Moms for Liberty’s Indiana Chapter Apologizes for Quoting Adolf Hitler in Newsletter
The book-banning group's June newsletter featured the quote, “He alone, who OWNS the youth, GAINS the future"—attributed by name to the leader of Nazi Germany.
Politics
An Indiana chapter of the rightwing Moms For Liberty organization apologized on Thursday for printing a quotation from Adolf Hitler—yes, the genocidal leader of Nazi Germany—in its newsletter. “We condemn Adolf Hitler’s actions and his dark place in human history. We should not have quoted him in our newsletter and we express our deepest apology,” chapter chair Paige Miller said in a truly dystopian statement posted to Facebook.
In the June newsletter for the Hamilton County, Indiana, chapter of Moms for Liberty, Hitler’s short quote from a Nazi rally in 1935 is printed the front page of the issue. “He alone, who OWNS the youth, GAINS the future” (emphasis theirs).
After the Indianapolis Star posted a story about the quote, the newsletter was updated with “context” in a bright yellow bubble above it on Wednesday night. “The quote from a horrific leader should put parents on alert,” it attempted to explain, according to a screenshot. “If the government has control over our children today they control our country’s future. We The People [sic] must be vigilant and protect children from an overreaching government.”
That context certainly does not help the situation, which is probably why the group then had to issue an apology. A redesigned issue of the newsletter, uploaded on Thursday, removed the Hitler quote and its context bubble.
Moms for Liberty—the national organization designated as an extremist group by the Southern Poverty Law Center earlier this month—is one of the nationwide groups pushing for book bans and removing queer people from public life around the country. “Moms for Liberty activities make it clear that the group’s primary goals are to fuel right-wing hysteria and to make the world a less comfortable or safe place for certain students–primarily those who are Black, LGBTQ or who come from LGBTQ families,” SPLC’s annual report from June read.
Last year, Florida stacked its state book-banning council with MAGA moms instead of librarians and teachers. Michelle Beavers, then a leader for the Brevard County chapter of Moms for Liberty, was added to the council along with a member of “Mamas for DeSantis.”
Moms for Liberty makes no secret about what they stand for. VICE reported on Tuesday that the group’s chapters are forging close relationships with fellow extremist groups around the country like the Proud Boys and the Three Percenters. “There’s an ongoing campaign by these neo-Nazi groups to radicalize some of these more benign patriot MAGA groups—and it’s working because I’ve seen more Nazi content creeping into posts from Moms for Liberty people recently,” a researcher known as Trash City, who closely tracks Moms for Liberty told VICE News.
The group behind the push to ban books literally quoting Adolf Hitler on how to “own the youth” is pretty much as fascist as it gets.