A rural Minnesota House of Representative candidate was caught on tape comparing the state’s Democratic Party trifecta – control of the House, Senate, and Governorship – to the Holocaust, the online news site Minnesota Reformer reported Tuesday.
Erica Schwartz – a Republican who is trying to unseat Rep. Jeff Brand in District 18A – told people in a side conversation at a recent fundraising event that said she was interested in WWII history and took her daughter to visit the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. The audio of the conversation was shared with the Reformer.
“It was heartbreaking to see, but it’s also very much part of our ugly history that we have to remember to never do that again,” Schwartz said. “And I just feel like we’re heading right back to all of that with what’s going on with the DFL, and what’s been going on with our country, with it being all Democratic from our president, all the way from our governor to our representatives in the state House.
“They’re promoting all this transgender. You know, when I walk into my baby’s school, my kid’s school, I see that pride flag everywhere. Posters everywhere, hallways… but they took away the American flag.”
In an email to TC Jewfolk after the initial publication of the article, Schwartz wrote: “As a brand new candidate, I made an inartful comment trying to highlight some of the reasons I ran for office: my deep concern about the one-party control in Minnesota, and the increasingly hostile political environment where free speech is under attack and Americans are divided against each other. I regret making that comparison and will be better in the future about being more precise with my words.”
Calls to the Minnesota GOP seeking comment were not returned.
“It is outrageous that a candidate for elected office believes that free school meals and abortion rights are a first step on the path to another Holocaust,” said DFL Chairman Ken Martin in a statement. “Trivializing the crimes of the Holocaust is as dangerous as it is insensitive. Behind closed doors, Erica Schwartz has made it clear that she will be a divisive and partisan bomb-thrower who demonizes her enemies if she wins in November.”
This isn’t the first time Republican candidates have compared something politically to the Holocaust.
The Wabasha County GOP shared a Facebook post in 2020 comparing the COVID mask mandates to the Nazis forcing Jews to wear yellow stars, which led to an apology from the state GOP and a county party board member to resign.
Also in 2020, St. Cloud City Councilmember and then State House candidate Paul Brandmire said: “If we can mandate masks, then certainly we can mandate that COVID-positive people wear some sort of identification badge, maybe like a bright yellow star or something pinned to their lapel,” he said.
Brandmire, who lost his House race in 2020 and his City Council re-election bid in 2022, said he wasn’t referring to Jews.
In 2019, the Clay County GOP shared on Facebook a post that compared then-presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders to Adolf Hitler. The Minnesota GOP also apologized for that post.
Most notable, however, was 2022 Minnesota gubernatorial candidate Scott Jensen, who compared COVID mask mandates to Kristallnacht and Nazi book bans and book burning. After TC Jewfolk broke the initial story, Jensen made a statement on a Facebook Live event defending his position and made the comparison again later that week at a Republican Jewish Coalition event.
Ethan Roberts, the deputy director of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Minnesota and the Dakotas, said that comparisons to the Holocaust are “wildly inappropriate.”
“Whatever it is that you’re upset about, whatever it is that you think that our country is wrestling with, it’s not the Holocaust,” Roberts said.
