We don’t know if the walls at the Republican Women of Waukesha County event were padded last Thursday, but the crazy part of the Right was in full need of a straitjacket. In addition to the invitation to the mother of Kyle Rittenhouse (and the standing ovation she received), Michelle Malkin was the featured speaker.
Over at The Bulwark, I explain why the Malkin appearance was the bigger part of the story.
Malkin was formerly on the roster of speakers for the Young America’s Foundation (YAF). She was let go last year after she began speaking at alt-right events defending “the Groypers” and their anti-Semitic leader Nick Fuentes. She encouraged their attacks on “Conservative, Inc.” and defended them as their “mommy.” She is also a defender of the “Proud Boys,” the right’s violence-in-the-streets answer to Antifa.
We shouldn’t be surprised about Malkin’s “turn” to the anti-Semitic right. This is the same Malkin who parachuted into Ryan’s district in 2016 to endorse racist Paul Nehlen in the GOP primary. Nehlen restricted his insults to Hispanics during that race, but by 2018 he had embraced anti-Semitism, too, and even Breitbart News had to stop backing him.
In a speech earlier this year, Malkin engaged in a few anti-Semitic musings of her own.
“It’s anti-Semitic to question whatever the precise number is of people who perished in World War II,” Malkin said. “It is anti-Semitic for me, being married to a 100 percent Ashkenazi Jew, to question dual loyalties of people who are working here as agents of a foreign country.”
The emcee for the event was WISN/WIBA radio personality Vicki McKenna. McKenna had her own “full Malkin” moment recently when she supported the “militia” that showed up in Kenosha and called on others to bring their guns even after Rittenhouse allegedly killed two people and wounded a third person.
Despite Malkin’s track record, McKenna called Malkin a “righteous conservative woman” and a “freedom fighter.” (McKenna appeared on Malkin’s show on Tuesday. Can Alex Jones be far behind?)
The Waukesha County Republican Party has taken a hard turn towards the alt-right. If the GOP was too embarrassed to return my calls, then GOP elected officials should be embarrassed by their membership in the Waukesha GOP. If any of them has any integrity, they would ask to have their membership fees refunded immediately in protest.
