PHILADELPHIA — Last week, a local Indiana chapter of Moms for Liberty attracted attention for quoting Adolf Hitler in its newsletter. After the local paper reported the story, the group added additional “context” but kept the quote. Eventually, after it faced even more scrutiny, the organization removed the quote and apologized in a statement posted to its Facebook group.
That, however, was a big mistake, according to advice at the Moms for Liberty national conference’s media training session Friday.
“Never apologize. Ever,” said Christian Ziegler, the chairman of the Florida Republican Party. “This is my view. Other people have different views on this. I think apologizing makes you weak.”
He advised the attendees to instead make it clear that the Hitler comment was “vile” but to immediately pivot to make the point that Hitler indoctrinated children in schools and that that’s what Moms for Liberty was fighting against. Ziegler warned that any apology would become the headline, so that should be avoided.
You read that right. He said to not apologize for quoting Hitler. That’s what we’re dealing with now.
I’m not disputing any of that. I haven’t looked into it, but it seems very believable that an extreme right wing group hates lgbt+ and is at least low-key racist.
What I’m disputing is the characterization of their use of a Hitler quote as being clearly in support of Nazism. When the context clearly indicates that they were comparing their political opponents to nazis, aka they condemning the quote.
But that’s not my main point of contention with the community here. My main point of contention with the community here is that in this thread there is currently a comment jokingly calling for genocide with 27 upvotes and no condemnations.
At the very least Moms for Liberty had the goods sense to publish a correction to make the intent behind their Hitler was that they were condemning. Meanwhile, you guys seem to be doubling down on promoting genocide.
I’m not worried about some post made on a random message board that 27 people agreed with. I’m more concerned with the well funded hate group attacking schools at all levels of government. You can get buthurt about a comment, I’m gonna go focus on the real issue.
It’s not a random message board. It’s THIS message board, THIS thread. The one that you’re contributing to right now. The one where you’ve decided to argue against the person condemning genocide instead of arguing against the person calling for genocide.