The Craziest MAGA in Congress

One irony to which liberals may not be sensitive is that it is hard out there for most MAGA officials. Try as they might, few politicians can replicate the qualities of cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump. They are faced with a MAGA base that values insanity, forcing MAGA politicians to constantly attempt to one-up each other in craziness in order to get attention. In a world in which Republicans are accusing Democrats of controlling the weather and intentionally creating storms in Republican areas, claiming that Haitian migrants are eating pets, and arguing that Ghislaine Maxwell is actually a victim of the Jeffrey Epstein affair, it is almost impossible to stand out as uniquely crazy. But one politician who has managed this task is also one of the newest kids on the block, Randy Fine.

Who is Randy Fine, you may ask? He is the U.S. Congressional Representative for Florida's 6th District. He assumed office on April 2nd of this year after winning a special election to fill the seat vacated by Mike Walz, who resigned after being appointed as Trump's National Security Advisor. Prior to his current position, Fine served in Florida's Senate and before that, the state's House of Representatives. Earlier, Fine was an executive in the gambling industry. Fine has long established himself as a caricature of a MAGA politician. Whatever Trump supports, Fine supports ten times as much. The word "moderate" is not part of Fine's vocabulary. To the contrary, like the amplifiers employed by Spinal Tap, Fine goes to 11, and stays at 11 permanently. The result is one of the most bigoted and hateful politicians in America. Someone who is so crazy that he is becoming a liability to those aligned with him. In recent days, U.S. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene has strongly criticized him and described him as “disgraceful," and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) has left him off their endorsement list.

I feel that I should offer a few stipulations. First, Fine loves attention. In the unlikely event that he stumbles across this post, he will love it regardless of how critical I may be of him. In fact, from his point of view, the more critical I am of him, the better. So, I acknowledge that I am falling directly into his trap. Second, while Fine almost exclusively appears to be boorish, chauvinistic, and especially primitive, this may well be an act. He graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University and also holds a Master of Business Administration from the Harvard Business School. It is unlikely that he is a stupid man regardless of how convincing his public statements are to the contrary.

The first thing that you should know about Fine is that he is Jewish, and proudly so. He has adopted the moniker "Hebrew Hammer" and practices a particularly thuggish version of Judaism. He has said that Jews are God's "chosen people" and that God promised Israel to them. When he announced his candidacy for the special election, he tweeted that "The ‘Hebrew Hammer’ is coming. @RashidaTlaib and @IlhanMN might consider leaving before I get there. #BombsAway," targeting two Muslim representatives. Fine is especially Islamophobic, routinely describing Muslims as "terrorists" and including the hashtag "#BombsAway" when tweeting about Muslims.

It is not hard to discover Fine's agenda. It is whatever the MAGA agenda of the day may be, turned up to 11. So, for instance, when Florida Governor Ron DeSantis made opposing LGBTQ+ issues a priority, so did Fine. As a state representative, Fine sponsored a bill that, in his own words, "was to go after ‘Drag Queen Story Time’". The bill, which was passed and eventually became law, would penalize venues for hosting drag queen performances when children were present. Defending the bill, Fine said that "If it means ‘erasing a community’", then "damn right, we ought to do it!" The law was challenged in court, resulting in a preliminary injunction. The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to lift the injunction, so the law is not currently being enforced. Further illustrating Fine's opposition to the LGBTQ+ community, he quit his conservative synagogue when he discovered that it had hired a staff member who was a member of the LGBTQ+ community. Fine attempted to have the staff member dismissed from the synagogue and threatened to "burn it to the ground." Fine also demanded that the synagogue return "every penny he's ever donated."

Where Fine really gets animated is with regard to Muslims and Arabs, especially Palestinians. In Fine's view, every Muslim is a terrorist, and every Palestinian deserves death. As noted above, Fine attacked two Muslim Members of Congress before he even got elected. Since then, he has continued this pattern. Fine has called Ilhan Omar a "Muslim terrorist" and retweeted a tweet saying that Omar was "part of the Hamas terrorist network" and accusing her of paraphrasing "Mein Kampf". When the Democratic leadership in the House of Representatives protested Fine's comments as "unhinged, racist and Islamophobic," Fine responded by calling them the "Hamas Caucus" and tweeting, "I guess they weren't listening when I said the Hebrew Hammer was coming."

Fine has also fixated on Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic nominee for Mayor of New York City, repeatedly alleging that Mamdani will somehow create a "caliphate" in New York. He has tweeted that if Mamdani gets elected, "We can’t let Muslim Terrorists start a caliphate in our country like they have in Europe." He has written that, "If Mamdani has his way, NYC classrooms won’t be teaching the Constitution in civics class. They’ll be teaching Sharia Law." He also tweeted that, "New Yorkers must not elect this proud Muslim terrorist as their next mayor." In another tweet, Fine argued that "Zohran Mamdani would do to New York City what Khomeini and Khamenei did to Tehran. We cannot let radical Muslims turn America into a Shiite caliphate."

With regard to Palestinians, Fine routinely dehumanizes them and celebrates their deaths. He employs the term "Palestinianism" which he says is the name of "evil" and wrote that "The Palestinian cause is an evil one." He tweeted that "‘Palestinian’ is just another word for demon." Fine has tweeted that "Everything about the ‘Palestinian’ cause is a lie. Everything." Prior to assuming his current office, Fine tweeted that "innocent palestinian children ... only deserve death." When a commenter responded by posting a photo of a tiny baby buried in rubble and asked Fine how he could sleep at night, Fine replied, "Quite well, actually! Thanks for the pic!" In the same thread, Fine said that he would introduce a bill in Congress to "recognize Gaza and Judea and Samaria as part of the State of Israel and to call for the expulsion of these monsters from Israel." Fine's tweet was given limited visibility by X because it violated X's "rules against Violent Speech." Another tweet by Fine, this one saying, "Gaza must be destroyed," was also given limited visibility.

Fine has not encountered any pushback from the Republican leadership. To the contrary, they appointed him to the House Foreign Affairs Committee, a position in which he is likely to be particularly disruptive. But while the leadership may be ignoring him, he has recently gone too far for others. Fine has taken the position that starvation in Gaza is both not happening and something that Palestinians deserve. He tweeted, "There is no starvation. Everything about the ‘Palestinian’ cause is a lie" and, in another tweet, said that Palestinians should "starve away." These tweets elicited a response from Ritchie Torres, a Democrat who is extremely pro-Israel and who has very close relations with the Jewish community. Torres replied saying, "Telling Palestinians in Gaza to ‘starve away’ is an evil thing to say." A clearly upset Fine, in turn, called Torres a "fraud" who was "getting his talking points from his new bff Mamdami [sic]". Fine concluded by saying "With friends like this, Jews don't need enemies." Torres then called Fine a "bloated, braindead, blithering idiot who has no business being in Congress."

But Torres was not the only Member of Congress offended by Fine's attitude toward the starvation of the Palestinians in Gaza. Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene wrote a lengthy tweet suggesting that Fine lacks commitment to his electoral district and is too eager to enjoy life in Washington, DC. She noted that he barely won his election despite being in an overwhelmingly pro-Trump district. She then went on to write, "But a Jewish U.S. Representative calling for the continued starvation of innocent people and children is disgraceful. His awful statement will actually cause more antisemitism." Admittedly, Greene — famous for her concern about "Jewish space lazers" — is probably not the best judge of what will cause antisemitism, and she may be partially motivated by fear that Fine is getting ahead of her on the crazy train, but her criticism is still notable.

Even more intriguing has been the actions of AIPAC. The group maintains a database of pro-Israel candidates with links for donating to their campaigns. Usamah Andrabi of the Justice Democrats noticed that Fine was not included. At first, this resulted in a number of articles saying that AIPAC, which had endorsed Fine in the special election, had withdrawn its endorsement. However, AIPAC responded with a convoluted explanation that the group had not unendorsed Fine, but had just not endorsed him so far for this election cycle and that his endorsement would be considered at a later date. This is odd to say the least. The database includes almost 250 entries for House candidates, but not Fine. It is unlikely that AIPAC will not eventually endorse a Jewish, strongly pro-Israel, member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, but the fact that it has not done so already is certainly worthy of a raised eyebrow or two.

Fine has also targeted others, such as former President Barack Obama, tweeting "Arrest Barrack [sic] Hussein Obama." Fine has repeatedly attacked the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a group that Fine calls a terrorist organization. He has introduced a bill asking that CAIR be designated as a "foreign terrorist organization" and tweeted "To the Muslim terror groups operating with impunity in our cities and on our college campuses, enough is enough. It’s time we designate @CAIRNational what it is — a terrorist organization." When Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, a 26-year-old Turkish-American, was shot and killed in the West Bank by the Israeli military, Fine reacted by tweeting, "Throw rocks, get shot. One less #MuslimTerrorist. #FireAway." This tweet was also given limited visibility by X due to violating its rules about violent speech. It should be noted that Eygi was not throwing rocks. Fine's account was also briefly suspended. Fine has also endorsed vehicular homicide and said that he will introduce the "Thump Thump Act" which "will allow Americans to run over these Muslim Terrorists". He wants to legalize running over protesters who block streets. He subsequently clarified that while he initially referred only to Muslims, "BLM, Antifa, illegal immigrants" and others could also legally be run over. Fine wrongly claimed that he had helped pass a similar law in Florida, earning a community note correcting the record. After the Wall Street Journal published an article about a birthday card Trump had written for Epstein, Fine introduced a bill to end the House of Representatives' subscription contract with the Journal.

Fine portrays himself as a vigilant opponent of antisemitism and has frequently attacked colleges and universities for alleged antisemitism. However, as is often the case with devoted MAGAs, loyalty to Trump exceeds his commitment to his proclaimed values. When Trump referred to crooked bankers with the antisemitic trope of calling them "Shylocks", Fine quickly came to his defense. Fine argued that the antisemitic connotations of calling corrupt bankers "Shylocks" had to be explained and, therefore, it was okay for Trump to use the term. However, Fine did hint that in other circumstances in which Trump was not involved, he might have a different reaction, saying "it depends on what they meant."

Fine seems to have a good grasp of the current MAGA zeitgeist, which requires being crazier than all others. As such, he has made himself stand out in a very short time in Congress by taking extreme positions. It's one thing to oppose Hamas and even support Israel's actions in Gaza. Any number of politicians take those positions. But, it is something different to support the starvation of Gazans, celebrate dead Palestinian babies, and call for Gaza to be destroyed. That's how you get the attention that Fine craves. The danger for Fine and his tactic of going full steam in the direction he thinks Trump is going is that Trump, along with Fine, will zig and then Trump — as he sometimes does — will zag, leaving Fine out on a limb by himself. That could happen now with respect to Gaza as Trump starts making statements critical of the starvation Israel is causing. Most likely, Fine will simply hope that nobody will remember his celebration of starvation and will join Trump as a proponent of providing food. But I suspect neither Greene nor Torres will let anyone forget Fine's prior position.