1. He says he’s not a Nazi—but he’s a Nazi. Arthur Jones has been a member of groups including the American Nazi Party and the National Socialist White People’s Party (subtle!). He said on Monday that “this stuff about being a Nazi” was “in the past”—but one of the issues discussed on his campaign website is the Holocaust, which he argues did not actually take place. (Jones’ Holocaust material includes a suggestion that the late Nobel Peace Prize recipient Elie Wiesel celebrated the rape of German women.)
2. He ran unopposed in Tuesday’s primary. The Illinois Republican Party has denounced Jones’ candidacy but failed to field anyone to run against him in the state’s heavily Democratic Chicago-area 3rd District (the “Fightin’ 3rd”). So Jones will now appear on the Republican line against Rep. Dan Lipinski, who won a close race against progressive challenger Marie Newman on Tuesday, in the general election.
3. He may face an “independent” Republican challenger in the fall as well. A state Republican official says the party will fund its own candidate in the general election, who would technically be running as an independent.
4. He’s got a puncher’s chance at a presidential endorsement! The Illinois GOP aside, the top national Republican in the U.S. is an individual who:
• Has praised the participants in a Nazi/Confederate torch rally as “very fine people”
• Hired a top adviser whose news/opinion website solicited story ideas from several notorious white supremacists
• Takes advice from the proprietor of a different website known for disseminating conspiracy theories about Jews
• Retweeted a Star of David image created by a white supremacist web user whose other work included photoshopped images of Jews with large noses
• Hired a national security aide who’s reportedly a member of a far-right group that collaborated with the actual Nazis
• Conducted an exclusive Q&A on an infamous web forum that features discussion of such topics as “race mixing,” Nazis’ allegedly high IQs, and the “Jewish influence” in America
I think we need to rephrase the item above, actually.
5. He’s got a great chance at a presidential endorsement! Trump/Jones 2020?
