Doug Mastriano, the Republican nominee for governor of Pennsylvania, has come under fire from critics for ties to a right-wing social media platform whose founder has stated there isn’t a room for Jews, atheists and others within the conservative motion.
Mastriano, a state senator backed by former President Donald Trump, paid Gab $5,000 in April for “advertising consulting,” state marketing campaign finance data confirmed.
Democrats and Republicans alike have criticized Mastriano for his affiliation with Gab, the social media platform on which a gunman who killed 11 individuals at a Pittsburgh synagogue in 2018 posted his antisemitic rants.
Some customers of Gab, which was based by Andrew Torba in 2016, contemplated plans on the platform to disrupt the ascertainment of President Joe Biden’s victory on Jan. 6, 2021. Torba has stated his goal is to foster a “Christian nationalist” society, he has known as for the conservative motion to be “exclusively Christian,” and he often espouses antisemitic views.
“Andrew Torba is one of the most toxic people in public life right now,” Jonathan Greenblatt, the CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, which describes Gab as a “haven for extremists” and “conspiracy theorists,” stated Tuesday on MSNBC. “Elected officials who engage in this kind of rhetoric aren’t just flirting with fascism — they are bringing it to the forefront of their political argument.”
Mastriano’s marketing campaign didn’t instantly reply a request for remark Thursday afternoon. Mastriano responded to the criticism Thursday night on Twitter, saying Torba “doesn’t speak for me or my campaign.”
“I reject anti-Semitism in any form,” he wrote. “Recent smears by the Democrats and the media are blatant attempts to distract Pennsylvanians from suffering inflicted by Democrat policies.
“While extremist speech is an unlucky however inevitable value of dwelling in a free society, extremist insurance policies should not,” he added, criticizing his Democratic opponent, state Attorney General Josh Shapiro.
Shapiro hit back on Twitter by pointing to an interview Torba carried out in May with Mastriano, who stated, “Thank God for what you’ve got carried out.” Gab endorsed Mastriano ahead of the May 17 primary.
Torba has hit back at critics this week while seeking to define the modern right as a solely Christian venture.
“We have seen the fruits — or lack thereof — of our nation being led by Godless pagans, nonbelievers, Jews, and faux Christians-in-name-only,” he said in a statement Wednesday. “If we’re going to construct a Christian motion it have to be completely Christian and we will not be afraid to say that out loud. We are all sinners saved by Grace, but when you don’t repent and imagine in Jesus Christ then you don’t share our Biblical worldview and can’t take part in any significant place of authority within the motion. It’s simply that straightforward.”
In a video responding to a section Monday from MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, Torba stated of the proper: “This is a Christian motion — full cease.”
“So no, we do not need people who find themselves atheists,” he said. “We don’t desire people who find themselves Jewish. So why is that tough to perceive? They are so mad that I stated this, proper? They’re so mad that I stated that we do not need individuals who aren’t Christian in a Christian motion. Why is that sophisticated? Why is that so controversial?”
“We don’t want people who are Jewish,” he stated later within the 24-minute video. “This is an explicitly Christian movement because this is an explicitly Christian country. Now, we’re not saying that we’re going to deport all these people. Remember, you’re free to stay here, right? You’re not going to be forced to convert or anything like this, but you’re going to enjoy … the fruits of living in a Christian society under Christian laws.”
Torba stated his objective is “to try a Christian nationalist movement across the entire globe.” In a separate video, he responded to Greenblatt’s MSNBC interview by telling Jews that “we’re not going to listen to 2%,” adding, “You represent 2% of the country, OK?”
Reached for remark, Torba pointed to a statement on Gab during which he stated his phrases weren’t consultant of Mastriano’s marketing campaign.
“I stand by everything I have said about Christian Nationalism as a movement being explicitly Christian,” he said within the assertion. “This should be obvious by the name. Others are certainly welcome to support the movement and enjoy the fruits of Christian leadership and culture, but we need candidates, leaders, thinkers, influencers, culture warriors, and builders who believe in and follow Jesus Christ. Otherwise it wouldn’t be Christian Nationalism.
“If you’re ethnically Jewish and name Jesus your Savior then you’re my brother or sister,” he added. “This isn’t a racial problem.”
Mastriano’s connection to Gab was highlighted by the left-wing media watchdog Media Matters, which first found the $5,000 payment. Torba has stated he isn’t a guide for Mastriano’s marketing campaign, merely that Mastriano paid for promoting on the location. HuffPost reported soon after the Media Matters revelation that newly created accounts on Gab automatically followed Mastriano — one of seven accounts that all new users were initially signed up to follow.
Mastriano’s primary victory this year shocked some of the Republican establishment in Pennsylvania, who failed in a last-ditch effort to coalesce around another contender. His campaign message wove together Christian nationalism, election denialism and a rejection of Covid mitigation policies.
Leading the effort to overturn the 2020 election in his state, Mastriano was outside the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and was intimately involved in the effort to convene fake slates of electors in hope of stopping Biden from taking office.
In his May victory address, Mastriano condemned what he saw as “bigotry” against Christians, saying his supporters were “under siege” from opponents and members of the media who do not “like teams of us who imagine sure issues, and so they paint us in these terrible descriptives.”
Last week, Shapiro and Pittsburgh lawmakers who characterize the realm across the Tree of Life synagogue condemned Mastriano’s ties to Gab.
Speaking to NBC News, Shapiro, who is Jewish, said Mastriano’s use of Gab should be looked at not under the lens of religion, but of extremism.
“The indisputable fact that he even goes on that web site, not to mention pays to recruit supporters and volunteers there, reveals simply how excessive and harmful he’s,” Shapiro said.
Mastriano is “somebody who I imagine shouldn’t be reflecting the place most good individuals of religion are on this commonwealth,” Shapiro added, describing himself as “deeply non secular.” “His extremism is basically harmful.”
In addition, Matt Brooks, the manager director of the Republican Jewish Coalition, told The Philadelphia Inquirer last week: “We strongly urge Doug Mastriano to finish his affiliation with Gab, a social community rightly seen by Jewish Americans as a cesspool of bigotry and antisemitism.”
In a video The Jerusalem Post reported on this week, Torba stated his “coverage shouldn’t be to conduct interviews with reporters who aren’t Christian or with retailers who aren’t Christian, and Doug has a really comparable media technique the place he doesn’t do interviews with these individuals.”
He also lamented “the institution” that he said promotes Jewish conservative commentators like Dave Rubin and Ben Shapiro.
“These individuals aren’t conservative,” he said. “They’re not Christian. They do not share our values. They have inverted values from us as Christians. So do not fall for the bait of Populism Inc., do not fall for the bait of this pseudo-conservatism, big-tent nonsense.”
Mastriano is not the only candidate who has paid to advertise on Gab.
As Torba famous in his video Wednesday, Herschel Walker, the Republican nominee for the Senate in Georgia, has run ads on his platform. Reps. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., and Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., have, as nicely.
Campaign finance records present Greene has made greater than $36,000 in expenditures to Gab this cycle. On Wednesday, she posted a shirt to Instagram for followers to purchase.
It learn: “Proud Christian Nationalist.”