Social Media Post from Michigan’s GOP Chair Causes Bipartisan Ire

In a previous article ^[1], I discussed how Michigan GOP Chair Kristina Karamo couldn’t do much worse than the last guy. And I still believe that. However, it doesn’t mean that she shouldn’t strive to do better.

In the many debates and interviews I listened to when the Republican candidates were running to be the Michigan GOP Chair, it was plain to see that the most important job of the chair would be to raise money to win elections. I would say that’s about 80 to 90% of the job. The other part of the job, in my opinion, is to be the voice of the state party – a leader.

And that’s where Karamo came up short this week. Right from the beginning, many in the media and Republican circles didn’t give her credit when she was elected as the first Black Michigan GOP Chair. Even before she started the job, they said she would be the demise of the party and usher in even more losses for the Republicans.

I gave Karamo the benefit of the doubt after seeing how badly the last Chair, Ron Weiser, did. He lost the entire state to the Democrats. And now we can see what Weiser’s gross dereliction of duty and incompetence has left us with including gun control laws, a repeal of Right-to-Work, and more abortion legislation – with much more to come in the next two years.

Weiser and the others in the state party didn’t support our candidates. Neither did the elite donor class. Over and over again, I would hear “where are the Tudor ads?” Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer came out of the gate swinging with her pro-abortion ads and her anti-Dixon ads as soon as Tudor Dixon was our nominee. Whitmer and her supporting PACs flooded TVs, computers, and phones in just about every media outlet imaginable.

After going through all of that, it was clear to see that we needed new blood. What we need now is a strong and competent professional to lead the party – not the incompetence and party disloyalty from the past. The Michigan GOP needs to be ran like a business with a clear vision and professionalism. Competent leadership and execution of a winning strategy will draw in voters and donors.

What we DON’T need is Trump Jr., the female version. What we DON’T need is divisive rhetoric that will scare away our own voters or a GOP Chair that we will have to defend constantly. But unfortunately, this is what we got from Karamo on Wednesday. There were 2.1 million views of her tweet for all the wrong reasons.

What was in the tweet?

The Michigan Republican Party’s Twitter page had a post ^[2] with a meme comparing the Democratic gun proposals to the Holocaust. It said, “History has shown us that the first thing a government does when it wants total control over its people is to disarm them. President Reagan once stated ‘if we lose freedom here, there is nowhere else to escape to. This is the last stand on Earth.’”

#History ^[3] has shown us that the first thing a government does when it wants total control over its people is to disarm them. President Reagan once stated, “if we lose #freedom ^[4] here, there is nowhere else to escape to. This is the last stand on Earth.” #2A ^[5] #GOP ^[6] pic.twitter.com/cGCHMN1Pxg ^[7]

— Michigan GOP (@MIGOP) March 22, 2023 ^[8]

Even though the information appears to be factually accurate, the problem is that the comparison was offensive to many people including voters in our OWN party. Yes, the German Nazi regime banned Jews from owning guns and they disarmed them. But the atrocities of Hitler were so bad that most Republicans condemn those who compare Hitler or the Holocaust to any current day events or individuals.

If this is the kind of social media post that Karamo is interested in displaying to the public, she should use her own personal social media accounts for that and not the one controlled by the Michigan Republican Party.

We don’t need a Chair who is going to be using the Michigan Republican Party’s social media pages to distract from the task at hand which is beating the Democrats. But that’s what happened.

Not surprisingly, Karamo was criticized ^[9] for the tweet by both Democrats and Republicans. Matt Brooks, CEO of the Republican Jewish Coalition, tweeted, “This tweet by @MIGOP is absolutely inappropriate and offensive and should be taken down immediately.”

Meghan Reckling, former Chair of the Livingston County GOP, responded to the tweet by saying, “State Party has only two main jobs: 1. Raise Money 2. Win Elections. Memes like this don’t help further either of those goals.”

Democratic Michigan Senator and Senate President Pro Tempore, Jeremy Moss, who is Jewish, tweeted, “There is no depth to the pit from which Kristina Karamo operates. Haven’t the victims of the Holocaust suffered enough than to be shamefully exploited in death by this vile post? Anti-semitism thrives when these grotesque distortions of history diminish it.”

But Karamo continues to defend the post. She said on Wednesday in a statement, “My ancestors were enslaved and my great-great grandfather was lynched by a white mob in front of his entire family. We will not be silent as the Democratic Party, the party who fought to enslave Black Americans, and currently fights to murder unborn children, attempt (sic) to disarm us.”

She defended the tweet further at a press conference in Macomb County saying she was pointing to history and that people get too offended. She said, “We’re a different Republican Party. We are not the Republican Party who apologizes and runs away from our positions. It’s a reason the Republican Party has gotten kicked in the teeth the last three cycles. Because it’s been a party that’s always apologizing. We’re done.”

While at the press conference, Kamarao took questions from Rabbi Asher Lopatin, Executive Director of the Jewish Community Relations Council/AJC. After the press conference, he said, “We expect our leaders to be strong and passionate in their views but to be sensitive to different communities that could be offended.” He went on to say, “This demonstrates a lack of sensitivity that we really have in our political system. When you reference the Holocaust, you have to realize it is such a tender and sensitive and hurtful issue for the Jewish people.

While offending the Democrats and calling them names is fine to most Republicans, saying something that is found to be offensive to a large majority of the population including segments of voters in our own party is not.