A Republican representative shared a quote falsely attributed to Voltaire in an attempt to criticize Fauci. It was said by a neo-Nazi. – The Boston Globe

But the quote Massie shared was not from Voltaire. It was said by Kevin Alfred Strom, who the Southern Poverty Law Center describes as a “dogmatic neo-Nazi.”In 2008, according to the SPLC, Strom was convicted of child pornography charges and sentenced to nearly two years in prison.

In May 2021, USA Today fact checked the quote when it appeared on a viral Facebook post, and found a variation of it was said by Strom during a 1993 radio broadcast. Strom also claimed credit for the quote in a 2017 blog post, according to USA Today.

Many people on Twitter, including at least one fellow House lawmaker, were quick to point out that the quote Massie shared came from a neo-Nazi. One day after the post was shared, some questioned why Massie hadn’t deleted it.

“The quote, falsely attributed to Voltaire, comes from a Neo-Nazi and Holocaust denier who pled guilty to child pornography. Which raises the question: why is this tweet still up?” Representative Ritchie Torres, a New York Democrat, tweeted on Monday.

The American Jewish Committee, a Jewish advocacy organization, responded to Massie’s tweet, noting it was said by Strom and not Voltaire and called on Massie to delete it.

“We expect better of our representatives in Congress,” the committee wrote. “Delete this tweet immediately.”

Jonathan Greenblatt, the chief executive officer of the Anti-Defamation League, said Monday afternoon that it was “completely inappropriate for a sitting member of Congress to quote” Strom.

Massie is among a number of Republican politicians and political figures who have compared COVID policies to measures employed under Nazi Germany that resulted in the systematic genocide of 6 million Jewish people.

Such comparisons have prompted sharp rebukes from organizations including the Anti-Defamation League, the United States Holocaust Museum, and the Auschwitz Memorial.

Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Georgia Republican, has repeatedly compared COVID-19 masking and vaccine policies to Nazi Germany. In July, after Taylor-Greene had previously made offensive comparisons to the Holocaust, apologized, and visited the Holocaust Museum, she again invoked Nazi Germany when discussing the government’s push to get people vaccinated against the virus.

Representative Warren Davidson, an Ohio Republican, earlier this month compared COVID-19 vaccination mandates to the Holocaust, tweeting an image of a health document used in Nazi Germany in response to a tweet from the mayor of Washington, D.C., about the district’s proof-of-vaccination policy.

“This has been done before. #DoNotComply,” Davidson tweeted, along with the document that contained a swastika.

The Auschwitz Memorial responded to Davidson’s tweet, writing, “Exploiting of the tragedy of all people who between 1933-45 suffered, were humiliated, tortured & murdered by the totalitarian regime of Nazi Germany in a debate about vaccines & covid limitations in the time of global pandemic is a sad symptom of moral and intellectual decay.”

Earlier this month, during an anti-vaccination mandate rally in Washington, D.C., signs carried by some protesters invoked the Holocaust, according to videos and images posted to social media. In one video, a person is seen carrying a yellow Star of David sign in reference to the symbols Jewish people were forced to wear under the Nazi regime.

At that same protest, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who often publicizes his anti-vaccine stance, made a speech in which he suggested Anne Frank, who hid from the Nazis before she was killed in a concentration camp, fared better than those subjected to vaccine mandates.

The US Holocaust Museum said in a Twitter thread one day after Kennedy’s speech that “making reckless comparisons to the Holocaust, the murder of six million Jews, for a political agenda is outrageous and deeply offensive.”

“Those who carelessly invoke Anne Frank, the star badge, and the Nuremberg Trials exploit history and the consequences of hate,” the museum said.

In June 2021, after a number of protests across Europe in which people carried signs that included Holocaust symbols and imagery, including the yellow Star of David, the Anti-Defamation League issued a statement condemning the comparisons.

“The utilization of this type of Holocaust imagery wrongly compares the antisemitic, racist, misogynist, xenophobic and homophobic Nazi-regime and its genocidal acts to current government measures to contain the pandemic,” the ADL wrote in a blog post. “Comparing the two is not only an act of moral outrage, but also represents an attempt to downplay the enormity of the Holocaust.”

Amanda Kaufman can be reached at [email protected] Follow her on Twitter @amandakauf1.