Molly Prince on January 6, 2019

Republican Texas Rep. Dan Crenshaw excoriated Democratic Rep. Hank Johnson of Georgia on Sunday for degrading the Americans who voted for and support President Donald Trump.

While giving a keynote address to the Atlanta NAACP on Jan. 1, Johnson repeatedly compared Trump to Adolf Hitler and painted Trump supporters as “older, less educated, less prosperous” and “dying early.” He further claimed that many are dying from “alcoholism, drug overdoses, liver disease or simply a broken heart caused by economic despair.”

Crenshaw dismissed Johnson’s Hitler comparisons as intellectually dishonest and insulting to the millions of Jews who perished during the Holocaust.

“Ok Mr. Johnson, President Trump is a lot of things but he’s not Hitler,” Crenshaw said in a video posted on social media. “He didn’t kill millions of people. He didn’t start a world war. He doesn’t have any concentration camps.”

“But if you want to insult President Trump, at least you’re picking on somebody your own size. At least you’re picking on somebody who can fight back,” Crenshaw continued. “But you went on to insult, degrade and demean tens of millions of Americans who voted for him. To call them drug addicted, uneducated and unhappy alcoholics — this is a cowardly form of politics.”

Stop insulting Americans just because they vote for someone you don’t like. pic.twitter.com/8wrP3ybtPe

— Dan Crenshaw (@DanCrenshawTX) January 6, 2019

The Texas congressman vowed that despite disagreeing with Johnson’s political ideology, he would never insult the Americans who voted for him or members of his party. He further noted that referring to dissenters as “deplorables or fools or the dregs of society” is the worst form of leadership.

“These people are exercising their right and their voice the only way they can, which is through their vote. They don’t have a TV show. They don’t have a radio show. They don’t have a weekly column or big social media following,” Crenshaw said. “They have a vote. And you use your public platform to insult and demean them. This is not the behavior we expect from a member of Congress.”

“So I’ll leave you with this: Pick on somebody your own size,” he continued. “Pick on me if you’d like. My office will be right down the hall from yours — I’ll see you in Washington.”

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