“The Most Extremist Politician in the U.S”... Part 2.
Because State Senator Wendy Rogers simply has that long of a track record and she adds to it seemingly everyday.
For the second time in this newsletter, we focus on one of Arizona’s most controversial figures, State Senator Wendy Rogers. While we don’t recommend following her on X, it will prove us right when we say that she will say literally anything because she is not held accountable for it… she’s simply made it an expectation that she will say horrible things.
Senator Wendy Rogers is fluent in White Nationalism.
One reason Senator Wendy Rogers may have avoided serious consequences for her extremism is that many people don’t realize how often she engages in this behavior. Her views are so extreme that casual observers—and even some political reporters—don’t fully understand how radical they are. As a result, her ties to extremists often go unnoticed or unreported because they are too obscure and far removed from the mainstream.
In reality, Rogers has shown a deep understanding of white supremacist media, their conspiracies, and their references. Today, we share examples of each.
First Up - Media. Rogers Repeatedly Appears on Talk Shows Hosted by Holocaust Deniers
Senator Rogers has repeatedly appeared on the Stew Peters Show, hosted by a Holocaust denier who is known for promoting violence. The show recently made headlines in Arizona when fellow Senator Anthony Kern was barred from the state senate broadcast studio after it was revealed that he used the taxpayer-funded facility to appear on the controversial program. The episode that earned Kern the studio ban started with a montage of anti-semitic imagery and narration that warned viewers that “warriors need to go to war against infiltrators in America in order to prevent a future bloodbath of our kids.”
This is how Stew Peters was described in a 12 news report about the Kern interview:
Peters spreads his brand of antisemitism and Holocaust denial to hundreds of thousands of people through social media channels.
"In case you haven't noticed, bowing down to Jews has become this strange sort of sacrament," Peters said during a recent program.
He went as far as to suggest the Auschwitz death camp, where millions perished, never existed.
"The gas chambers, the crematoriums - so often discussed, they were destroyed at the end of World War II - if they were ever there in the first place," Peters said.
In addition to her show appearances, Rogers rallied alongside Peters, and is also a guest on shows that are affiliated with his network, including CrossTalk which white supremacist conspiracy theorist Lauren Witzke hosts.
Second - Conspiracy: Rogers Claims Mass Shooting in Buffalo was an act of the Federal Government.
On May 14, 2022 a white gunman entered a supermarket in Buffalo, New York and murdered 10 Black individuals in a racially motivated shooting driven by a conspiracy theory that people of color are being replaced at the behest of so-called “Jewish elites.”
Only hours after news of the shooting broke, Senator Rogers took to social media platforms like Gab, Telegram, and Truth Social in an apparent attempt to dismiss the killings as part of a “false-flag” operation by federal authorities, echoing a popular and widely debunked conspiracy theory among white nationalists that the FBI is behind many acts of violence to inspire hatred against white Americans.
The posts by Rogers generated outrage and national headlines.
Coming just weeks after her colleagues voted to censure her for her violent threats she made as a speaker at the America First Political Action Conference, which is hosted by holocaust denier and white nationalist Nick Fuentes, many Arizona Republican and Democratic Senators argued for action. A Democrat effort to expel Rogerts failed, but an investigation was authorized by the AZ Senate.
The investigative report presented evidence that while Rogers’ argued her Fed Boy summer statements were misinterpreted by reporters, the vast majority of social media users who responded to her posts interpreted them the same way.
The most-liked comment on her post on Telegram brings up long debunked claims about the shootings in Sandy Hook and Stoneman Douglas High School. Rogers’ Telegram has often been a hotbed of conspiracy theories and extremist rhetoric.
The report stated that the decision to act would be left up to the full state Senate which had adjourned for the year just a few days before the investigation’s findings were released. The first opportunity for action was months later when the Senate reconvened in January of 2023. This was after the 2022 election and Warren Peterson, one of the Senators who was on record opposing investigating this incident, was elected as President. No action related to the investigation has taken place as of publication.
Third - References to the Fringe’s Fringe: Spread Pro-Rhodesian Propaganda Popularized by White-Supremacists after 2015 Mass Killing in a Charleston, South Carolina Church
Most Americans, seeing the post above by Senator Rogers, would not realize she is sharing a white supremacist account’s video that promotes violence and hate along with the statement “Rhodesia never dies.”
Modern white supremacists revere Rhodesia in the same way they glorify Nazi Germany and the Confederacy which Rogers has also expressed support for in her posts.
Rhodesia was an unrecognized country in southern Africa from 1965 to 1979. The Rhodesian government was a separatist regime that declared independence from Britain specifically to maintain white-minority rule over a majority Black African population. The United Nations imposed economic sanctions against Rhodesia due to its racially discriminatory policies that were similar to South Africa’s apartheid.
Eventually, a devastating, violent civil conflict that resulted in 30,000 - 50,000 deaths led to the collapse of the white-minority government, and a new country, Zimbabwe, was formed.
A dramatic increase in Rhodesian propaganda from white-nationlists began after a racially motivated mass shooting in Charleston, SC.
But outside observers of this Rhodesia revival cite a far more disturbing inspiration for it: Dylann Roof, the American white supremacist who killed nine black parishioners in a Charleston, S.C. church in June 2015. Roof, who was sentenced to death last year, had penned an online manifesto, which appeared on a website called The Last Rhodesian, with photographs of himself wearing a jacket with a patch of the green-and-white Rhodesian flag.