The Road to Power: Idaho outfit behind rash of racist, anti-Semitic robocalls
In July, a Road to Power robocall went out in California in support of U.S. Congressional candidate John Fitzgerald, an anti-Semite and Holocaust denier: “End the Jewish takeover of America and restore our democracy by voting John Fitzgerald for U.S. Congress. Even if you are a registered Democrat, it’s no longer a real democracy when the two percent ethnic minority that are Jews, has dominance over America and uses it to serve the foreign country of Israel.” The call went on to promote anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, stating, “Your vote for John Fitzgerald means no more U.S. wars for Israel based on their lies, like the Jewish conducted attack on 9/11.” To Rhodes’ ire, Fitzgerald, a Holocaust denier and white supremacist, disavowed the calls.
A month later, Andrew Gillum became the first black man to win a major party’s nomination for governor of Florida, and The Road to Power was ready with a racist robocall. According to The New York Times, the call features a man pretending to be Gillum speaking in a “minstrel” voice: “Well hello there,” the call begins, “I is Andrew Gillum.” The voice talks about mud huts and unfair policing practices, while sounds of drums and monkeys play in the background.
In October, Road to Power issued a second robocall targeting Gillum. This call was similarly racist — and used the same minstrel voice to represent Gillum – but was also anti-Semitic, echoing a number of white supremacist talking points, falsely linking Jews to the slave trade and claiming that Jewish support for Gillum is part of Jews’ grand plan to elevate black people to positions of power, ostensibly for their own gain.
In addition to targeting political campaigns, these robocalls have also been used to promote hatred and division in the midst of local and national news events and tragedies. A year after the Unite the Right rally stunned Charlottesville, Virginia, city residents were targeted by Road to Power robocalls calling for ethnic cleansing and the repeal of constitutional rights shielding African-Americans from voter and workplace discrimination.
In June, following the death in Pittsburgh of Antwon Rose, Jr., an unarmed 17-year-old black boy who was shot by a police officer, some city residents received calls praising white police officers who have killed black men. The calls cited false crime “statistics” about black people, and referenced “white cops, the ones doing the tough job of animal control.”
In August, when an undocumented immigrant was implicated in Mollie Tibbetts’ murder in Iowa, her family begged for privacy, and for an end to the anti-immigrant rhetoric that some were peddling in the wake of her death.
The Road to Power responded with a robocall that referred to Latino Americans as “low IQ, bottom-feeding savages.” The call continued: “If after her life has now been brutally stolen from her, she could be brought back to life for just one moment and asked, ‘What do you think now?’ Mollie Tibbetts would say, ‘Kill them all.’”
In an interview with the Des Moines Register, Tibbetts’ father condemned the message, calling it “everything that’s dark and wrong in America right now.”
The article is published courtesy of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL)
