


Texas congressman Keith Self apparently hasn’t learned the lesson that if you have to quote an infamous Nazi propagandist to make your point, then maybe it’s a point not worth making.
During a House foreign relations subcommittee meeting that was intended to determine the existence of an alleged “censorship industrial complex” supposedly set up by the Biden administration to curtail conservatives on social media, Self quoted Joseph Goebbels, the man who spread Adolf Hitler’s ideology to German citizens.
“A direct quote from Joseph Goebbels [the Nazi propaganda minister]: ‘It is the absolute right of the state to supervise the formation of public opinion,’ and I think that may be what we’re discussing here,” he said.
And, yes, there’s video.
Texas Democrat Julie Johnson had definite issues with Self’s quoting of a Nazi propagandist in a Congressional hearing.
“I want to respond to what my colleague from Texas just said. When you’re quoting Joseph Goebbels about state, the role of state in the public debate, we have a big problem,” Johnson said, chucking in disbelief. “I mean, that’s as alarming as hell to me, when that becomes the gold standard of Hitler, and all that was going on in Russia, I mean, in German atrocities during World War II, when that becomes the quote of this hearing.”
She followed up her admonishment at the hearing with a social media post reminding her Republican colleagues that it’s “best not to quote him during a congressional hearing.”
Quoting Nazi propagandists isn’t just a one-time thing for the Congressman, who recently went viral for repeatedly misgendering Rep. Sarah McBride (D-Del.), the first openly transgender member of Congress.
Back in 2010, when Self was running for reelection as Collin County Judge, he used another Goebbels quote ― “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it” ― to tarnish his opponent.
Self insisted his use of the Goebbels quote was only to show that his opponent “was using the method,” according to NBC Dallas-Fort Worth.
HuffPost reached out to Self’s office for comment, but communications director Michelle Myers declined to directly answer. Instead said in a statement, “It is indisputable that the Biden administration weaponized its State Department to censor and suppress American citizens from their right to free speech.”
However, many people on social media had thoughts.


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