Charlie Kirk, the president and founder of the conservative youth organization Turning Point USA, told Breitbart radio listeners on Sunday that prominent Democrats had been silent when it came to vocalizing opposition to antifascist activists because antifascists were the Democrats’ “paratroopers,” working on behalf of politicians including New York City Mayor Bill DeBlasio. Kirk claimed that a lack of condemnations toward antifascists was an “extraordinary, just kind of devolution of American politics.”

Conservatives have spent years characterizing antifascists who mobilize against violent white supremacist and neo-fascist rallies as violent terrorists. In their messaging, antifascists are portrayed as domestic terror groups who act and assemble without provocation, and as a force equally extreme as the groups they work to oppose. Kirk continued that trend and went so far as to liken antifascists to the Ku Klux Klan, a white supremacist hate group responsible for decades of violence in the United States.

“This is the equivalent. Can you imagine if any Republican dare not denounce the KKK? Could you imagine that, Matt? I mean, this would be one of the biggest news stories in the history of politics and instead we have an entire community of Democrats running for president that not just refuse to denounce it, but at one point—remember Joe Biden?— called them courageous,” Kirk said.

Kirk continued, “This is the new base and the new face of the Democrat Party. I like to say you can’t see the face of the Democrat Party because they’re all wearing ski masks.”