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Paul Gosar Doubles Down on His Support For White Supremacist

BY March 12, 2021

While everyone was busy watching CPAC, Arizona Representative Paul Gosar snuck off to an even worse convention happening nearby where the floor might not have been in the shape of a Nazi symbol, but where the white supremacy was fully on display. Steve King, formerly a Congressman from Iowa, also spoke at the nearby America First Political Action Conference, where AFPAC founder Nick Fuentes delivered white nationalist and Christian nationalist messages.

Gosar, a sitting member of Congress, gave AFPAC a credibility boost by appearing to support Fuentes’s efforts to recruit young conservatives to his far-right ideology. But Gosar’s appearance on AFPAC’s stage wasn’t the last show of his alliance with Fuentes, whose speech emphasized the importance of preserving a white “demographic core,”. Gosar sat in silence while Fuentes called the January 6th insurrection “awesome” and mocked Republican Rep. Madison Cawthorn’s disability. And then Gosar privately met with Fuentes the next day.

Photo Credit Gage Skidmore

Gosar responded to criticism by saying that he denounced “white racism,” but a week after the conference, he posted a tweet containing a slogan frequently repeated at AFPAC: “America First is inevitable.”

Gosar skipped a House vote on the COVID-19 relief package to make it to Florida in time for his AFPAC appearance. Although Fuentes’ record of bigotry and extremism has led to him being banned from CPAC and some social media platforms, Gosar’s appearance at AFPAC did not disqualify him from speaking at CPAC the following day.

In July, Rep. Gosar, a dentist, posed for a picture with a member of the Proud Boys. Two years earlier, he spoke at a rally for a jailed leader of Britain’s anti-immigrant fringe in London, where he vilified Muslim immigrants as a “scourge.” And in 2014, he traveled to Nevada to support the armed standoff between law enforcement and supporters of the cattle rancher Cliven Bundy, who had refused to stop trespassing on federal lands.

Gosar has a history of extremist rhetoric. A few years ago, he visited an Arizona chapter of the Oath Keepers. When asked if the U.S. was headed for civil war, Gosar reportedly replied, “We’re in it. We just haven’t started shooting at each other yet.” Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes, who repeatedly warned that militias would wage bloody civil war if Trump did not remain in power, was identified by federal prosecutors this week as playing a role in the January 6th insurrection.



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