Since even before the nationwide protests against racist police brutality following the murder of George Floyd by Derek Chauvin, Republicans have leapt to characterize protests as riots and Democrats as radicals.
Much of the party's 2020 election cycle was spent slamming even moderate Democrats like now-President Joe Biden as socialists who wanted to abolish the police.
A champion of that rhetoric has been Florida Republican Senator Marco Rubio, who claimed "every socialist is a Democrat." He's up for reelection in 2022, and is once again claiming any Democrat running against him is a "far left extremist."
Challenging Rubio is Democratic Congresswoman Val Demings, who announced her run for Senator earlier this week. Demings became a household name when she served as a House Manager in Trump's first Senate impeachment trial.
In a bizarre tweet, Rubio posted a two minute video lambasting the Congresswoman as a "do-nothing House member" and a radical Democrat.
In the video, Rubio deployed the Republican talking point that Demings was hell-bent on defunding the police:
"While Congresswoman Demings was on TV calling plans to defund the police 'thoughtful' and describing a violent riot as a 'beautiful sight,' I was passing the VA Accountability Act to help our veterans."
Apparently Rubio forgot that Demings herself served as a police officer for more than two decades, and even became the chief of the Orlando Police Department.
Demings, however, reminded him with a single picture.
Twitter users hailed the clapback.
They were less kind to Rubio.
The election will be held November 8 of next year.
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