In 2017, while running for the Illinois House, Darren Bailey recorded a Facebook video about abortion. In it he said:
"The attempted extermination of the Jews of World War II doesn't even compare on a shadow of the life that has been lost with abortion since its legalization."
The video resurfaced on August 1, 2022, while he was the Republican nominee for governor of Illinois.
Who objected
The condemnation was not confined to one party.
The Anti-Defamation League's Midwest chapter objected. So did a member of the Illinois Legislative Jewish Caucus, Planned Parenthood of Illinois, and Gov. JB Pritzker's campaign.
And so did the leader of Bailey's own party in the Illinois House. Republican Leader Jim Durkin said the Holocaust "was one of the worst atrocities in the history of humankind and any comments that minimize it have no place in our political discourse."
Bailey did not apologize. He issued a statement calling the Holocaust "a human tragedy without parallel" and saying, "I meant to emphasize the tragedy of millions of babies being lost."
The claim that fell apart
A week later, he doubled down, saying that "the Jewish community themselves have told me that I'm right."
That is a specific factual claim, and it was checkable. Bailey said "all the people at the Chabads that we met with and the Jewish rabbis they said 'no, you're actually right.'"
Rabbi Avraham Kagan, director of government affairs for Lubavitch Chabad of Illinois, disputed Bailey's characterization, telling the Forward:
"We don't know who he met with, and his comments do not reflect our position."
This is the part that separates the episode from an ordinary gaffe. The original remark was a comparison people can argue about — offensive to many, sincerely held by him. The follow-up was different. Confronted with criticism, Bailey asserted that the Chabad rabbis he met had endorsed his view, and Lubavitch Chabad of Illinois said publicly that his comments do not reflect its position.
Why we're writing it down now
Bailey is on the ballot again, running a campaign built on affordability that keeps its older positions in the room but off the platform.
This week his running mate, Aaron Del Mar, told a Springfield rally hosted by an anti-abortion lobbying group that Pritzker is "willing to murder millions of babies" and that people come to Illinois to "sin against God" — a month after telling WBEZ that abortion is not on their legislative agenda this time around.
The Holocaust remark came from the same place: the belief that abortion is a mass atrocity on a historical scale. In May of this year he told a Christian conference in Decatur, "Anyone who knows me knows there's no one here more pro-life or more pro Second Amendment than I."
He is entitled to that conviction. Voters are entitled to know he holds it while his policy platform omits abortion.
What a governor does with this
A governor speaks for the state after antisemitic incidents, sets the tone on Holocaust education in schools, and represents every Illinoisan — including the Jewish Illinoisans whose legislators told him this was wrong — in moments that call for moral seriousness.
The test isn't whether a candidate has ever said something wrong. It's what he does when he's told he has. Bailey was told — by the ADL, by a member of the Jewish legislative caucus, by his own party's House leader. His response was to claim an endorsement from Chabad rabbis that Lubavitch Chabad of Illinois disputed.
Illinoisans deserve a governor who can be corrected. We deserve better.
Source
"GOP candidate for governor Darren Bailey denounced for saying Holocaust 'doesn't even compare' to abortion 'atrocities'" — CBS Chicago, August 2, 2022. Follow-up reporting from the Chicago Sun-Times and NBC Chicago. Photo via CBS Chicago.
