Kyle Langford—Republican candidate for governor of California—posted a selfie that earned him a scolding from the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial Museum.
Langford posted a photo of himself in front of Auschwitz-Birkenau's infamous gates. As distasteful as a Nazi concentration camp selfie is, it was the 2026 California gubernatorial candidate's caption that was most disturbing.
Langford wrote:
"My 0% Unemployment Plan."
@KyleLangfordCA/X
The Auschwitz-Birkenau main gate features the German phrase "Arbeit macht frei," which translates to "Work makes you free." Like all the concentration camps, the forced labor of the prisoners was part of the Nazi plan prior to their final solution—killing everyone deemed unfit to work immediately upon arrival then working everyone else to death.
The Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial Museum responded to Langford's disturbing selfie.
The account reposted Langford's post with the caption:
"The instrumentalization of the tragedy of all those imprisoned and murdered in the German Nazi concentration and extermination camp Auschwitz for political messaging is a profound moral failure. Auschwitz is not a prop. [Kyle Langford], your post is an affront to the dignity of the victims and a disturbing display of insensitivity and disregard to horryfying human history."
The European Democratic Party also posted a screenshot of Langford's selfie on their Instagram page. They wrote in all caps on the image, "shame on you, you don't joke about death."
They captioned the post:
"Kyle Langford, a declared Republican candidate for Governor in California, posted a tweet mocking the Holocaust - the systematic extermination of six million Jews and millions of others."
"There are no excuses. This isn't humour, it's hatred in disguise. At a time when civilians are dying in the Middle East, such cynicism is obscene. That someone like this could aspire to political office is not just shocking - it's disgraceful."
The post was so distasteful, multiple fact checking organizations and media publications authenticated it, hoping it was a troll's bad joke that targeted Langford and not a post by the candidate.
Their research discovered it was an actual post made by Langford.
More than 1.1 million people, mostly Jews, were murdered at Auschwitz-Birkenau.
Some 10 million+ people—about 6 million of which were European Jews—were killed by the Nazis during the Holocaust.
Rather than tucking his admiration for Nazi solutions for eliminating people he deems undesirable back under a rock where it belongs, Langford doubled down.
He responded to the controversy, writing:
"I wasn’t joking, I think it is exactly what is needed to stabilize California and keep people safe."
@@KyleLangfordCA/X
In a separate post he wrote:
"My German ancestors smile upon me."
Followed by tagging the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial Museum and thanking them for the "shout out."
"My most sincere of Thank you’s for the massive shoutout @AuschwitzMuseum"
Langford included his usual bizarre level of emojis for an adult seeking political office and a short video of selfies and symbols tied to his campaign.
People were disgusted by Langford.
Some people's visceral responses to such unabashed Nazi admiration from a MAGA Republican gubernatorial candidate have gone too far and dipped into threats of violence.
Langford, like his idols from Germany in the 1930s and Washington D.C. beginning in January 2017, is obviously dealing with a severe inferiority complex based on how inferior he is intellectually, socially, and physically.
It's tempting to respond with the same level of kindness that Langford proposes, but there's no need to make a martyr of him for his fellow MAGA extremists.
@NextABPremier/X
The Reich-wing Republican gubernatorial candidate has a history of genocidal ideology.
Langford's comments on Auschwitz-Birkenau were positioned as a "solution" to homelessness and unemployment in California. He also referred to the death camp as a "beautiful work camp" in a direct response to the memorial museum's admonishment of his unhinged ideals.
The self-described MAGA Republican has posted "Jews need to become Catholic, worship Jesus Christ and abandon the State of Israel" and "Jews should use U.S. Customs and Border Protection home app and self-deport to Israel today."
He has also posted "the United States should perform regime change in Israel for a more favorable government, while also dismantling their intelligence agencies."
With MAGA Republican President Donald Trump, Department of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis boasting about masked abductors and their own forced labor camp, Alligator Alcatraz, Langford's proposal is already playing out in the U.S. His idea suddenly seems pretty mainstream MAGA instead of extremist.
Hopefully, he someday gets the attention he so desperately craves. We've all seen what happens when a man lives to be 79 years old and never gets it.
