On Sunday afternoon, Kentucky Congressman Thomas Massie tweeted a meme featuring a quote that is widely attributed to the French philosopher Voltaire. “To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize,” reads the text of the meme beside an image of a giant hand reaching down to smother a mass of human figures.
As an outspoken anti-vaxxer, the meme is very on-brand for Massie, who captioned the tweet, “You mustn’t question Fauci, for he is science.” However, the quote did not come from Voltaire, but from known Nazi Kevin Alfred Strom.
This is not the first time the meme has made the rounds online. In 2019, John Cusack shared a more common version of it, which features a Star of David on the sleeve of the giant arm. Cusack defended the post, apparently thinking he was expressing support for Palestinians and not just straight-up antisemitism, before apologizing and blaming a bot for tricking him.
If anyone involved in Massie’s tweet—be it himself or his social media team—had done even a cursory Google search for the quote, they surely would have found its author, maybe from USA Today’s fact-checking from the last time the meme went around, just last year.
So either Massie or his team just didn’t bother to do the slightest bit of research before sharing memed misinformation, or else they knew the quote came from a white supremacist (who was also convicted of possession of child pornography in 2008) and chose to dog-whistle it out to all of his followers. Neither is a good option.
Also, the idea that this was done in error is undermined by the fact that as of this writing, Massie’s tweet has been up for more than 24 hours and it hasn’t been taken down. Massie has been active on Twitter during that time and has surely noticed the responses and the fact that his name has been trending all day Monday, so leaving it up is a deliberate choice at this point.
Another interesting point here is that while the quote in the meme comes from a paraphrasing of Strom’s words, the image is apparently from a political cartoon supporting child labor laws. That’s especially noteworthy for Massie, given that he was the only member of Congress to vote against a recent bill banning the importation of products from China made using forced labor.
(image: Bryan Woolston/Getty Images)
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