The whole GOP must loudly excommunicate Florida primary candidate Dan Bilzerian

Parties cannot stop people from claiming allegiance to a party. It is, after all, a free country. However, they can loudly state that certain people’s values are so inconsistent with the party that they are effectively excommunicated.

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For years now, we have been chastising the Democrats non-stop for their failure to excommunicate communists, racists, antisemites, misogynists (i.e., trans lovers), anti-Christians, etc. None of these people were a prominent part of the Democrat party as it existed in the last third of the 20th century. Now, they are the fastest-growing part of the party.

However, sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, and the Republican Party has been way too quiet about Dan Bilzerian, who is running against Rep. Randy Fine in the GOP primary for the 6th House District in Florida. Bilzerian just produced one of the most grotesque, evil, disgusting, and morally obscene antisemitic videos imaginable. That he created it is bad enough; that he used it as a campaign ad in his effort to become a GOP congressman is vomitous.

Let’s start with who Bilzerian is. The obvious is that he’s an attention whore (pardon my language, but that’s what he is). He’s also a man of Armenian descent, so you’d think that his hostility (which is vast) would be directed at Turks specifically or Muslims generally. Nevertheless, Jews are the objects of his boiling rage.

Bilzerian’s claim to fame is that he was born into a wealthy family, served in the Navy, plays poker, and later created a social media cult built around his sleazy, wealthy lifestyle. His business interests are sleazy, too: booze, marijuana, and nicotine.

When it comes to his values, Bilzerian is Nick Fuentes, only with dark skin, a beard, and an apparent fondness for women. He hates Donald Trump and Jews. When it comes to Jews, Wikipedia has a rundown that puts Bilzerian right up there with Adolf Hitler (endnote hyperlinks omitted):

Bilzerian generated controversy for making antisemitic statements as early as 2010. He has falsely claimed that the Jewish people “perpetrated” the Holodomor in Soviet Ukraine, assassinated John F. Kennedy in 1963 and Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, created the “transgender nonsense”, and orchestrated the September 11 attacks and the Iraq War, among other false assertions and antisemitic conspiracy theories.

In a 2024 interview with Piers Morgan, Bilzerian argued that Judaism “promotes supremacy and rape, and steals from other people as long as they’re not Jewish” and that “most of the problems today are caused by Jewish supremacy”. He also falsely claimed that all Israeli Jews are “Eastern European Ashkenazi Jews“ and “don’t have actual Hebrew DNA”.

Bilzerian also said that Jews “control the media“. He promoted Holocaust denial, saying, “I would bet my entire net worth that it was less than six million.” Bilzerian later said that Jews “killed more Christians than six million” and “basically invented genocide”.

It is impossible to imagine a more reprehensible character. It’s with that context that he created an antisemitic ad that would have made the Nazis proud. Much as I am loath to give airtime to the ad, you have to see it to believe it:

Fine’s tweet continues:

…choice on Tuesday, to embrace the kind of Nazism that led to the Holocaust or to repudiate this filth and reaffirm American values and character.

Let’s send a resounding message on Tuesday.

As I noted at the beginning, there is no way for the GOP to stop Bilzerian from identifying as a Republican, but that doesn’t mean the GOP must supinely accept that affiliation. It must act quickly and loudly.

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If the GOP doesn’t excommunicate Bilzerian before tomorrow, it will irreparably damage the Republican brand. So far, though, even though the ad has been on X and other platforms since August 13 (that’s four days ago), the Republican Party has been silent. Instead, only a handful of individual politicians and organizations have spoken out:

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) gave perhaps the strongest condemnation. He called Bilzerian a “brazen Nazi” who “revels in Jew hate” and concluded: “This evil has no place in the Republican Party.”

Sen. Rick Scott (R-Florida) called Bilzerian and the video “disgusting” and said: “Every single Republican needs to condemn this evil.” He subsequently broadened the point considerably, telling Jewish Insider that Republicans have to confront antisemitism inside their own party and that people like Bilzerian should be told, “I don’t want those people in my party.” Scott called antisemitism “despicable,” “disgraceful,” and “un-American.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) called the attack “vile” and “disgusting.” He said antisemitism and hatred of Jews “have no place in our politics or in America” and explicitly endorsed Fine over Bilzerian.

Mike Huckabee, the U.S. ambassador to Israel and former Republican governor and presidential candidate, said the Bilzerian material was “possibly the most disgusting” political messaging he had seen and that Bilzerian had “taken Jew-hate to a new low.”

Rep. Mike Lawler (R-New York) called the video “vile” and said it has “zero place in our politics, let alone the Republican Party.” Incidentally, Jewish Insider appears to have a typo identifying him as R-FL in one passage; Lawler represents New York.

Rep. Randy Fine himself, obviously, has denounced it in the strongest possible terms. His formulation is worth noting because he framed tomorrow’s primary as an ideological test for Republicans: voters can either “embrace the kind of Nazism that led to the Holocaust” or “repudiate this filth and reaffirm American values and character.”

[snip]

Republicans Overseas Israel did something unusually significant: it broke its normal policy of staying out of Republican primaries and endorsed Fine, specifically after its chairman, Marc Zell, condemned Bilzerian’s ad as antisemitic.

Christians United for Israel (CUFI) has publicized the Combat Antisemitism Movement investigation into Bilzerian and described his campaign account as containing extensive Holocaust denial and conspiracy theories about Jews. CUFI has circulated the finding that roughly one-third of Bilzerian’s campaign posts were classified as antisemitic.

Shockingly, as of this writing, and with the primary tomorrow, we have heard nothing from Donald Trump, Ron DeSantis, Byron Donalds, the Republican National Committee, the National Republican Congressional Committee, or the Republican Party of Florida. They should be thinking to themselves, “this Big Tent never be big enough for people like Bilzerian, and we had better make that very clear, very fast.” But…nothing. Just silence.

The solons of the Republican establishment had better speak out very soon, and very loudly, or the Republican Party, when it comes to the Hitler-ization of American politics, will be no better than the Democrat party. In 1945, America defeated Hitler and, in 2026, America will have resurrected him.

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