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Florida Democrats, who have been suffering a string of devastating electoral losses since 2012, found a new culprit for the January 6 Capitol Riots. It is not Alex Jones, not the QAnon shaman nor the resuscitated corpse of George Wallace.
No, Florida Democrats have set their sights on Cuban-American media strategist Giancarlo Sopo, who led former President Trump’s national Hispanic advertising campaign in 2020, as a key player in the Capitol Riot of January 6th.
The baseless accusations came in a series of confusing tweets some Florida Democrats sent last Thursday on the one-year anniversary of hundreds of Trump supporters breaching the Capitol, which resulted in hundreds of arrests and ongoing criminal prosecutions.
Florida Democrats’ Baseless Attacks On Sopo
Leading the charge was Abel Iraola, a junior communications aide for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), tweeted: “People just like @giancarlosopo enabled January 6.” Meanwhile, Carmen Pelaez, a left-wing South Florida activist involved with the “Cubanos con Biden” initiative, accused the Miami native in a tweet of “pedd[ling] misinformation that lead to an insurrection.” Vanessa Rolon, a state director with the Florida Democratic Party, railed against Sopo on Twitter for allegedly “playing a role in damaging our democracy.”
“People like @giancarlosopo are complicit” in the January 6th attack, according to Mike Rivero, a community organizer who leads the progressive South Florida group “Cubanos Pa’lante.”
Alex Howard, a former Obama White House aide who now works with the Washington, D.C. firm The McKeon Group and goes by the name “Alex Howard-Fuentes” on social media, said on Twitter that Sopo “played a role sowing seeds of doubt on the results of the election, which ended in people dead.” In a previous outburst, Howard shared a video of Trump supporters breaching Capitol doors and windows with the caption, “@giancarlosopo you did this.”
Marco Frieri, a Miami-Dade County employee at Port Miami and leader of the “Colombianos con Biden” group, said “the stain of enabling an assault on democracy will be with [Sopo] forever.”
Some of the attacks were not just political. In a pair of now-deleted tweets, the 52-year-old Pelaez invoked a mutual friend who died in 2020 to attack Sopo, to which he responded: “It’s disgusting for you to invoke him. Lower than low. You should be ashamed”.
Sopo has condemned the Capitol Riots and criticized voter fraud theories
The Florida Democrats’ accusations are baseless, however. There is no evidence that Sopo has any connection to January 6th or that he has ever made false claims regarding the 2020 election.
In fact, Sopo posted a lengthy Twitter thread on the January 6 Riot anniversary, where he clearly condemned the events that day, which he described as “a disgrace.”
Sopo also left the Trump campaign shortly after the election was over. According to FEC filings, the Trump campaign’s last payment to Sopo was in November 2020, two months before the events of January 6. El American also reviewed Sopo’s public comments on Twitter and found no record of him attacking the legitimacy of the 2020 election. Quite the contrary, the Cuban-American strategist, has been a harsh critic of the theories espoused by Sidney Powell, accusing Venezuela of stealing the presidential election. Additionally, none of the 42 videos and advertisements that Sopo directed for the Trump campaign raised concerns with election irregularities.
At least one former colleague of Sopo says Florida Democrats are targeting the Republican media strategist because they blame him for their electoral mishaps. “These far-Left Democrats are falsely attacking Giancarlo because he is an effective voice for conservative Hispanics and played a role in the Democrats’ historic loss to Trump in Florida,” said Andrew Clark, who worked closely with Sopo as members of the 2020 Trump campaign’s War Room.
“Giancarlo psychologically broke these people”
In an interview with El American, Sopo dismissed the Democrats’ false accusations. “They’re attacking me because they can’t date me,” said Sopo in jest, paraphrasing New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s widely-panned recent response to her Republican critics.
“All kidding aside, while their obsession with me is kind of flattering, they and my hometown of Miami would be better off if they focused instead on polishing their resumes, since they’re clearly not good at what they do, and tried becoming productive members of society.”
Friends of Sopo, who has not lived in Florida in three years, say the Miami Democrats’ preoccupation with him is a symptom of post-election trauma.
“I think Giancarlo psychologically broke these people in 2020,” said Miami Young Republicans president Armando Ibarra who described the Democrats’ antics as “pathetic.”
“These Democrats thought a coalition of newer Cuban arrivals and non-Cuban Latinos would create a new majority for them in Florida — but the opposite happened and now they are lashing out in desperation.”
Longtime Republican lobbyist Christian Camara described the baseless attacks against Sopo as “ridiculous” and told El American that Democrats are just using January 6th to silence their opponents.
“Look, the Democratic playbook is to falsely accuse any and all Republicans of being complicit in January 6th to distract from Joe Biden’s disastrous presidency and the Marxist wing of their party. But as we saw in Virginia, that tactic just doesn’t work.”
Camara also told El American he has known Sopo for a decade and believes the Democrats’ attacks against him are largely driven by resentment over his 2018 decision to leave the Democratic Party.
“Giancarlo was a moderate Democrat who, over a period of several years, got fed up with his former party’s lurch toward socialism and so he left — good for him,” he said.
In a 2015 Huffington Post article, Sopo urged Democratic leaders to focus on economic growth instead of pushing far-left narratives on income inequality. In a 2018 USA Today column, Sopo publicly warned that he would leave the Democratic Party if it continued embracing socialists like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. The following year, Sopo blasted Democrats for their use of Latinx in the same publication. Sopo joined the Trump campaign in March 2020, according to news reports.
“These leftists attacking him are akin to cult leaders who burst into a rage when someone abandons them. They will never forgive Giancarlo for deciding he wanted nothing to do with their party and have spent years attacking him. Some have even invoked his family. It is truly sick, but what can you expect from godless leftist ghouls?” added Camara.
“Leftist Tears”
On Twitter, Sopo responded to the attacks with lighthearted humor.
“I would just like to thank the inept cadre of Florida Democrats (…) who burst into an impotent perreta yesterday at the sight of one of my tweets. You just couldn’t help yourselves,” he said.
“Thank you for this delicious treat,” Sopo added above a photograph of a “Leftist Tears” Daily Wire tumbler.
Daniel is a Political Science and Economics student from the University of South Florida. He worked as a congressional intern to Rep. Gus Bilirakis (FL-12) from January to May 2020. He also is the head of international analysis at Politiks // Daniel es un estudiante de Cs Políticas y Economía en la Universidad del Sur de la Florida. Trabajo como pasante legislativo para el Representate Gus Bilirakis (FL-12) desde enero hasta mayo del 2020. Daniel también es el jefe de análisis internacional de Politiks.
“LATINX” sounds like a Cabaret Porno. We are the “Castilian Americans” because we speak Castilian and not Latin. Only 5 countries in the World are Latin’s and only one is in the South of the American Continent and happens to be “Brazil” where its people speak Portuguese which happens to be a Latin Idioma.
People should educate themselves before hanging to other people’s Heritages that are not belong to the “Castilian America”.
I’m Latin because I was the daughter of an Italian lady, but I speak Castilian also, because my father and his family were Spaniards.