As the Tennessee Senate debated a bill that would classify camping as public property as a crime, Republican Sen. Frank Nysley said homeless people have a chance not only to find shelter but also to enjoy a life that creates history.
But as he tried to express his views on Wednesday on how homeless people can change their destiny, Nysley chose someone who went from homeless to historical for all the wrong reasons: Adolf Hitler, the Nazi leader who led the genocide that killed millions of Jews.
“I haven’t taught you a history lesson in a while, and I wanted to give you a little history of homelessness,” Nysley said. “[In] In 1910, Hitler decided to live on the streets for a while. So for two years Hitler lived on the streets and practiced his oratory, his body language, and how to connect with citizens, and then he continued to lead a life that brought him to history textbooks.
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Nysley, who said he supported the bill to criminalize homeless camps for public property, added: “This is not a dead end. They can come out of these homeless camps and lead productive lives – or, in Hitler’s case, a very unproductive life. “
Shortly after Unsley’s unsolicited history lesson on Hitler’s history, the U.S. legislature passed HB 0978 by a vote of 22 to 10, making “attracting or camping along a controlled highway or entrance or exit ramp” a crime that leads to $ 50 fine and community service. The “permit” bill, which allows local law enforcement to punish homeless people, is now being directed at Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee’s (R) office, which is expected to sign it as law.
The state senator from TN GOP uses Hitler as an example of how people can do something about themselves after being homeless.
This is absurd. pic.twitter.com/bhyTWIz6C1
– Republican Reporting Project (@AccountableGOP) April 14, 2022
Nysley has faced a backlash from Democrats and critics who wonder why he would even mention Hitler when he talks about homelessness. Tennessee spokeswoman Gloria Johnson (D) shared a video of Nysley’s remarks, which was viewed about 1 million times as of Thursday afternoon. The Democrat said that “not a day goes by without TN GOP to shame our country.”
“I will have to apologize to the universe for this man,” she tweeted.
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Nysley did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Thursday.
Although the senator described his statement as a history lesson, Hitler did not choose homelessness. After failing to receive admission to the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts, he spent his savings and ended up sleeping on park benches begging for money.
Years before the Holocaust, he lived in a homeless shelter in Vienna between 1910 and 1913, and many of his friends were Jews, according to the Guardian. Historians note that Hitler described this period of homelessness as “the most severe and sad” period of his life.
Republican lawmakers have cited Hitler’s name in various ways in recent years, whether comparing coronavirus vaccine mandates to the Holocaust or quoting his Mein Kampf memoir in the House of Representatives on the power of using “big lies” to mislead the gullible. audience.
This is not the first time the dispute has found Nysley, who was a state representative before becoming a U.S. senator in 2012.
In 2009, he was among a group of Tennessee Republicans who tried to force President Barack Obama to hand in his birth certificate to prove he was born in the United States. Many right-wing figures, including Donald Trump, perpetuated false lies about Obama during and after the 2008 presidential election. Press.
In 2017, Nysley told E&E News that carbon dioxide, which has emissions that are a significant driver of climate change, “is not a pollutant.” He misleadingly said that “this is as natural as oxygen”.
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In October, Nysley claimed that companies like Ford moving to the southern states like Tennessee were imagining the South winning the Civil War, which ended in 1865. He mentioned a conversation he had with his grandson who asked him if the South really has lost the war. His answer: “It’s too early to tell.”
“Look at all these great companies like Ford Motor Company, Smith & Wesson coming south, I think I can tell my grandson that the war between the states is going on and we’re winning,” he said.
SEN NISLI: “THE CIVIL WAR CONTINUES, THE SOUTH WINS.”
While TN is rewarding @Ford with $ 900 million, @senfrankniceley says companies coming to TN show the South is winning a war on slavery that ended in 1865 (SOUTH LOST)
PS TN is one of the most federally dependent states. pic.twitter.com/atvTRsmdPb
– The Tennessee Holler (@TheTNHoller) October 21, 2021
Tennessee lawmakers are battling how to tackle homelessness. According to the latest figures from the US Interdepartmental Council on Homelessness, the state had approximately 7,256 people experiencing homelessness on any given day since January 2020.
The bill, which the legislature is claiming this week, will extend the penalties for unauthorized state-owned camping to all public property, making it a Class E crime, according to WTVC.
Critics are strongly opposed to the bill, warning that condemning a homeless person “could potentially ruin someone’s life”. Democrats as Senator Brenda Gilmore of Nashville say this week that HB 0978 perpetuates the poverty cycle in Tennessee.
“It just breaks my heart to criminalize people who have nowhere else to go,” Gilmore said. “And if you take and imprison their parents, then I think that again only multiplies the issue of taking their parents away from these children, simply because they are poor.”
A day after the bill was passed, many on social media pointed to Nysley’s “very, very wrong” comments in promoting Hitler as an inspiration to the homeless. The Tennessee Holler, a liberal publication, published a video of a reporter who repeatedly asked Nysley why he was referring to Hitler’s name. The Republican did not answer.
Among those critics was MSNBC presenter Chris Hayes, who scoffed at Nysley’s inspiring message to anyone experiencing homelessness.
“Someday you can be like Hitler,” Hayes tweeted.
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