John Hancock, the new Republican Party chairman for Missouri, should resign.
He has proved the point. He is an anti-Semite.
His own words leave no doubt.
In referencing the suicide of Missouri Auditor Tom Schweich, Hancock confirmed in writing the following:
“It is possible that I mentioned Tom’s faith during one of the many conversations I have each day,” Hancock wrote after the suicide in a letter to party leaders regarding pre-suicide conversations.
He continued, “There was nothing malicious about my intent, and I certainly was not attempting to inject religion into the governor’s race, as some have suggested.”
There you have it. Guilty as charged.
If Hancock did not think that Schweich’s Jewish family history — his grandfather was Jewish — was relevant, he never would have mentioned it at all.
But he did mention it, and Schweich believed it resulted in a whisper campaign that cost him in a straw poll at a recent Reagan-Lincoln Days event.
In fact, the day he killed himself, Schweich had contacted two reporters to discuss his accusation that Hancock had mentioned to others that he was Jewish.
He is, in fact, Episcopalian. (However, under Adolph Hitler’s definition of Jewishness — at least one-eighth Jewish — Schweich would have been exterminated, based on his family history.)
For Hancock to say that he may have mentioned Schweich’s alleged Jewish religion, but didn’t mean anything derogatory about it, is disingenuous.
Hancock started a rumor that clearly he believed to be relevant and potentially damaging to Schweich.
Schweich’s spokesman, Spence Jackson, said of all the recent tension, “it was the comment about the Jewish faith, the Jewish history of his family that had hurt him the most.”
Whether Schweich committed suicide primarily because of whispers about his religion is not consequential. The point is, the plot was hatched to bring down his political future, and his family’s religious history was the weapon that was used.
This just wreaks of anti-Semitism.
Consider another scenario.
What if Hancock had just casually mentioned that he thought Schweich might be gay, thinking that was a liability. Or perhaps Hancock might have intimated that there was “African-American blood” in Schweich’s family. You don’t mention these things, unless you believe it will hurt Schweich.
Just as scary is how this played out in the state.
Hancock must have known that if the rumor got out that Schweich had “Jewish blood,” that that would kill him politically in Missouri, as Schweich sought the governor’s seat. In other words, Hancock apparently supposed that the Jewish connection would be a real liability with GOP leaders. And maybe it was. It certainly appears so.
Hancock can run, but he cannot hide.
He has admitted bringing up religion in connection to Schweich. That makes the case open and shut.
Hancock cannot continue to be a party leader, at least not of the Republican Party.
As a leader of the Nazi Party, however, Hancock might be well suited.
Contact Steve Rose at .