Scott Perry Amplifies Another Unhinged Conspiracy Theory

Less than 24 hours after making headlines for promoting Nazi conspiracy theories and less than a week after it was revealed that he amplified someone who praised Hitler, Scott Perry has been exposed once again for a new theory about the KKK.

During yesterday’s closed-door congressional hearing on antisemitism, Perry called “the KKK in modern times” the “military wing of the Democratic Party.” Immediately after, the far-right election-denier “defended” the racist Great Replacement Theory. 
 
As Perry digs his heels in on hateful rhetoric, Pennsylvanians are turning against his extremism — making him increasingly vulnerable with each radical remark.

DCCC Spokesperson Aidan Johnson:
“In just the past week, Scott Perry has been caught amplifying Hitler rhetoric, promoting Nazi propaganda, and now spreading a conspiracy theory about the KKK. Perry personifies what’s broken with House Republicans, and his extremism will be his downfall this November.

CNN: GOP lawmaker claims KKK is ‘the military wing of the Democratic Party’ in closed door meeting ahead of antisemitism hearing
Annie Grayer | May 8, 2024

• GOP Rep. Scott Perry of Pennsylvania said in a closed door briefing with lawmakers on Tuesday that the Ku Klux Klan is the “the military wing of the Democratic party” and that migrants coming to the US “have no interest in being Americans,” according to audio of Perry’s comments shared with CNN.

• Perry, a right-wing Republican who has repeated elements of the anti-immigrant and antisemitic replacement theory before, said this during the House Oversight Committee’s member briefing entitled “the Origins and Implications of Rising Antisemitism in Higher Education.”

• “The KKK in modern times, a lot of young people think somehow it’s a right-wing organization when it is the military wing of the Democratic Party. Decidedly, unabashedly, racist and antisemitic,” Perry said according to the recording.

• The KKK is not affiliated in any way with the modern Democratic Party.

• Perry then defended replacement theory, which is the idea that white people are being slowly and intentionally replaced by minorities and immigrants.

• “Replacement theory is real” Perry said according to the recording shared with CNN. “They added white to it to stop everybody from talking about it.”

• While Perry said he is happy to accept people “that are here legally,” pointing to his ancestors who migrated to the US, he has an issue with migrants that are “un-American.”

• “What is happening now is we’re importing people into the country that want to be in America … but have no interest in being Americans, and that’s very different and to disparage the comments is to chill the conversation so that we can continue to bring in more people that we never met that are un-American,” Perry said, according to the recording.

• Replacement theory is the idea that white people are being slowly and intentionally replaced by minorities and immigrants. The xenophobic and racist rhetoric associated with the theory has found its way into the mainstream of American politics and elements of it appear to have motivated some of the most heinous recent mass murders in the US and around the world. There are specific antisemitic elements of the unfounded theory as well, that Jews specifically are organizing a flood of non-white immigrants.

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