AOC tells Republicans to “connect the dots” after CO Springs LGBTQ bar shooting

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) criticized the GOP’s “anti-LGBTQ campaign” from this past year in connection to the shooting at a Colorado Springs, Colorado LGBTQ bar that left five dead and 18 injured.

“After Trump elevated anti-immigrant & anti-Latino rhetoric, we had the deadliest anti-Latino shooting in modern history,” Ocasio-Cortez tweeted on Sunday. “After anti-Asian hate w/COVID, Atlanta. Tree of life. Emanuel AME. Buffalo.”

“And now after an anti-LGBT+ campaign, Colorado Springs. Connect the dots, GOP.”

Get the Daily Brief

The news you care about, reported on by the people who care about you:

Subscribe to our Newsletter

The Republican party and the larger conservative movement has spent a good part of this past year attacking LGBTQ people and allies – especially doctors and teachers – as “groomers,” which is another word for child sex abusers. The constant attacks have led to multiple bomb threats against children’s hospitals where conservatives claimed gender-affirming surgery was being performed on minors, even though it wasn’t, as well as laws like Florida’s Don’t Say Gay law, where Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis‘s administration condemned anyone who opposed the bill as a pedophile.

Ocasio-Cortez also attacked Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO), who has been one of the most anti-LGBTQ members of Congress this past session and is also a staunch opponent of gun control legislation. Boebert has spent her first term in Congress attacking LGBTQ people and portraying them as a danger to children. She has opposed all gun control legislation and even rose to fame from the gun-themed restaurant she owned where the waiters carried guns.

“The news out of Colorado Springs is absolutely awful,” Boebert wrote over the weekend. “This morning the victims & their families are in my prayers. This lawless violence needs to end and end quickly.”

“Lauren Boebert, you have played a major role in elevating anti-LGBT+ hate rhetoric and anti-trans lies while spending your time in Congress blocking even the most common sense gun safety laws,” Ocasio-Cortez wrote. “You don’t get to ‘thoughts and prayers’ your way out of this. Look inward and change.”

Boebert won reelection in a close race and will serve for another term in Congress.