dana loesch

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NRA spokesperson Dana Loesch responds to accusations of anti-Semitism

Loesch lashed out at 44 other Twitter users.

 

David Gilmour

Tech

Posted on Feb 26, 2018   Updated on May 21, 2021, 11:33 pm CDT

National Rifle Association spokeswoman Dana Loesch has lashed out at Twitter users who have been accusing her of anti-Semitism, citing one of her own tweets from 2010 in which she jokes about the firing of former CNN anchor Rick Sanchez.

dana loesch jews
Twitter/Dana Loesch

Sanchez was fired in September 2010, one day after calling The Daily Show host Jon Stewart a “bigot” and mocking the suggestion that Jews are a minority—knowing that Stewart is Jewish. The following day, Loesch then responded on Twitter that she bet Sanchez “was fired by a Jew.”

In recent weeks, Loesch has been appearing on various media outlets to defend gun ownership after the mass shooting of 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida. The tragedy has given rise to a movement for gun control, mainly led by student survivors, and the adversarial NRA spokeswoman has defended the right to gun ownership in public debates.

Although the 2010 tweet appears to have resurfaced several days ago, it was only when comedian Sarah Silverman tweeted about the comment that Loesch responded furiously to those on her feed and attempted to contextualize it. 

Refusing to apologize, Loesch insisted that the 2010 tweet was not a defense of Sanchez but a desire for a kind of “poetic justice.”

From there, the NRA spokeswoman replied to 44 Twitter users over the course of an hour who were replying to her old tweet and accused them of anti-Semitism while quoting her response.

“So you support Sanchez’s antisemitism. Got it,” Loesch replied in almost every instance.

dana loesch tweet
Dana Loesch/Twitter

Still, despite Loesch’s attempt to go on the offense, for some users the excuse and context was lacking.

“Her context is to minimize firing of a bigot to a revenge act,” one individual wrote, “and to post an antisemitic libel about Jews having power.”

Silverman, who blocked and the unblocked Loesch, reflected jokingly on the excuse that the comment “was out of context and that’s the true context.”

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*First Published: Feb 26, 2018, 4:03 pm CST