Minnesota local GOP figures amplify rhetoric, persist in comparing Biden to Hitler
Rep. Walter Hudson delivers speech to the Republican Seniors of Minnesota on June 13, 2023.
MINNEAPOLIS (FOX 9) - After the state GOP condemned a Facebook post from the Scott County GOP comparing President Joe Biden to the most notorious dictators of the 20th Century this week, other figures within the party rallied to defend the original post, and more inflammatory rhetoric from a state rep has emerged.
The June 10 post from the Scott County GOP showed the phrase "Leaders who have their political opponents arrested" above images of Joseph Stalin, Adolf Hitler, and Mao Zedong, with a photo of Biden added to the lower right of the grid. Both state parties condemned the post, and it was briefly taken down only to reappear again later the same day.
The post came in response to the June 8 indictment of Trump, who pleaded not guilty on Monday to federal charges that he kept classified documents containing crucial military secrets and plotted to obstruct government efforts to recover them.
The condemnation was not universal. As first reported by the Minnesota Reformer, Sen. Nathan Wesenberg, R-Little Falls, quickly voiced his support for the Scott County post, sharing the same meme with the text "Some people have problems with facts." Two other county chapters — Rice County and Kittson County — also voiced their support on social media for the Scott County post.
Increased tensions; renewed scrutiny
The spat comes at a time of increased scrutiny on political rhetoric following the Trump indictment, when experts warned that some of Trump's defenders used language that could be seen as inciting violence.
As the New York Times reported, one of the prominent examples came from Kari Lake, a Trump supporter who unsuccessfully ran for governor in Arizona in 2022.
"If you want to get to President Trump, you are going to have go through me, and you are going to have to go through 75 million Americans just like me. And I’m going to tell you, most of us are card-carrying members of the N.R.A," she said.
Speaking five days after Trump was indicted by a grand jury in Miami, Minnesota GOP Rep. Walter Hudson used militaristic rhetoric to describe Democrats in a speech to the Republican Seniors of Minnesota.
While making no reference to Trump, Hudson, who has a background in conservative talk radio and is known for his bombastic style, referred to Democrats as "unAmerican" and accused them of engaging in "demonic behavior."
"You're dealing with a party that has declared war upon you. The goal of modern Democrats is to conquer you. What do I mean by that? Conquer you? Think about what's entailed in conquering a people. You're physically displacing them, get out, go somewhere else," he said.
Shorter afterwards, he added:
"What is it to say that an institution or a community or a state or nation is too white? What's the implication there? Well, we should have less white people. Well, how exactly you going to go about doing that? When has that type of talk, that thought ever gone to a positive, moral righteous place? And so the reason why I'm dwelling so long on this point is because it should set the stage in our heads to recognize that this is no longer politics as usual. This is no longer the Norman Rockwell painting of a guy standing up at a town hall meeting and speaking his mind to a room full of interested citizens who are engaged in good faith. This is war. It's war, and it has been war for a very long time."
While Hudson invoked war, he did not call for violence, but instead for a "commitment to go out there and find the ballots and get them in boxes, legally."
Professor Larry Jacobs, the Director of the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance in the Hubert H. Humphrey School at the University of Minnesota, said he was concerned about Hudson’s rhetoric, and said it could play on people’s fears.
"I think that kind of rhetoric is alarming. Democrats or Republicans certainly disagree on the direction of the country, they sharply disagree about regulation and taxes. These are real policy differences. It matters who's in power, period. But Democrats are not an invading force. They're not displacing people," he said. "This kind of threat just leads people to panic, and to feel that they are vulnerable… and that concerns me."
FOX 9 has reached out to Hudson for comment.