Sharon’s Not Carin’ For Neo-Nazi Arthur Jones’ Support

Patch

PALOS TOWNSHIP -- Embattled Palos Township Tr. Sharon Brannigan got some unexpected and unwelcome support Monday evening from avowed neo-Nazi Arthur Jones, who is running as a Republican in the upcoming November election in Illinois’ Third Congressional District race. Brannigan has faced a year of continued public backlash for disparaging remarks she made about Arab and Muslim Americans on Facebook, for which she has since apologized. Jones and his supporters showed up at the Palos Township board meeting only to be driven out of the boardroom by the monthly gathering of protesters demanding Brannigan’s resignation.

Jones, who claims the World War II holocaust never happened, had planned to read a statement in support of Brannigan, who has been the target of the Arab American Action Network’s Take On Hate Campaign, a grassroots coalition formed after 9/11 to challenge growing prejudice of Arab and Muslim Americans. (SUBSCRIBE: Get Real-Time Alerts and a Daily Newsletter for Palos)

“I never met the woman,” Jones said in a post-meeting interview. “I didn’t go down for my campaign, I came to offer Sharon Brannigan my support because she’s getting no support from her colleagues. It’s outrageous they let this go on and on for a year. [U.S. Rep Dan] Lipinski hasn’t said a damn word in her defense. Just because she’s a Republican, it’s his responsibility to show some representation. I’m very upset about the whole damn thing.”

Congressional candidate and neo-Nazi Arthur Jones (second from left) is confronted by a man who said he lost 50 members during the Holocaust in World War II. | Take On Hate Campaign
Congressional candidate and neo-Nazi Arthur Jones (second from left) is confronted by a man who said he lost 50 members during the Holocaust in World War II. | Take On Hate Campaign

Brannigan, also an unsuccessful Lipinski challenger, has hung on to her elected seat after a year of noisy, angry protests that have effectively shut down the Palos Township board meetings.

“To be perfectly clear, I reject and condemn Arthur Jones and his candidacy for any office in any state in our United States of America,” Brannigan said via email. “He and his repulsive blather is such that it is nonsensical for me to waste words or breath on a person so low in character. I have absolutely nothing to do with Arthur Jones and I denounce his conduct and rhetoric as racist and unacceptable. I have nothing to do with him.”

Take On Hate had planned to present public comments from teens at Stagg and Sandburg high schools, as well as college students from Moraine Valley Community College and UIC, “who were prepared to share their fears of possible white supremacist attacks against them by racists emboldened by Brannigan,” the Arab American Action Network said in a written statement.

Jones and his supporters were booed by the packed boardroom amid chants of “Nazis go home.” Jones said he asked the “gutless” sergeant-at-arms if he could be the evening’s first speaker and read a prepared statement. As the audience chanted “Nazi scum get out of this room,” Jones stood up and faced the crowd, yelling “you’re a bunch of Marxist morons” and matching the audience's Nazis-go-home chants with “go to hell, go to hell.”

“It was the only thing I could think of,” Jones told Patch. “At that point I decided this is pointless. I thought to hell with this and left.”

Bassem Kawar, the national coordinator of the Campaign To Take On Hate, said the local #ResignBrannigan protesters were left with no other choice but to deliver 1,000 postcards demanding Brannigan’s resignation and “to force Jones out of the space with our chanting, and to shut the meeting down. We are firm with our stance, and will never allow or encourage any platforms for racist and hate speech.”

Jones said the only reason that he showed up Monday, was to support the “democratic process.” He couldn’t believe Brannigan has sat through this “abuse” for an entire year. Jones added that Brannigan is guilty of nothing except for expressing a private opinion on her social media accounts.

“She should be free to perform her duties without being subjected to demands from a mob of Muslim and Marxist lawless agitators who are showing that they do not respect the democratic process," said
Jones, reading from the prepared statement that wasn’t given the opportunity to read Monday. "If you don’t like how we do things in this country than go back to where you came from. I assure you, nobody will do anything to prevent your leaving your Marxist or Sharia paradise.”

Activists shout down GOP Congressional Candidate Art Jones at the Palos Twp. board meeting | Courtey of Take On Hate Campaign