Flashpoint post, swift backlash. Breitbart News reported that Shelly Headen, a Democratic candidate for a North Carolina state legislative seat, shared Facebook photos from Germany’s Dachau concentration camp memorial with the caption, “Visiting Dauchau [sic] Concentration Camp in Germany… This is where Trump supporters belong.”
Attribution and context. According to Breitbart, the images show Headen smiling in front of what appears to be crematorium ovens at the memorial. Dachau was a Nazi concentration camp where prisoners, including Jews and others, were murdered or died and their bodies were burned in crematoria.
Cooper campaign condemns the remark
Breitbart reported that, after it asked the campaign for comment, a spokesperson for Democrat Roy Cooper’s campaign issued a statement: “These remarks are reprehensible — Roy strongly condemns them and all forms of political violence and he believes it’s up to all of us to speak responsibly.”
Links to Cooper and timeline questions
The source text states Headen has been an active supporter of Roy Cooper’s U.S. Senate campaign and appeared with him at multiple events. It also says the controversy surfaced one day after Cooper posted on X about an anniversary of “Charlie Kirk’s murder,” adding, “Political violence has absolutely no place in our country. Full stop.”
Rhetoric under scrutiny
The source further claims that in 2024, while campaigning in North Carolina for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, Cooper referred to Donald Trump as a “threat” and a “dictator,” including at an event two days before the July assassination attempt on Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, and again less than a week after that attack, saying Trump “threatens our democracy, and wants to make history by installing himself as a dictator.”
Local party note
According to the source, the Guilford County Democratic Party posted a Facebook statement addressing the controversy; full contents were not provided in the available reporting.
