Republican campaign canvasser seriously injured in brutal attack

A campaign canvasser for Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) Sunday was brutally attacked by four men for being a Republican while knocking on doors and handing out fliers in Hialeah, Florida. The canvasser was wearing a DeSantis hat and Rubio t-shirt. 

“Last night one of our canvassers wearing my T-shirt and a DeSantis hat was brutally attacked by 4 animals who told him Republicans weren’t allowed in their neighborhood in Hialeah, Florida,” Rubio’s campaign wrote on Twitter Monday afternoon. “He suffered internal bleeding, a broken jaw & will need facial reconstructive surgery.” Photos accompanying the tweet show the 27-year-old being taken away on an ambulance stretcher. 

One of the attackers was identified as a 25-year-old named Javier Lopez. 

“I can tell you this: political violence should not be tolerated by anyone,” said Rubio. “Our side or their side, we don’t tolerate political violence. In this country, we decide who governs not by street mobs, we decide who governs at the ballot box.” 

Last month, two volunteers for GOP Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s gubernatorial campaign were attacked when an unidentified man chased them and tried to drag them out of their car, breaking both side mirrors in the process.  

"Political violence is never acceptable,” said Texans for Abbott in a statement. “With just over a month until Election Day, the passion to win should never bubble over into something more dangerous. There is no place for this in Texas.”  

The incident comes just days after a 41-year-old North Dakota man who murdered a teenager because the latter was Republican was set free on bail.  

Shannon Brandt told police that he deliberately ran down 18-year-old Cayler Ellingson with his car because Ellingson was part of a “Republican extremist group,” a phrase Joe Biden and other Democrat officials have been repeating often in recent weeks with increasingly threatening and violent rhetoric. 

Biden has been tweeting relentlessly about “MAGA extremists” and “MAGA Republicans” and declaring them enemies of the state. In an August speech being referred to by some as a “Hitler impression,” Biden stood against a blood red backdrop flanked by US Marines and lashed out against the “threat” of Trump supporters.   

“Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic.”   

“But there is no question that the Republican Party today is dominated, driven, and intimidated by Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans, and that is a threat to this country.”   

“MAGA forces are determined to take this country backwards — backwards to an America where there is no right to choose, no right to privacy, no right to contraception, no right to marry who you love. They promote authoritarian leaders, and they fan the flames of political violence that are a threat to our personal rights, to the pursuit of justice, to the rule of law, to the very soul of this country.”   

“They spread fear and lies –- lies told for profit and power.”   

“MAGA Republicans do not respect the Constitution.  They do not believe in the rule of law.  They do not recognize the will of the people.”    

“[They] believe that for them to succeed, everyone else has to fail,” he continued, adding that if not properly dealt with, "MAGA extremists” will turn the country into “a nation of fear, division and darkness.”     

Biden also accused his political opponents of having placed a “dagger to the throat” of the country’s way of life and urged the masses to “stop the assault” being perpetrated by “MAGA Republicans”.   

Last month, Rep. Tim Ryan (D-OH), urged people to “kill and confront” the “MAGA movement," and Senator Mazie Hirono (D-HI) called for a literal “call to arms” against Americans who are pro-life.   

“The word ‘hypocrites,’ it doesn’t even go far enough to call them out on what they’re doing,” said Hirono before calling for “literally a call to arms in our country.”    

Last week, an 84-year-old pro-life activist was shot while distributing pamphlets door-to-door in Lake Odessa, Michigan. The woman, a volunteer for pro-life organization Right to Life of Michigan, was canvassing the neighborhood in opposition to Proposal 3 when she was shot in the shoulder by Richard Harvey, the bullet lodging in her back.   

Harvey and his wife Shannon, both of whom are proud feticide supporters, claimed the shooting was an “accident”.