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Colorado Republicans are using an image showing Democratic gubernatorial candidate Phil Weiser with “devil horns” to mock him on social media. While a top Democrat blasted the move as a “plainly antisemitic” attack, the GOPer who created the graphic doubled down on Tuesday.
On Facebook, Sean Pond, a Republican county commissioner and former Senate candidate who posted the image, dismissed the furor and called it a “silly picture” of “two cartoon devil horns.”
“Sometimes devil horns just mean the devil. That’s why they show up in cartoons, church lessons, haunted houses, Halloween costumes, emojis, and every costume aisle in America,” Pond wrote in a post on Tuesday afternoon.
Pond’s graphics, which were posted on both X and Facebook on Sunday and Monday, showed Weiser, who is Jewish, standing in front of fiery skies with red horns atop his head. Depictions of Jews with horns are widely recognized as one of the most common types of antisemitic imagery. They have been used to associate Jews with evil and the devil since the Middle Ages. Pond used them to promote Colorado’s Republican gubernatorial nominee, Victor Marx.
Pond’s pictures featured all caps text declaring Weiser “THE NEXT THREAT TO COLORADO.” One of Pond’s images touted the GOP candidate and said: “COLORADO NEEDS STRENGTH. COLORADO NEEDS FAITH. COLORADO NEEDS VICTOR MARX.”
Marx, a self-described “high-risk missionary and evangelist” who has made questionable claims about having performed exorcisms by phone and having saved as many as 45,000 women and children from abusive situations, responded positively to one of Pond’s posts on X that featured the “devil horns” graphic. He said Pond’s point about Colorado Republicans needing to unite against the “THREAT” of Weiser was “exactly right.”
“We do have to remember what’s at stake. Colorado can’t afford more division. It’s time to unite, stay focused, and win,” wrote Marx on Monday.
Pond’s Facebook defending the graphics was directed at Kyle Clark, a journalist with 9NEWS in Denver who had raised alarms about the images and noted “Weiser is outspoken about his mother’s birth in a Nazi concentration camp, his family members killed in the Holocaust, and the threat posed by antisemitism today.”
“Depicting Jewish people with horns is a centuries-old, dehumanizing, antisemitic trope,” Clark wrote in an Instagram post on Tuesday.
Pond had made an earlier Facebook post in the wee hours of Tuesday morning, announcing that Clark had asked him about the graphics and sharing a lengthy statement. In it, Pond said he made the images “using AI” with a “direction … to portray Phil Weiser as evil and as the next threat to Colorado.” Pond also insisted he was unaware that Weiser, who has been Colorado’s attorney general since 2019, was Jewish.
“His religion was never considered because I did not know it,” wrote Pond. “There was no reference to Jewish people, no religious message, no dog whistle, and no hidden meaning.”
Pond further argued “Jewish politicians are subject to the same fierce political criticism as Christian politicians, Muslim politicians, atheist politicians, and everyone else seeking public power.”
“Phil Weiser does not receive immunity from political satire because of a personal fact I did not even know,” Pond added. “I will not apologize for opposing him.”
Both Marx and Pond did not immediately respond to requests for comment. TPM also reached out to Weiser’s campaign and received a statement from Colorado Democratic Party Chair Shad Murib.
“This is absolutely disgusting from Victor Marx,” Murib said. “That he calls this plainly antisemitic imagery ‘satire’ makes him an even bigger fool than everyone thinks.”
