GOP Idaho Lawmaker Hit With Backlash After Comparing Pandemic Lockdown Order To Nazi Death Camps

Idaho state Representative Heather Scott is under fire after comparing her state's current stay-at-home order with Nazi internment camps.

The absurd comparisons didn't end there, though, as she also referred to Idaho's Republican Governor Brad Little as "Little Hitler" during the same interview with podcaster Jess Fields.

Representative Scott asserts that local governments have the option to refuse to enforce the stay-at-home order and that is exactly what some in her district—the very tip of Idaho's panhandle—are doing.

Scott started off sounding almost reasonable, telling Fields that some of the stay-at-home order "was actually violating the constitution," and arguing that elected officials cannot legally deprive citizens of their right to peaceful assembly.

Things went downhill quickly from there, however.

Her comments comparing the order to Nazi Germany came after complaints about the government telling citizens which businesses are essential and which are not.

"I mean that's no different than Nazi Germany, where you had Government telling people you are an essential worker or non-essential worker—and the non-essential workers got put on a train."

She followed that statement with one most people can probably agree with, though likely not for the same reason:

"That's crazy."

You can view the whole 1-hour interview below. Representative Scott's Nazi Germany comment begins right around the 12:30 mark.

The comparison of a safety measure put in place to keep as many people as possible alive with one intended to kill an entire ethnic group did not sit well with most people.

It led to significant backlash on social media.

Rabbi Tamar Malino of Spokane's Temple Beth Shalom spoke with The Spokesman Review about Scott's comparison, saying:

"Mass murder and genocide is not the same thing as deciding which businesses should essentially stay open and which should stay closed."

The President of Bonner County Human Rights Task Force, Brenda Hammond, also spoke out against Scott's callous and inaccurate comparison, adding:

"It makes my heart heavy to hear a comment from an elected official that shows such deep disregard and lack of respect for what the Jewish people experienced during the time of the Holocaust. It also shows an extreme ignorance of history."

"Her words will be especially hard for members of our community whose own relatives were put on those trains. Not to mention the few Holocaust survivors we are still privileged to have living among us."

Scott apparently refused to speak with The Spokesman Review directly in reference to her comments.

The paper reports that she instead took to social media to warn followers of an upcoming "hit piece" about her.

She claimed that members of the media are intentionally twisting words and trying to make conservatives look bad.

"Biased local and national media continue to twist and turn facts away from their original intent and into their ongoing war of hate towards conservatives and Americans in general."

"My videos and interviews are generating a lot of positive responses and people are waking up. My recent analogies are poignant and relative to our times."

"While human lives are certainly more valuable than a business, we cannot underestimate nor ignore that our businesses are the life blood of the citizens who own them, the communities they are in and to the customers they serve. Losing the former destroys the latter."

This is not the first time Representative Scott has been in the public eye for negative reasons.

She also got quite a bit of pushback for her decision to fly the confederate flag from her campaign float while running for office in July 2015.

Idaho was not a state during the Civil War and therefore not a part of the Confederacy. However the flag has been adopted across the country by White supremacist groups.

This decision has apparently not yet left the public consciousness.

She also claimed that female members of the Idaho House of Representatives only achieved positions in leadership if they "spread their legs" in a 2017 rant that shocked the other members of the governing body. As a result, she was stripped of all committee assignments.