SOUTHBURY, Conn. — A banner depicting swastikas and comparing the Democratic Party to Nazis is sparking public outrage in Southbury.
Local leaders with the Board of Selectmen denounced the sign, which they said was put up Saturday at Playhouse Corner, a well-known rally spot in town.
Connecticut Dems posted a picture of the sign on Twitter. The sign has since been removed from Playhouse Corner.
The sign was especially upsetting for Southbury resident Daniel Sternthal.
“It made me upset because whoever put up the sign has no idea what Nazism is all about. I was born in Israel. I know what Nazism is firsthand. Most of my family was demolished by Nazis.”
The chair of the Connecticut Dems released a statement on Twitter saying quote: “The Southbury Republicans’ use of universally-recognized symbols of anti-Semitism is hateful and wrong.”
Palin Smith with Connecticut for Trump tells us he frequently rallies at Playhouse Corner but he said the person who put up this sign is not part of his group. He thinks he knows the person who put up the sign after seeing something similar at a rally in Portland a few months back.
“Any display of a Nazi swastika goes too far,” Smith said. “Because there’s such a stigma attached to the Nazis in World War II before in the extermination of whole groups of people that it is just abhorrent to us as human beings whether you’re on the left or the right. What they did was try to stir things up and I wasn’t there to stop him.”
Local leaders say this kind of hateful rhetoric is not welcome here.
“We will defend your first amendment rights to free speech, your political ideologies, you have a right to them, but this crossed the line from political ideologies into the ideology of white supremacy and white nationalism which is not acceptable in Southbury,” Rosen said.
Rosen said they are exploring potential legal options to make sure something like this doesn’t happen again.
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