More than 100,000 people are demanding Marjorie Taylor Greene’s removal from Congress after she compared the Covid mask mandate to the Holocaust.
The elected official from Georgia’s 14th congressional district has defended her controversial comments, despite widespread criticism from both Republicans and Democrats.
The Auschwitz Memorial was the latest organisation to urge the congresswoman to tone down the dangerous rhetoric.
The comments Greene is being criticised for were made on a podcast with the Christian Broadcasting Network on 20 May.
“You know, we can look back at a time in history where people were told to wear a gold star, and they were definitely treated like second class citizens, so much so that they were put in trains and taken to gas chambers in Nazi Germany. And this is exactly the type of abuse that Nancy Pelosi is talking about”, Ms Greene said.
Ms Pelosi’s doctor-backed plans rule that representatives must keep wearing masks on the floor of the House. The maintenance of the mask rule comes from the unknown vaccination levels of Republican lawmakers, like Rep. Greene, who refuses to disclose if she has been jabbed.
The petition titled “Kevin McCarthy must expel Marjorie Taylor Greene” currently has more than 112,000 signatures. It was set up by David Weissman, who previously was a supporter of President Donald Trump, but has now become a Democrat voter.
The Auschwitz Memorial tweeted in response to Ms Greene’s outlandish comments, saying that public health measures, such as wearing face coverings, were nothing like systemic oppression and cruelty faced by Jewish people under Hitler.
“The instrumentalisation of the tragedy of Jews who suffered, were humiliated, marked with a yellow star, isolated in ghettos & murdered during the Holocaust, in a debate on different systems that aim at protecting public health is a sad symptom of moral and intellectual decline,” they wrote on the microblogging site.
Senior Republicans such as Elise Stefanik, the new chair of the party’s conference who replaced Rep. Liz Cheney, also spoke out and condemned Ms Taylor Greene’s comments on Twitter.
“Equating mask wearing and vaccines to the Holocaust belittles the most significant human atrocities ever committed. We must all work together to educate our fellow Americans on the unthinkable horrors of the Holocaust,” Rep. Stefanik wrote.
And Rep. Kevin McCarthy himself vocalised outrage at the comments but has made no move to formally discipline her. He tweeted “Anti-Semitism has no place in America.” He also mentioned legislation he proposed to bring to the House and called for “all of Congress to speak with 1 voice against anti-Semitism”.
Ms Greene has defended her comments, The Hill reported, stating: ““I never compared it to the Holocaust, only the discrimination against Jews in early Nazi years. Stop feeding into the left wing media attacks on me. Everyone should be concerned about the squads support for terrorists and discrimination against unvaxxed people.”
The petition comes as the House Democratic leadership considers the possibility of Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez filing a restraining order against Ms Taylor Greene.
This discussion came after several heated incidents between the lawmakers where the Georgia Republican appeared to verbally accost her colleague from across the aisle.
One incident that took place earlier this month, and was first reported in The Washington Post, involved Ms Greene running towards Ms Ocasio Cortez, who was apparently walking away from her, and repeatedly screaming “Hey Alexandria!”
