Massie's "Voltaire" quote actually attributed toa white supremacist and convicted child pornographer

[Nevilledog]

Link to tweet

Tweet text:

Travis Akers
@travisakers
The staff of @RepThomasMassie should inform the Congressman that this is not a quote by Voltaire.

The quote is from a book written by Kevin Alfred Strom, a white supremacist and convicted child pornographer.

Thomas Massie
@RepThomasMassie
You mustn’t question Fauci, for he is science.
Image
4:31 AM · Jan 31, 2022

[Nevilledog]

1. Article

Link to tweet

No paywall
https://archive.fo/HbRe3


Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie on Sunday afternoon tweeted an image of a massive hand crushing a cluster of small bodies, accompanied by a quote attributed to Voltaire. “To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize,” it read.

“You mustn’t question Fauci, for he is science,” Massie wrote alongside the image, making it explicitly clear that he was doing some shitposting in the name of the GOP’s moronic anti-vaccine, anti-public health campaign to erode trust in the government (which includes Massie).

Thomas Massie
@RepThomasMassie
You mustn’t question Fauci, for he is science.
Image
7:38 PM · Jan 30, 2022

The problem is that the quote wasn’t from Voltaire. Instead, it’s a slightly misquoted version of a very famous statement by notorious neo-Nazi Kevin Strom.

There are basically two options for what happened here. One, Massie is an idiot, and his social media team dug up this meme from the last time it went around Facebook or Reddit and decided to toss it up on Twitter without Googling the quote itself. This is entirely possible! However, if they had done even the slightest amount of research they’d have found a USA Today article that exhaustively searched copies of Voltaire’s correspondence between 1742 and 1777 and found nothing resembling the quote. USA Today did, however, find this quote in Strom’s white nationalist screed “All America Must Know the Terror That is Upon Us” from 1993: “To determine the true rulers of any society, all you must do is ask yourself this question: Who is it that I am not permitted to criticize?”

*snip*

[LonePirate]

2. Birds of a feather

[Behind the Aegis]

3. But WAS it a mistake?

While he doesn't seem to be the sharpest knife in the drawer, it is always possible this is yet one more dog-whistle for the base. More and more know this is NOT a quote from Voltaire. I know sometimes the simplest explanation is usually the correct one, and I agree, but there are those who also court the lowest denominator.

[Dorian Gray]

5. I think you're onto something

[Dorian Gray]

4. Considering it is still up

despite Rolling Stone writing about it and a bunch of people correcting him, I'm rolling with he has this up (at this point) on purpose. People who think like him will read it and be drawn in. "Hell yeah! We're in the fight together. Those elites are jerks! And so what if we fall further into the white supremacist rabbit hole. They accept us unlike those elites who think we're dumb asses for accidentally posting white supremacist memes. "

[moondust]

6. Who made the drawing?

A Strom reader? The quote is from 1993.

Is this a new method of spreading propaganda? Make shit up and attribute it to someone famous from the past?

[Nevilledog]

7. Next up for the party of Lincoln...

[moondust]

9. Colbert's got a million of 'em.

But of course no one takes them seriously.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

8. No surprise. This Massie

[maxsolomon]

11. This is the Cincinnati I moved away from 30 years ago.

Smug overfed suburban Repukes toying with Gun Culture for funzies.

I know Massie's Northern KY, but it's Cincy Metro.

[Sympthsical]

10. This has been mis-attributed to Voltaire online for quite some time

Here's a seven year old Reddit thread about it:

https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/2yk7s1/til_to_learn_who_rules_over_you_simply_find_out/

I've seen some manifestation of it used on the internet in all kinds of different ideological spaces. For whatever reason, the Voltaire attribution has persisted.

So, no. It is not evidence someone read Strom's book. It's all over the place online.

Not saying staffers there haven't read Strom's book. I'm just saying using a common quote from the Internet is not proof of anything.