A Democrat running for Congress in Alabama is getting hammered on Twitter for calling the Republican Party worse than the Islamic State (ISIS) – a tweet the candidate clarified Tuesday without taking down the controversial Labor Day post.
"The greatest country on earth is being bullied from within," Jesse Smith wrote Monday, blasting congressional Republicans as "worse than #ISIL," another name for Islamic State militants.
But Twitter users laid into Smith for the inflammatory tweet Tuesday, the same day it was reported that the militants had purportedly
beheaded a second American.
Smith took to Facebook to explain his tweet.
"Twitter does not allow for context, but this does," Smith wrote on
Facebook.
"I am not saying that the Republican Party is beheading people in the streets, obviously. Here in America, because we are a civilized democracy, we do not use violence against each other as a means of control. The Republicans have used the economy as a means to terrorize the people of this country."
It's not the first eyebrow-raising tweet from the Iraq war vet, who faces Republican Rep. Mike Rogers in November,
AL.com reports.
On Sunday, Smith tweeted that the GOP sees "seniors, women and children as prey" because lawmakers want to repeal Obamacare.