Flagstaff Republican state Sen. Wendy Rogers made headlines last week for celebrating the victory of far-right parties in Germany by posting lyrics from the country’s national anthem that were banned because they are a rallying cry for the Nazis, but the lawmaker has long befriended and amplified racists and antisemites.
Last week on X, the social media site formerly known as Twitter, Rogers posted the phrase “Deutschland, Deutschland über alles” after far-right German parties won multiple elections in the country. Those lyrics were banned in Germany after World War II as they were used by Hitler’s Nazi party to stir up nationalism and as a rallying cry.
Some local and national media picked up on Rogers’ use of the phrase, and the lawmaker denounced the criticism in a lengthy post on social media.
“I don’t usually waste my time responding to Soros-funded smear campaigns from the Marxist press, but it seems they’re desperate for traffic this week,” Rogers said, referring to antisemitic conspiracy theories around billionaire George Soros and the longstanding antisemitic trope that Jewish people control the media.
Rogers often attempts to link Soros, a prominent liberal philanthropist and target of Republicans, to her criticisms of media she dislikes.
Rogers went on to say her great-grandfather served in World War I against Germany and that her grandfather served in Germany after WWI. She also commented that her father served during WWII against Germany and that she, a retired U.S. Air Force pilot, was stationed in Germany.
“So, when it comes to military history and Germany’s role, I have a bit more experience than my Soros-funded Marxist press friends,” Rogers said, adding that any “affiliation” she has with “National Socialism” is “laughable” and “absurd.”
“I reject that narrative entirely. Liking Germany, a current U.S. ally, doesn’t equate to aligning with Nazis,” Rogers said, avoiding the actual criticism of the pro-Nazi lyrics she posted. “Maybe if these Arizona press trolls actually visited Germany, they’d loosen up a little. It’s a beautiful place and lots of fun.”
Senate President Warren Petersen also came to Rogers’ defense on X, writing that Rogers “does not nor has she ever supported Nazis.” Petersen did not respond to a request for comment for this story.
Amplifying Nazis
But Rogers has for years amplified Nazis, white nationalists and antisemites.
The senator has a strong presence on social media, where she has amassed more than 360,000 followers on X and more than 66,000 subscribers on Telegram. She often posts links from far-right websites and personalities, and her posts are often shared by far-right influencers and personalities.
Since she was elected in 2020, Rogers has become a darling in the Arizona GOP, leveraging her rabid support of election conspiracy theories into a national following that she has used to become a fundraising juggernaut.
Over the years, she has become more ingrained with the far-right, and gone from amplifying their messages to participating in their events.
In 2021, Rogers appeared multiple times on an online broadcast network that had made multiple antisemitic remarks. The network, TruNews, has a history of spreading antisemitic rhetoric, including a piece in which Rick Wiles, its founder, spent 90 minutes saying that “seditious Jews” were “orchestrating” Trump’s impeachment.
Wiles has also called the Jewish people “tyrants” and claimed that the antichrist will be a “homosexual Jew.”
Both times she appeared on TruNews, Rogers was interviewed by Lauren Witzke, a conspiracy theorist with a history of antisemitism. Witzke is connected to other known white nationalists and antisemites, participated in a white nationalist youth event in Arizona in 2022 and echoed white nationalist beliefs during an appearance on the white nationalist podcast “No White Guilt,” on which she promoted the “Great Replacement theory.”
Rogers has also promoted the Great Replacement theory.
That idea, popular among white supremacists, holds that white Americans are purposefully being replaced by immigrants, and has been seized upon by extremist groups such as the American Identity Movement and Generation Identity.
It has also stoked violence, including Anders Behring Breivik’s murderous rampage in 2011 at a Norwegian youth summer camp and the Tree of Life synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh in 2018, the deadliest attack against the Jewish community in United States history. Just before it took place, the killer took to right-wing social media site Gab to say he believed that immigrants were being brought in to replace and “kill our people.”
The next year in New Zealand, 51 people would be killed and 40 injured but not before the shooter would post a 74-page manifesto titled “The Great Replacement.”
And in 2019, in El Paso, Texas, a shooter who killed 23 in a Walmart cited the New Zealand manifesto in one of his own, saying the mass shooting was a response to the “hispanic invasion of Texas.”
Buddies with white nationalists
Rogers, along with other Arizona lawmakers, also appeared at a QAnon event in 2021 that featured antisemitic imagery. That same year, Rogers, along with a litany of other members of the AZGOP, appeared along with known white nationalists and neo-Nazis at an event in Phoenix.
In 2022, Rogers delivered a video message at the America First Political Action Conference, a conference hosted by known white nationalist and antisemite Nick Fuentes.
At that same event, multiple other speakers with ties to neo-Nazis, white nationalists and antisemites spoke, often spewing bigoted rhetoric. Rogers refused to condemn Fuentes when challenged to do so by her Senate colleagues.
Rogers was ultimately censured by the Senate — not for antisemitic social media postings or for speaking at Fuentes’ conference but because she threatened members of the Senate with retribution if they supported the censure.
Her own Senate colleagues investigated her for her use of the phrase “fed boy summer” to describe a mass shooting by a racist in Buffalo, New York, who targeted Black shoppers at a grocery store. The phrase is similar to “white boy summer,” a viral meme used by neo-Nazis and white nationalists in 2021. Fuentes adopted the phrase for his summer road trip in 2021, which included an alleged event with Prescott Republican Congressman Paul Gosar.
And Rogers has touted an endorsement by antisemite and Gab founder Andrew Torba, and she posted a meme on his site of Torba, Rogers and Fuentes killing a rhinoceros — symbolizing “Republicans in Name Only” — that was adorned with the Jewish Star of David.
By 2022, researchers monitoring extremism were seeing an increase in racist rhetoric as more people had begun diving into beliefs that had been amplified by Rogers and others on the far right.
That same year, Rogers began cozying up closer to Fuentes and his supporters, who are known as “groypers.” The lawmaker even asked Fuentes’ “groyper army” to go after some of her political rivals, a move that researchers called “unprecedented.”
The self-styled online “army” that Rogers was imploring to rally to her aid is a collection of white nationalists who often use online trolling tactics against people they don’t like. Their goals broadly include normalizing their extreme and racist views by aligning them with Christianity and so-called “traditional” values.
Last year, Rogers once again appeared on another one of Wtizke’s shows, this time accompanied by Sen. Justine Wadsack, R-Tucson.
The new network which the duo appeared on is run by Stew Peters, a well-known conspiracy theorist who also has spread antisemitic conspiracy theories, including blaming Jewish people for the sinking of the Titanic. He also is a well-known purveyor of COVID-19 misinformation.
Witzke has also appeared in videos on Peters' channel promoting antisemitic conspiracy theories, such as claiming that the Jewish people orchestrated the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
Still at it
Just last month, Rogers was amplifying an antisemitic conspiracy theory being promoted by Peters on X.
“Don’t read this before you go to bed tonight,” Rogers wrote on X, quoting a post that claims there is a “shadow government” before listing some of the alleged organizations behind it.
The conspiracy theory, known as the Committee of 300, dates back to the early 20th century. In the modern era, the conspiracy theory has inspired a wide swath of radicals and antisemites who have used it as “proof” of a nefarious plan by Jewish elites.
At its core, the conspiracy theory claims that the committee is an international organization with leaders from every nation, and that it holds special power over the United States. Those mainly at the helm of the committee are alleged to be Jewish, a common trope in antisemitic rhetoric.
In 1912, German writer Theodor Fritsch took a quote by German politician Walther Rathenau to suggest that there were “300 men” who had influence in the politics of the region. Fritsch took this to claim that Rathenau was confessing that the Jewish people had power over other cultures and countries.
This belief was further spread with the antisemitic hoax The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. That publication is the most widely shared antisemitic propaganda, and it has been prominently debunked as fake; the “Elders of Zion” is listed as part of the conspiracy that was re-posted by Rogers.
Rathenau later addressed the controversy, saying that the “300 men” he mentioned were leaders in the business world, not Jews. However, in June 1922, Rathenau was assassinated by an ultra-nationalist group, with one of the assassins citing Rathenau’s membership in the “300 Elders of Zion” as a reason behind the killing.
Peters, on whose show Rogers appeared in 2021, has been increasingly showcasing antisemitism on his social media profiles and on his show. In promotional material, Peters has praised the mass book burning conducted by the Nazis in the lead up to World War II. He also recently began promoting a “documentary” he made that focuses on the conspiracy theory that Jews control the United States.
“They did exactly what reasonable people would do if given the opportunity,” Peters said of the Nazi book burnings. The video featured a montage of antisemitic propaganda created by Nazi Germany.
Peters has called for violence at the U.S.-Mexico border, used racist terminology and spoke at the same white nationalist conference that Rogers spoke at.
This story was first published by Arizona Mirror, which is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.
