I wish I could just laugh off this demented buffoon, Madison Cawthorn.
When I see the people that are in Washington, DC who are trying to insert their woke politics into our culture, trying to destroy western civilization, trying to take all of our morality away from everyone, trying to make everyone genderless, sexless, and Godless.
No one on the liberal/progressive side wants to destroy western civilization. We want to make our culture stronger, more humane, and more egalitarian. If you consider that an act of destruction, you have a warped vision of what society should be.
No one is trying to take away everyone’s morality. Morality is a good thing. We would like to diminish the kind of immorality that allows people to kneel on other people’s necks until they are dead.
Hey, remember when the conservative complaint was that we were licentious proponents of free love? I guess that wasn’t really their concern. Now their complaints have gone the other way, accusing us of making everyone genderless and sexless. No one wants to do that, although we would say that if you don’t want to have sex, you shouldn’t have to.
It’s true that I would like to see everyone godless, but I also know that you can’t force atheism on anyone. It’s a free choice, and that’s all we ask, is that everyone have liberty of conscience.
Madison Cawthorn is a ridiculous mad far-right looney-tune who has to invent absurd accusations to stir up hatred. His comments about what “people” in Washington, DC are doing are stupid and false, but his next words ought to concern everyone.
We want our country back, we want our culture back, and if you want to stand in the way that, we will run you over.
“run you over”–that would also be a misrepresentation of his own side in the culture wars, if it weren’t for the fact that right-wingers have been doing exactly that, and Republican lawmakers are working hard to make it legal to kill protesters with cars.
Ari Weil, a researcher at the Chicago Project on Security and Threats, counted six states that considered laws shielding drivers who attack protesters in 2017, but most of those “hit and kill” bills (as the ACLU refers to them) went nowhere. It took a few more years for the right-wing propaganda apparatus to fully numb conservative consciences, and prepare them to openly endorse an idea as plainly depraved as this one. In the meantime, the car attacks kept coming: In 2020, Weil tracked “72 incidents of cars driving into protesters across 52 different cities,” over the span of just over a month. The online far right memed about running over demonstrators regularly, and cops openly encouraged it in social media comments. Cops also, in cities such as New York and Detroit, participated in the practice themselves. In Boston last year, Police Sergeant Clifton McHale was recorded on a police body camera bragging about hitting demonstrators with a police cruiser. He was placed on administrative leave when that footage was surfaced by reporter Eoin Higgins. He is now, Higgins reports, back on desk duty.*
Now lawmakers seem to have overcome whatever reticence they may once have felt about formally endorsing automobile attacks. Five states besides Florida introduced similar bills this year, granting some form of immunity to people running into demonstrators. The Iowa measure passed the state House and awaits Senate approval. Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt just signed another version into law in his state. This one shields attacking drivers from criminal liability.
That last bit from Cawthorn is openly an incitement to violence. He will not face any legal difficulties for telling his constituents to murder unspecified people they don’t like with their cars. And shouldn’t he be in prison for inciting an insurrection already?