Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene is taking heat for having employed a graphic designer with ties to white nationalist Nick Fuentes.
According to the Southern Poverty Law Center’s review of Federal Election Commission records, MTG’s campaign paid over $55,000 to Lance W. Smith – at a time when Smith was also managing websites for Fuentes.
Smith, a 23-year-old Texan, “purchased or managed multiple websites and gaming servers connected to Mr. Fuentes’ “America First” movement, according to the SPLC,” The Independent reported. “His ties to America First go back to at least 2020, when he allegedly registered the website domain genzgop.com and made it redirect to a website associated with Mr. Fuentes.”
The group in question – Gen Z GOP – is exactly what the name suggests. Generation Z Republicans. When confronted about potential ties with the America First movement, Gen Z GOP distanced themselves from Fuentes and Co.
“In 2020, Fuentes and his cronies attacked our organization, and the domain’s ownership was likely purchased in an attempt to subvert our efforts to create a more inclusive Republican Party,” Gen Z GOP told the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Marjorie Taylor Greene In the Hot Seat
I don’t know who every person I’m associated with is associated with.
I don’t comprehensively track the relations of my relations. That’s a difficult standard to impose.
Although, MTG has had run-ins with white supremacist types in the past. In 2022, MTG addressed some far-right types at an event (America First Political Action Conference) that Fuentes had organized.
Afterward, MTG claimed not to know who Fuentes was. She did denounce Fuentes “and his racist antisemitic ideology,” but she probably should know whose organizing the events she’s speaking at before she shows up to speak.
Fuentes is bad news. He “has been named by the Anti-Defamation League and Justice Department as a white supremacist, and was banned from most major social media platforms, including YouTube and Twitter, for inciting violence and breaching hate speech rules.”
I’m not willing to stand up for Fuentes. I will say that the ADL and the DOJ and YouTube are not unimpeachable arbiters of truth. YouTube and Twitter’s past curations have been deeply suspect. I don’t trust tech administrators to screen out materials; I’m not sure tech administrators should be screening out materials, to begin with. But that being said, Fuentes is a holocaust denying shmuck.
MTG is No Stranger to Controversy
MTG is always in the middle of something. Maybe that’s part of her political appeal. Most recently, MTG used explicit posters of Hunter Biden during a House Oversight Committee. It was wild.
“Before we begin, I would like to let the committee and everyone watching at home know that parental discretion is advised,” MTG said.
She then began asking questions while holding up a big poster with Hunter Biden engaged in sexual acts. Black boxes were used to obscure certain parts of Biden’s anatomy – but enough of the image is left unobscured to give viewers at home a pretty fair idea about what is happening in the pictures. Like, I said it was wild. And fairly on brand for MTG who has made a name for herself as a firebrand. Personally, I think she’s an embarrassment to the United States Congress and to her constituents in the state of Georgia.
Harrison Kass is the Senior Editor and opinion writer at 19FortyFive. An attorney, pilot, guitarist, and minor pro hockey player, Harrison joined the US Air Force as a Pilot Trainee but was medically discharged. Harrison holds a BA from Lake Forest College, a JD from the University of Oregon, and an MA from New York University. Harrison listens to Dokken.
