Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) caused a lot of head-scratching on Sunday when he tweeted a quote from fascist dictator Benito Mussolini:
Cornyn later retweeted a message explaining that he was warning “against an overly powerful central government” ― and then added a message of his own saying that democratic socialists “have forgotten or never learned the lessons of history, and how their ideology is incompatible with freedom.”
He also complained about the criticism:
However, as the senator’s critics were quick to point out, the quote seemed more than a little unusual given that Mussolini had abandoned socialism and embraced fascism before he seized power in Italy.
The unusual tweets caused the name “Mussolini” to trend on Twitter on Sunday, and many people wondered why Cornyn was highlighting the thoughts of a friend of Hitler’s:
