In a late-night tweet on Monday, Republican Arizona Secretary of State candidate Mark Finchem urged followers to create accounts on several far-right media platforms — including one with a consistent pattern of promoting anti-Semitism.
"All patriots should have accounts on Truth, Telegram, GETTR and Gab," wrote Finchem. "It is important for redundancy. The Marxists will shut down one or two of them, but not all of them."
Truth Social is former President Donald Trump's Twitter alternative, which he has used as a platform to continue his rants following his permanent removal from Twitter after the January 6 attack. Telegram is an end-to-end encrypted messaging platform that, while not explicitly right-wing, has become a haven for extremist groups. GETTR is another Twitter alternative founded by former Trump aides.
Gab, however, is far more controversial. It is a social media platform used by many members of the alt-right and neo-Nazis, whose founder, Andrew Torba, has explicitly promoted anti-Semitism and said Jews are not welcome on the platform. The perpetrator of the Tree of Life Synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh broadcast his manifesto on the site prior to the massacre. Finchem has already received an endorsement from Torba, which he claimed he was "honored" to have received.
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This is not the first time that Finchem, an avowed election conspiracy theorist who has vowed to use the secretary of state's office to ensure Trump wins Arizona in future, has played with anti-Semitic messaging. In September, Finchem came under fire for a QAnon-themed attack on his Democratic opponent Adrian Fontes, in which he said all Democrats are “liars and deceivers” controlled by Jewish Hungarian philanthropist George Soros.
Torba has ties to a number of other Republican election deniers running for statewide office, including gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano in Pennsylvania. Mastriano's campaign even paid Gab for consulting work, although he has since tried to distance himself from Torba and his platform.
