was stripped of his committee assignments just as MTG would be barely over two years later (But only because Democrats demanded a full House vote, over McCarthy's objections). 

     And the little Nazi from the Windy City would've fit in perfectly with this bunker bunch. When Lauren Boebert was fighting a valiant battle at the metal detectors while trying to get her Glock on the House floor, Jones would've been right behind her goosestepping for her 2nd amendment rights. 

     While Marjorie Taylor-Greene was railing about Jewish space lasers, Jones would've been happily RTing her idiocy. And, if he wasn't so advanced in years, Jones would've taken Cawthorn on a guided tour to the Eagle's Nest. And when Paul Gosar was attending a white nationalist shindig, Jones would've made the introductions.

     Yes, Jones would have fit in so well with this Congress, that it's even doubtful if he would've stood out at all, even while hoarsely screaming that 6,000,000 dead Jews was all just a big misunderstanding.