Rep. Bob Onder (R-Mo.) faced backlash on Thursday for railing against left-leaning Americans following the killing of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk, adding to a choir of conservatives who have blamed Democrats for Kirk’s death, despite limited information on the shooter and their motive.
“Everything has changed, if we didn’t know it already there is no longer any middle ground. Some on the American left are undoubtedly well-meaning people but their ideology is pure evil,” said Onder in remarks on the House floor.
“They hate the good, the truth and the beautiful and embraced the evil, the false and the ugly. And they, literally, will kill those with whom they disagree just as their predecessors, leftists [Karl] Marx and [Joseph] Stalin and [Vladimir] Lenin and Pol Pot and Fidel Castro did.”
Since the deadly shooting, President Donald Trump used an address in the Oval Office to go after the “radical left,” claiming that those who described Kirk as a Nazi are “directly responsible for the terrorism that we’re seeing in our country today.”
Right-wing figures have also called for vengeance, with conservative podcast host Katie Miller — the wife of senior Trump aide Stephen Miller — writing that liberals have “blood” on their “hands.”
Social media users on X swiftly slammed Onder over his “really ugly” rhetoric, with some critics like George Conway noting that the congressman’s remarks are “pure projection.”