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Rep. Madison Cawthorn speaks at a North Carolina rally earlier this month. |
Madison Cawthorn has a busy month ahead of her.
The 26-year-old North Carolina Republican lawmaker was caught taking a loaded pistol past airport security for the second time. He was pulled over for driving with expired tags and instructed to relinquish his revoked license, according to police. According to the Washington Examiner, he is accused of insider trading. Politico revealed pictures of him partying in women's underwear. In addition, he was the subject of a workplace complaint by a former congressional assistant.
A stretch like that would be an excellent cause for most public leaders to quit. Cawthorn may simply refer to it as "April."
Cawthorn termed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky a "thug" and his regime "very wicked" earlier this year. He said that his colleagues in Congress have coke-fueled orgies. He had just committed the latest in a long line of traffic violations (three court dates are pending). In a BuzzFeed piece, four women accused him of sexual misconduct; Cawthorn disputed the charges.
Republican colleagues have finally realized that Cawthorn may be a liability. Last Monday, a Republican super PAC released an ad accusing Cawthorn of telling "lies for the limelight."
Cawthorn, on the other hand, is a Republican-created monster. When he first campaigned for Congress in 2020, his character defects were on full display: bows to white nationalists, grandiose falsehoods, claims of sexually predatory conduct, overt racism, and a long history of driving violations. All of this was known to Craven Republican leaders, who accepted him wholeheartedly.
Cawthorn's defeat in his primary in May will not heal the Republican affliction; he is only a symptom. According to the leftist group Media Matters, more than 50 QAnon adherents have run for Congress as Republicans in 2022. Several people who were present on January 6, 2021, have run for Congress. If Republicans win the House in November, the new majority might make the present Congress appear like Periclean Athens, with members like Marjorie Taylor Greene, Matt Gaetz, Paul Gosar, Lauren Boebert, and others.
Cawthorn, like the many other rising oddballs and extremists, is the inevitable result of Republican leaders' decisions to draw increasingly uncompetitive districts, bless unlimited dark money, exercise timid leadership, embrace disinformation, flirt with white nationalism, stoke conspiracies, and undermine elections.
Cawthorn saw the GOP's orientation and did what he needed to succeed. In 2015, Cawthorn, then 19 years old, told the Daytona Beach News-Journal, "I certainly will run for Congress," a year after a spring-break vehicle collision in Florida put him in a wheelchair. On the basis of bold falsehoods and winks at white racists, he did it.
In 2017, he shared images from a "bucket list" trip to Adolf Hitler's hideaway, the Eagle's Nest, on Instagram. Hitler was referred to as "the Führer" by Cawthorn (albeit he did admit that Hitler was "evil").
Cawthorn titled his real-estate company SPQR Holdings, an abbreviated Latin word that has been co-opted by white nationalists, according to the Asheville Citizen-Times, Jezebel, and others in 2020. He posed with a gun and a pistol in a holster with an Oath Keepers emblem in a photo on his campaign website. He also utilized a Betsy Ross flag, which has been stolen by white nationalists, as a backdrop for interviews. Cawthorn's campaign slammed a local journalist as working "for non-white guys, like Cory Booker, who seek to destroy white male candidates for office."
Then there were the embellishments. Cawthorn said he was nominated for the United States Naval Institution, but that his "plans were sidetracked that year after he almost perished in a horrific vehicle accident"; the academy had previously rejected him. He said that the friend who rescued him from the flaming automobile abandoned him. He referred to himself as the "CEO" of his company, despite the fact that he was the single employee and the company generated no revenue. When his most substantial work was allegedly at Chick-fil-A, he misrepresented himself as a full-time aide of then-Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.).
Furthermore, 150 former Patrick Henry College students signed a letter accusing him of "gross misconduct with our female classmates," "predatory behavior," and "vandalism," according to the letter. Several women have accused Cawthorn of sexual misconduct, according to a Christian magazine. (These allegations were also refuted by Cawthorn.)
Republican leaders, on the other hand, were quick to support Cawthorn. Donald Trump praised Cawthorn and campaigned for him after supporting a candidate in the primary, stating, "You're going to be a star of the party." Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-North Carolina), and the Club for Growth all contributed to his funding.
Cawthorn was given a prominent speaking slot at the Republican National Convention in 2020. He was also recognized as a "warrior" by the National Republican Congressional Committee, and House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy dubbed him a "Young Gun," the highest level in the party's program to promote top candidates.
Republicans have only themselves to blame now that their youthful pistol has gone off half-cocked.
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