Watch Republican Senator Compare His Reelection Campaign to 9/11 Attacks

At the Wisconsin Republican Convention this weekend, Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) tried to inspire his audience to help push Republicans, including himself, to victory in November, but in the process may have inspired something else entirely. Toward the end of his speech, Johnson recounted the story of United Airlines Flight 93, even quoting passenger Todd Beamer‘s famous “Let’s roll,” and compared the vote those passengers took to the one Republicans face in November in order to “literally save this country”:

We’ve all heard Todd Beamer’s iconic words ‘Let’s roll,'” Johnson told about 1,000 party faithful. “How American is that? We have a job to do, let’s roll up our shirt sleeves. Let’s get it done.

The reason I like telling that story now as we head into the election season is we all know what we need to do. November 2016 we’ll be taking a vote. We’ll be encouraging our fellow citizens to take a vote. Now, it may not be life and death, like the vote passengers on United Flight 93 took, but boy is it consequential.

…You need to understand that your individual efforts, in a close election, might be those efforts, the hard work, that literally saves this country.

A spokesman for Johnson’s Democratic opponent Russ Feingiold blasted the comments in a statement, saying “It’s beyond bad taste for a sitting senator to compare a horrific national tragedy — one that united all Americans — to his own partisan re-election.”

New: The Mediaite One-Sheet "Newsletter of Newsletters"
Your daily summary and analysis of what the many, many media newsletters are saying and reporting. Subscribe now!