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\nU.S. Senate hopeful Blake Masters\u2019 rejection of a weeks-old campaign endorsement from neo-Nazi blogger Andrew Anglin was \u201clackluster\u201d and \u201cunderwhelming,\u201d his critics say.\n<\/p>\n
\nAnglin endorsed Masters on June 9 on his website, The Daily Stormer<\/i>, an alt-right pit of anti-Semitism and racist propaganda. It was named after the Nazi newspaper Der St\u00fcrmer<\/i> and was born from the ashes of a short-lived site called Total Fascism.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cI cannot give a more forceful endorsement,”\u00a0Anglin wrote on the website in June. “I demand that anyone in Arizona get in contact with his campaign and see what kind of help he needs.”\n<\/p>\n
\nAfter public backlash,\u00a0Masters told Phoenix New Times<\/i> on Saturday that he rejected the endorsement.\n<\/p>\n
\nBut the Republican candidate, a political newcomer from Tucson, quickly backpedaled, stridently accusing incumbent Democrat Mark Kelly and \u201cthe media\u201d of inaccurately painting Anglin as a Nazi.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cI\u2019ve never heard of this guy and I reject his support. The reason I\u2019ve never heard of him is because he\u2019s a nobody, and nobody cares about him except the media,\u201d Masters said in an email to New Times<\/i>. \u201cThey\u2019d like to build him up in order to smear anybody who believes in common sense border security as some kind of \u2018Nazi.\u2019 It\u2019s a cheap tactic from Mark Kelly\u2019s media allies and it\u2019s not going to work.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\nMasters’ defense follows the same general thinking Anglin has employed time and time again as part of a number of anti-Semitic disinformation campaigns dating back to 2013, like \u201cOperation: Filthy Jew Bitch\u201d and \u201c#GasTheKikes.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cThis is the Jews for you, people,\u201d Anglin wrote in the first of a 30-article series that advocates genocide of Jewish people. \u201cThey are a vicious, evil race of hate-filled psychopaths. When you do something they don\u2019t like, they will use the power of the media to come down on you, assassinate your character.\u201d<\/p>\n
In spite of these hateful claims, Masters was quicker to decry mainstream news outlets than The Daily Stormer<\/i>, where Anglin wrote that \u201cJews should be exterminated\u201d and, \u201cThe day is coming when we\u2019re going to tear down the hoax [Holocaust] memorial in Berlin and replace it with a statue of Hitler 1,000 feet tall.”<\/p>\n
\nThat\u2019s telling, said Paul Rockower, executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Phoenix.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cWhen given the opportunity to reject anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial, Masters refused \u2014 denouncing ‘the media’ in starker terms than he denounces the neo-Nazi publication, The Daily Stormer<\/i>,\u201d Rockower told New Times<\/i> on Tuesday.\n<\/p>\n
\nMasters, a top aide to billionaire entrepreneur Peter Thiel, is running on a hard-line nationalist agenda and, like Anglin, has parroted<\/a> the \u201cwhite replacement\u201d conspiracy theory.\n<\/p>\n \nHe\u2019s also a steadfast proponent of the tirelessly debunked \u201cStop the Steal\u201d conspiracy theory. Masters told conservative activists at an IHOP restaurant in Phoenix this year that he supports investigating the federal government\u2019s “nefarious activities,\u201d stemming from another debunked conspiracy theory<\/a> that a handful of recent national tragedies were false-flag operations.\n<\/p>\n \nThat\u2019s one reason why he gleaned Anglin\u2019s support just seven days after earning the coveted endorsement of former President Donald Trump.\n<\/p>\n \nAnglin, the neo-Nazi agitator, said he was inspired to write the endorsement after viewing a recent viral video<\/a> in which Masters knocks down and injures a 73-year-old man at a Pima County campaign event just two days earlier.\n<\/p>\n \nStyled after internet forums like 8chan, the birthplace of QAnon, The Daily Stormer<\/i> spreads anti-Semitism, neo-Nazism, and white nationalism, primarily through hyperbole and epithet-laced stories about topics like alleged Jewish world control and black-on-white crime, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.\n<\/p>\n \nDespite what Masters says, though, Anglin isn\u2019t exactly \u201ca nobody.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nA Southern Poverty Law Center post stated that The Daily Stormer<\/i>\u00a0as of April 2017 was among the 5,600 most-visited websites<\/a>\u00a0in the United States, which hosts more than 1.1 billion websites<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n \n“Blake Masters’ tepid renunciation of the endorsement of neo-Nazi publisher and Holocaust denier Andrew Anglin is frankly underwhelming,\u201d Rockower said. \u201cMasters takes pains not to reject Anglin’s neo-Nazi views or extremist writings, citing as his only reason for rejecting the endorsement that he has \u2018never heard of’ Anglin.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nIn a bizarre twist, Anglin suggests in the endorsement that Masters is gay: \u201cHe\u2019s married to a white women [sic] despite some possibly questionable mannerisms.\u201d<\/p>\n Still, Anglin forged ahead with the unsolicited endorsement.\n<\/p>\n \nMasters is gunning for the Republican nomination against Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich, who has taken a sharp turn to the right in recent months, and Jim Lamon, a wealthy businessman who founded DEPCOM Power, a solar company, and has poured millions into his own campaign.\n<\/p>\n \nMasters is also a self-funder, buoyed by $13.5 million from Thiel\u2019s coffers, Federal Election Commission data shows.\n<\/p>\n \nAccording to Race to the White House<\/a>, a leading national pollster, Masters trailed Brnovich and Lamon in the polls until recently. He’s picking up momentum since last month in Arizona and nationally, pulling within a point of his opposition in some polls and leading in others.<\/p>\n An April poll of 1,126 likely Republican voters from Remington Research Group<\/a> put Masters 23 points behind Lamon. By July, a Trafalgar Group<\/a> poll of 1,077 likely Republican voters had Masters leading by more than 5 points.<\/p>\n \nConservative television personality Tucker Carlson dubbed Masters \u201cthe future of the GOP\u201d on his Fox News Channel show, the most-watched program<\/a> on cable news in the country one week last month.<\/p>\n \nIt’s anyone’s race to win. But recent events have begged the question of why Anglin plucked Masters from a crowded field of far-right Republicans.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cLeft unaddressed in the matter is why a notorious neo-Nazi finds Blake Masters and his campaign so appealing,\u201d Rockower said. \u201cThis should be a serious point of reflection and introspection for Masters. The lackluster renunciation is a feign of a baby step in the right direction. Masters must do more.”\n<\/p>\n \nChuck Coughlin, a Phoenix-based Republican political analyst, says it\u2019s not anything Masters did that attracted neo-Nazis to the campaign.\n<\/p>\n \nRather, it\u2019s the Trump endorsement.\n<\/p>\n \nTrump\u2019s firm grip on the GOP began to loosen during the first 2020 presidential debate against then-Democratic nominee Joe Biden. Trump chose not to condemn<\/a> the Proud Boys, a neofascist group that engages in political violence in Arizona, especially near the Mexican border.<\/p>\n That soured the opinion of some moderate voters, Coughlin said, but it elated extremists on the political right.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cWith the Trump endorsement comes the Proud Boys, the white supremacist groups, and all that baggage that comes with it,\u201d Coughlin told New Times<\/i> on Tuesday. \u201cThat\u2019s the lead the neo-Nazis follow. It makes sense that they\u2019d pick Blake.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nThe winner of Arizona\u2019s Republican primary on August 2 will face Kelly in the general election on November 8.\n<\/p>\n
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