Arizona GOP leader says Trump-backed politicians may send U.S. 'back to the dark ages'

Sept. 18 (UPI) -- The outgoing Republican leader of the Arizona House said Sunday that political candidates backed by former President Donald Trump might send the United States "back to the dark ages."

Rusty Bowers, the speaker of the state's legislature who testified at U.S. House Select Committee to Investigate the Jan. 6 Attack on the U.S. Capitol, made his comments in an interview with Jake Tapper for a special CNN report that will air Sunday night.

Earlier this year, Bowers effectively prevented the passage of Arizona House Bill 2596, a bid by Arizona Republicans to change how elections are run in the state which would have created paths to remove the popular vote, by assigning every one of the legislature's committees to review the bill.

"The legislature, after the election, could dismiss the election," Bowers told CNN. "And I said, welcome to fascism."

As noted by CNN, Bowers' use of the word "fascism" is considerable because of his prominence in the Republican party and backlash President Joe Biden, a Democrat, received from GOP lawmakers for stating that the Trump movement resembles "semi-fascism."

However, Bowers told CNN that the bill he doomed "will be back" if Trump-backed candidates win in the midterms. He lost his primary for an Arizona state Senate seat last month to David Farnsworth, who support Trump's false claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him.

"The possibility of that getting a governor signature would just be a disaster. I call it the possibility of going back into the dark ages in Arizona," Bowers said.

Trump on Saturday spoke at a rally to back J.D. Vance for a U.S. Senate seat in Ohio, calling him an "incredible patriot who will take the fight to Biden and the radical left media."

During his speech, Trump played a QAnon song in the background as his supporters raised their fingers in a salute, Media watchdog Media Matters reported.

A Trump spokesperson claimed to Vice that the track is not a song titled "WWG1WGA" -- an acronym for a QAnon slogan that means "Where We Go One, We Go All" -- but rather a song called 'Mirrors' by TV and film composer Will Van De Crommert.

Experts told Vice News that the two songs are identical, which was confirmed by a musical analysis conducted by researchers for Media Matters.