A Michigan lawmaker posted an overtly racist image on Tuesday, using his office’s official account to elevate a white supremacist conspiracy theory on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.
The image, which depicts Black silhouettes covering much of the world with white silhouettes straddling small portions of Canada, northern Europe, and Australia, was captioned “The great replacement,” a white nationalist far-right conspiracy theory that baselessly purports that nonwhite people, especially from Arab countries, are demographically replacing white populations.
Right-wing pundit Jack Posobiec initially posted the image, but Michigan state Representative Josh Schriver quickly reshared it, adding an emoji of a chart in decline.
Michigan Rep Josh Schriver, who stated that the endgame around gender affirming care bans was to “ban this care for everyone,” just endorsed a great replacement image showing black people taking over the world. https://t.co/eNFw6zbxKw pic.twitter.com/WM12BIm1xj
— Erin Reed (@ErinInTheMorn) February 8, 2024
Groups within his district weren’t happy about the apparent endorsement.
An independent support group of the Detroit City Football Club declared that Schriver was “not welcome” at their clubs.
“Absolutely go fuck yourself, Josh,” posted the account for the Northern Guard Supporters. “Your wife plays for our club with players from all ethnic backgrounds in a high minority population city and you’re pushing white supremacist propaganda.”
“We want to be extremely clear on this: you are not welcome at Keyworth or in DCFC,” they added.
Schriver continued to make questionable posts into Wednesday, claiming that he doesn’t “believe God is a racist but He does love the races.”
The freshman lawmaker took office in 2022, winning Michigan’s 66th House District—which has voted red since 1993—by a margin of nearly 30 percent over Democratic candidate Emily Busch.