Florida senator Rick Scott said “militant left-wing” Americans are a greater threat to the country than all the wars the US has fought during its entire existence.
Speaking to the annual Conservative Political Action Conference in Orlando, Mr Scott called fellow Americans “the enemy within.”
“We survived the War of 1812, the Civil War, World War I and World War II, Korea, Vietnam, and the Cold War. But today we face the greatest danger we have ever faced. The militant left-wing in our country has become the enemy within,” he said to applause.
“The militant left has now seized control of our economy, of our culture and our country,” he said.
The chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee recently released his own agenda for the Republicans to campaign on in the midterms filled with culture war politics and incendiary language.
The 31-page agenda obtained by Politico calls for effectively erasing transgender people, eliminating questions about race on government forms, and completing Donald Trump’s border wall.
On Saturday, Mr Scott warned the CPAC audience that the “woke left” — a term used by some conservatives to describe people who object to racist and offensive language — was trying to end their freedom.
“The woke left now controls the Democrat party, the entire federal government, the news media, academia, big tech, Hollywood, most corporate boardrooms and now even some of our top military leaders.
“They are working to redefine America, silence their opponents — and that means you — they are destroying just about everything they touch and they’ve got their hands on everything,” he said, without providing any evidence or context to back up his claims.