A NEO-NAZI Holocaust denier is poised to become the Republican nominee for a congressional seat in Illinois, the Chicago Sun-Times has reported.
Art Jones, the potential candidate, is not a supporter of Republican Donald Trump. Last April, The Guardian published a video of Jones at a neo-Nazi retreat in Kentucky, where he complained that Trump “has surrounded himself with hordes of Jews, including a Jew in his own family, that punk named Jared Kushner”.
“I’m sorry I voted for that son of a bitch, pardon my English,” Jones said.
“I really am. I’m sorry I paid $180 out of my own pocket for three big banners that said ‘President Trump, build the wall’. The man has betrayed us.”
Despite his opinions on the current Republican US president, Jones has become the sole Republican candidate for the third congressional district of Illinois. The area is so heavily Democratic that no other Republican candidate considered running.
In an interview with the Chicago Sun-Times, Jones said: “Well, first of all, I’m running for Congress not the chancellor of Germany. All right. To me, the Holocaust is what I said it is. It’s an international extortion racket.”
The website for Jones’ latest congressional run includes documents titled “The Holocaust Racket”, which calls the genocide carried out by the Nazi regime in Germany “the biggest blackest lie in history”.
Jones, aged 70, is a retired insurance agent who lives in suburban Lyons. Since the 1970s, he has repeatedly attempted to win office in Milwaukee and Chicago. In 1976, he ran for Milwaukee mayor, according to Chicago Sun-Times.
Between the 1990s and 2016, Jones has jumped in the GOP 3rd Congressional District primary seven times. However, he has never come close to becoming a viable candidate.
This year, he has become the only candidate on the Republican ballot.
“And given the fact that I’ve got no opposition in the primary, OK, I win that one [the primary] by default all right,” Jones said during the Chicago Sun-Times interview.
Jones told the newspaper that he is a former leader of the American Nazi Party and now heads a group called the American First Committee.
“Membership in this organisation is open to any white American citizen of European, non-Jewish descent,” he said.
The chairperson of the Illinois Republican Party, Tim Schneider, issued a statement to the Sun-Times in relation to Jones’ candidacy: “The Illinois Republican Party and our country have no place for Nazis like Arthur Jones.
“We strongly oppose his racist views and his candidacy for any public office, including the 3rd Congressional District.”
On 6 November, Jones will face either Democrat Daniel Lipinski or Democrat Marie Newman.
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