Rep. Scott Perry and his campaign are still peddling bigotry and conspiracy theories

Pennsylvania Republican U.S. Rep. Scott Perry’s campaign reportedly posted and then deleted an antisemitic meme on its Facebook page. It is the latest in a long history of bigoted and conspiracy theorist behavior from the six-term incumbent.

Perry faces a competitive reelection race this November in the 10th Congressional District, which includes Harrisburg, York, and surrounding areas. Former television news anchor and Democratic nominee Janelle Stelson has framed Perry as a threat to democracy. “For far too long, Scott Perry has put his extremist agenda above the needs of Dauphin, York, and Cumberland Counties,” says her campaign website.

On June 28, the Jewish Insider reported that the Scott Perry for Congress Facebook page had days earlier posted a meme suggesting that the public rise up and overthrow a cabal of stereotypically depicted Jewish bankers, with beards and hooked noses, controlling the economy. “Says it all…,” Perry’s campaign wrote, posting a cartoon of the men playing a game of Monopoly on a board supported by the figures of bald people bent double, and the text “If the people stand …. the game is over.” The image, the Jewish Insider noted, came from a widely condemned antisemetic London wall mural that the Cleveland Jewish News reported was removed in 2012.

After the Insider contacted the campaign, it removed the post and told the outlet, “After receiving your inquiry, learning the history of the image, and contacting several members of the Jewish community (some who were familiar with it and some who were not) out of grave concern that it is considered antisemitic — we removed it immediately.”

But Perry has a long record of promoting bigotry and conspiracy theories. 

In 2017, Perry accused CNN host Chris Cuomo of making up data about devastation caused by Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico and the Trump administration’s response. 

After Joe Biden defeated incumbent Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election, Perry endorsed baseless claims of voter fraud and encouraged Trump’s efforts to overturn the results. He unsuccessfully sought pardons for participants in the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

At an April 2021 House hearing, he repeated the racist and false “Great Replacement” theory that nonwhite immigrants are being intentionally brought to the United States to dilute the voting power of conservative white Americans. ““For many Americans,” he argued, “what seems to be happening or what they believe right now is happening is, what appears to them is we’re replacing national-born American — native-born Americans to permanently transform the political landscape of this very nation.”

In May, CNN reported that Perry falsely claimed in a closed-door meeting of the House Oversight Committee: “The KKK in modern times, a lot of young people think somehow it’s a right-wing organization when it is the military wing of the Democratic Party. Decidedly, unabashedly, racist and antisemitic.”

That same month, the site Raw Story reported that Perry had shared a social media post from a United Kingdom-based neo-Nazi’s account promoting Great Replacement conspiracy theories about British politics.

Steve Nickol, a Republican who had served with Perry in the state House of Representatives, penned a 2018 op-ed for the York Daily Record denouncing his former colleague for his votes against the Violence Against Women Act, baseless claims that ISIS was behind a mass shooting in Las Vegas, and efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act without any replacement at all. 

“Mr. Perry spends too much time promoting baseless conspiracy theories and Freedom Caucus hyper-partisanship and too little time addressing the real challenges that people are facing every day,” Nickol wrote.