Indiana state representative Jim Lucas (R-Seymour) is being criticized for his Facebook cover photo containing a quote attributed to Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels.
The since-deleted picture was screen captured by Lucas’s Democratic challenger Chad Harmon and shared on Twitter Monday.
The quote read: “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”
According to the Jewish Virtual Library, there is no evidence Goebbels ever actually used this statement.
The “Big Lie” was a pivotal component of Nazi ideology, blaming Jews for concealing the true reasons why Germany lost World War I. The term has received a second life in American politics, describing a discredited theory that former president Donald Trump lost the 2020 election because of widespread voter fraud.
Lucas has since deleted the photo, replacing it with a quote by Game of Thrones’ author George R. R. Martin: “When you tear out a man’s tongue, you are not proving him a liar, you’re only telling the world that you fear what he might say.”
The CANDLES Holocaust Museum in Terre Haute released a statement Wednesday condemning the post.
“Hate propaganda was the driving force behind the Holocaust, and these seeds of hate have been, and are being planted, today in the United States,” the statement read.
Lucas’s posts on social media have landed him in trouble before. House Speaker Todd Huston (R-Fishers) removed Lucas from several study committees in May for a meme he shared that commentors described as racist. Lucas also was criticized in 2017 for a letter to the Indianapolis Star insinuating that women who carry guns were learning not to be victims of rape.
