Matthew Arndt, 54, a Mequon CPA and the Green Party’s candidate in the 6th Congressional District, was arrested Thursday on suspicion of disorderly conduct with a hate-crime enhancer. Mequon police say the case is headed to the Ozaukee County district attorney.
The video, first published by The Heartland Post, shows the far-left Green Party candidate harassing a Jewish father in a gas-station lot because the man’s car insulted the terrorist organization Hamas. Around 8:50 a.m. on Oct. 8, at the Mobil station at Mequon and Wauwatosa roads, Arndt got out of his SUV, flipped off another driver, and let loose. The other man, an Israeli American who told reporters he was driving his young son to school, had an anti-Hamas bumper sticker on the car, which is what triggered Arndt.
“You’re a fing traitor,” Arndt shouted. “F you, f*** Israel, go f*** yourself.” Then, daring the man to post it: “I’m running for Congress here in the Sixth Congressional District and f*** Israel! F*** the Israel lobby and f*** the neocons!” Asked his name, he answered, “Free Palestine! It’s Matthew Arndt!”
He later told FOX6 he “messed up,” but “the message stands.” The attack, he said, “isn’t directed at Jewish people.” It was “directed at the country of Israel.” He is “anti-Israel, and anti-Israel government.”
The Wisconsin Green Party’s Coordinating Council matched him almost word for word. It “stands firmly for Palestinian human rights and an end to U.S. support for the war in Gaza.” Shouting obscenities in a parking lot “doesn’t advance that cause.” They have spoken with Matthew. They will wait for the police report before saying more. They did not pull the nomination or call for him to step aside. They did not call the tirade antisemitic. The party did not condemn his actions. They did not even say the message was wrong. In a statement, the Green Party reaffirmed the anti-Israel position, calling the swearing unhelpful. They mildly scolded his manners.
Arndt is a fringe far-left candidate. The serious contenders in the 6th are Republican incumbent Glenn Grothman and Democrat Brad Smith. Independents Mike Thurow and Elizabeth Fitzgibbon are also on the November 3 ballot. Smith called the vitriol unacceptable, especially with a child present. The Milwaukee Jewish Federation condemned the “hateful and intimidating behavior.” The federation drew the line the Greens would not.
The progressive dodge is already written. He said Israel, not Jews. He said lobby, not synagogue. He said Free Palestine, which is supposed to be humanitarian. Watch the tape again. An anti-terrorism bumper sticker triggered Arndt, and He picked a fight with a man in a Milwaukee suburb whose offense was opposing Hamas. Arndt called that man a traitor to America for the crime of an Israeli flag on a bumper sticker. He did it proudly and bragged about being a congressional candidate.
The Green Party’s statement is the honest one. Too many vulgar words. Wrong parking lot. They won’t touch the idea itself. Ending U.S. support for Israel is a listed theme on Arndt’s campaign site, and the Green Party’s Coordinating Council rushed to reaffirm it before the police report was in. That is why there is no condemnation. You do not disown a candidate for saying out loud what the party, and the general leftist ideology, already believes. Since October 7, the same line has moved from the campus encampment to the Democratic Socialists, to city councils, and to members of Congress who treat the Jewish state as the villain and Hamas as patriotic freedom fighters. As a fringe party, the Greens are not competent enough to sand off the rough edges or find the best person to deliver the message.
Arndt told the man the whole country is against him. It is not. A militant slice of the progressive left is, and it has stopped pretending the objection is only to settlements or to a particular prime minister. When the nominee screams the slogan at a father and son, and the party says the message is sound but the delivery was the problem, the rest of us are allowed to believe them.
