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Dem Senator Bill Nelson Compares U.S. Political Climate to Pre-Genocide Rwanda

“We have got to watch what’s happening here.”

Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) said the current U.S. political climate is similar to that of Rwanda before the genocide in 1994, which resulted in the deaths of nearly a million people. “When a place gets so tribal that the two tribes won’t have anything to do with each other ... that jealousy turns into hate,” Nelson said. “And we saw what happened to the Hutus and the Tutsis in Rwanda, it turned into a genocide. A million-people hacked to death within a few months. And we have got to watch what’s happening here.” Nelson spokesman Dan McLaughlin said the senator, who is locked in a tight re-election battle with Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R), was not comparing the two political climates, but said Nelson was using Rwanda as an “extreme example of what could happen when a nation becomes totally divided.”