Not everything is about Nazis

Marjorie Taylor Greene's gazpacho gaffe proves we need new comparisons beyond the Holocaust

Marjorie Taylor Greene.
(Image credit: Illustrated | Getty Images, iStock)

Did you order the gazpacho? Or were you hoping for vichyssoise? That's just one of the many jokes provoked by the latest gaffe by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA). In an interview on Wednesday with the right-wing One American News Network, Greene denounced "Nancy Pelosi's gazpacho police" — a reference to allegations that the Capitol Police improperly investigated members of Congress. By the end of the day, Greene herself got into the Soup Nazi act, tweeting, "No soup for those who illegally spy on Members of Congress, but they will be thrown in the goulash."

The stakes were minute even by the standards of social media controversy. Surveying the responses, it's hard to avoid the impression that Greene's critics thoroughly enjoyed the diversion from their real jobs. Still, the timing, just a few weeks after related spats about Whoopi Goldberg and the removal of the graphic novel Maus from a Tennessee middle school curriculum, points toward a more serious question. Do Americans know enough about the Holocaust and the Nazi regime?

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Samuel Goldman

Samuel Goldman is a national correspondent at TheWeek.com. He is also an associate professor of political science at George Washington University, where he is executive director of the John L. Loeb, Jr. Institute for Religious Freedom and director of the Politics & Values Program. He received his Ph.D. from Harvard and was a postdoctoral fellow in Religion, Ethics, & Politics at Princeton University. His books include God's Country: Christian Zionism in America (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2018) and After Nationalism (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2021). In addition to academic research, Goldman's writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and many other publications.