Madison Cawthorn: I’m Shocked, Shocked to Find That Drug-Fueled Orgies Are Going On Here!

[47of74]

GQP is making plans in case Maddy wins the Tuesday primary

Quote

Republicans are publicly and privately rooting for Rep. Madison Cawthorn to lose his North Carolina primary race on Tuesday. But they're also preparing for an alternate scenario: how to deal with the embattled freshman if he returns to Congress after becoming a party pariah.

In private discussions, GOP lawmakers are debating ways to keep Cawthorn on the sidelines should he prevail in his North Carolina reelection race, from relegating him to less favorable committees to warning the punishments could get even stiffer should his controversial antics continue, according to interviews with more than a dozen lawmakers from across the House Republican conference.

One GOP lawmaker affiliated with the Trump wing of the party told CNN they bluntly warned Cawthorn that they would publicly call for him to be removed from the House GOP conference if he breaks the law again, furious that Cawthorn was cited twice for bringing a gun to the airport and was caught driving with a revoked license for the second time in 5 years in North Carolina.

"I met with the guy and said, 'Don't break the law again. You break the law one more time, I'm going to start calling for you to be kicked out,'" the lawmaker said. "And I don't mean kicked out of (the House Freedom) Caucus, I mean kicked out of Conference. Voting him out. He's a black eye on our conference."

I'd like to ask this lawmaker why the GQP doesn't grow a fucking spine and help kick the guy out of Congress altogether then refuse to seat him next year if he wins again?

[fundiewatch]

Politico put out a very nice piece on the CongressChild. It actually humanized him and made me feel sad for him, as much as he is a despicable person. 
 

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/05/13/madison-cawthorn-injury-profile-00032002

[Cartmann99]

Where things currently stand in Cawthorn's primary:

 

[thoughtful]

Here's what I found:

https://www.npr.org/2022/05/17/1098065292/north-carolina-primary-election-results

[Howl]

Still tight, could get tighter.  Can't believe that anyone would vote for this ass hat. 

[47of74]

 

[Cartmann99]

 

[AnywhereButHere]

I hope it holds!
 

I know Maddy is - well - special, but does anyone know anything about Edwards? While I feel it would be near impossible, I’d hate to find NC leaping out of Maddy’s crazy frying pan into a different brand of crazy fire. 

Edwards couldn’t possibly be worse. Could he?

[thoughtful]

Cawthorn conceded.

[Cartmann99]

11 minutes ago, thoughtful said:

Cawthorn conceded.

I'm surprised. I figured he would claim voter fraud and refuse to concede.

[AnywhereButHere]

I don’t see him fading quietly into the woodwork. Faux News gig in his future?

[Xan]

2 minutes ago, AnywhereButHere said:

I don’t see him fading quietly into the woodwork. Faux News gig in his future?

At first, I was surprised that he conceded.  On thinking about it, I believe that he doesn't really want to do the hard work of being a real congressman.  He'd rather work at a rally or speak at a Trump event.  And, yes, he'll probably be on Faux News occasionally or on Newsmax.  If it had been a general election and he was running against a Democrat, I don't think there's any chance he would have ever conceded.

[thoughtful]

Besides being a mess, I think he's more interested in being famous than actually being in politics. He did nothing for his constituents.

[Howl]

9 hours ago, AnywhereButHere said:

I don’t see him fading quietly into the woodwork. Faux News gig in his future?

Lots of speculation about his future as a lingerie model. 

[AlmostSavedAtTacoBell]

10 hours ago, thoughtful said:

Besides being a mess, I think he's more interested in being famous than actually being in politics. He did nothing for his constituents.

My belief is that he, like his hero Trump, had no idea what the job entailed.  He thought it would be a fun gig where he could make a splash, spout his bullshit, and do the tours all while getting a sweet paycheck and making a name for himself.  Much to his surprise, it was an actual job with actual work and responsibilities and it turns out when you spout bullshit, people call you out on it.  I do agree now he's had a taste of the actual work the position requires, he is no longer interested and is going to go the route of other MAGAts by doing the speaking/book writing/"reality" show circuit.  The really sad part is he is not bright enough to realize that he will be a joke and that people will take advantage of his lack of education and real world experience.  He'll think he's being celebrated when he's really going to be nothing but a circus monkey brought out for the amusement of people smarter than him. 

[fraurosena]

(It says Liz Cheney)

[AlmostSavedAtTacoBell]

34 minutes ago, fraurosena said:

(It says Liz Cheney)

Somebody should unearth his "Cry harder, libs" tweet that he posted then deleted after people pointed out it was a really bad look for a brand new member of Congress and respond with "Cry harder, Maddie".  I am not on Twitter but I can only imagine how much mileage people are getting out of the tree punching video today.  He deserves every single bit of the mocking.  He acted like a spoiled jackass (even before he was elected) and Karma's bitch hand is going to enjoy the slapfest. 

[fundiewatch]

“Cry harder, Maddy” has been ALL over in local response! 🥳🥳

I don’t care much, it’s a hollow victory if one at all. Cawthorn was at least ineffective. Chuck Edwards is just as awful and MAGA, he just knows to keep his mouth shut. And he knows how to get things done. 

[GreyhoundFan]

From The Washington Post: "Voters reject Cawthorn in primary: ‘Too immature and uncultured’"

Quote

As Republican voters in the Blue Ridge Mountains explained why they didn’t choose Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-N.C.) in Tuesday’s primary, one nagging thing was on their minds.

“He’s proven himself to be too immature to handle the job,” said Mike Eberhardt, a 78-year-old retired wildlife biologist and registered Republican who voted for Cawthorn when he first ran in 2020. “He doesn’t show up for votes in Congress. He just speeds around the country.”

“I don’t know the kid, but he’s a kid, and that may be what the problem is,” said Joey Reece, 66, a retired Drug Enforcement Administration agent and registered Republican who voted for Donald Trump twice. “You’ve got to earn a second chance.”

Soon after the polls closed on Tuesday night in North Carolina’s 11th District, it became clear the 26-year-old would lose after serving one term.

Before the race was officially called by the Associated Press, Cawthorn reached out to state Sen. Chuck Edwards to concede, surprising several House GOP aides who assumed the fiery freshman would take his cue from former president Donald Trump and declare the election was stolen from him. Especially because it was a close contest: Edwards edged Cawthorn by roughly 2 percentage points with nearly all the votes in.

The listless mood was reflected Tuesday night at Cawthorn’s campaign headquarters, where the crowd was small and subdued. Cawthorn emerged two hours after the polls closed, showing Edwards in the lead. The Republican was characteristically defiant, telling supporters he would be victorious amid a “very close” race.

Just minutes later, the campaign began to tell the media that Cawthorn had called Edwards to concede.

“Congratulations to @ChuckEdwards4NC on securing the nomination tonight,” Cawthorn wrote on Twitter shortly before midnight. “It’s time for the NC-11 GOP to rally behind the Republican ticket to defeat the Democrats’ nominee this November.”

It was a moment of triumph not just for Edwards but also for a cast of prominent North Carolina Republicans who have been working behind the scenes to oust Cawthorn.

And it was a moment of defeat for Trump after he re-upped his endorsement of Cawthorn over the weekend, asking voters to “give Madison a second chance” following his “foolish mistakes.” But instead voters made the freshman the second U.S. House incumbent to lose this tumultuous election cycle and put a black mark on Trump’s endorsement record.

“Technically this is the sixth or seventh chance,” Sen. Thom Tillis (R), who backed Edwards, said in response. Cawthorn “hasn’t learned from a mistake he’s made over the last year. ... at a certain point this becomes a pattern of behavior.”

Voters also were not persuaded by the former president’s pitch.

“It didn’t mean anything to me, because right now I think Trump is very busy, and I think he relies too much on his handlers to give him the scoop on candidates running,” said K.G. Watson, 85. “And they didn’t give him the scoop on Madison Cawthorn.”

That may be because Cawthorn has invited controversy after controversy since being sworn in 16 months ago as one of the youngest members of the U.S. House. The freshman has been accused of insider trading, office misconduct, approaching a TSA airport checkpoint twice with a gun, driving with a revoked license and breaking House floor rules. The incidents, many of them repeated, left Republicans wondering when he would learn to take responsibility for his actions.

The low point for Cawthorn in Washington may have been when House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) publicly rebuked the freshman for falsely accusing House Republicans of partaking in orgies and using cocaine. Tillis and other GOP elected officials in the state charged that the Make America Great Again champion wasn’t paying attention to constituent needs or legislation.

Voters, it seems, had the same concerns.

“He’s too immature and uncultured to really represent this district,” added Watson, a retired attorney and Army colonel. “This is not an easy district. We’ve got a lot of needs here, and we have a lot of people that want to talk to you as a congressman. I just thought that he didn’t give it the attention that we needed.”

Returns in the 11th District showed a familiar pattern for MAGA-style lawmakers: Cawthorn did better in precincts with a smaller concentration of voters with college degrees. And Edwards outperformed him significantly in places with a higher density of female voters.

Yet a decision to first run in a different district drawn more favorably to Republicans in redistricting before refiling to run in the 11th may also have contributed to the congressman’s loss.

Numerous Republicans jumped into what appeared to be an open-seat race for the 11th District, including Cawthorn’s district chair and handpicked successor. After courts threw out that map, however, Cawthorn changed his mind and decided to run in the now-GOP-friendly 11th, prompting many voters to question him and creating a stir among local GOPers.

The incumbent also ended up in an eight-way race for the redrawn seat. Strong opposition from North Carolina Republicans was critical as they grew angry with Cawthorn’s repeated antics and pointed criticism, especially of Tillis, who he slammed as too moderate at a party gathering. That prompted Tillis’s wife to weigh in about Cawthorn’s move to switch districts.

“Republicans chose @ChuckEdwards4NC tonight because he is the embodiment of Mountain values who will fight for them every single day in Congress with honor and integrity!” Thom Tillis tweeted after Cawthorn conceded.

Tillis also slammed Cawthorn after the congressman called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky a “thug.” He endorsed Edwards shortly thereafter.

Cawthorn has blamed everyone but himself for his troubles, including so-called establishment RINOs, Republicans In Name Only, and left-wing activists for a “coordinated drip campaign” to leak his troubles to the media. Pressed on what he would tell his constituents who believe he abandoned them after switching districts only to come back, Cawthorn called the claims “baseless” and accused those who drew the maps of using their office for political gain, which he’s “sick and tired of.”

“There’s been a coordinated strike carried out by really, kind of the old establishment wing of our party, and it’s something that I think is a loser’s mentality,” Cawthorn said at his campaign headquarters moments before he conceded. “If they want to be able to pay off people from my past to try and bring up old pictures or things that happened years and years ago, I feel free to let them do that. I think the American people will see through that.”

Cody Hansen, 18, was bothered by Cawthorn bringing firearms through TSA checkpoints but saw past other controversies, casting his first ballot ever for Cawthorn.

“I think when he said that he was the first politician to grow up with the cellphone, it’s very accurate,” he said. “I understand what it’s like to be young and dumb, and I think having the capability to see someone grow through the stupid phase of their life is really going to change politics in the future.”

The N.C. Board of Elections announced historic early turnout numbers, with roughly 580,000 voters casting their ballots before Tuesday. North Carolinians have an option not available in all states — to register as an unaffiliated voter and choose which primary to vote in. Sixty-two percent of them did so in the Republican primary.

Recently the ranks of the unaffiliated have grown to become the largest group of voters, ahead of Democrats and Republicans, threatening Cawthorn’s chances.

Melissa Dowling Johnson, a left-leaning independent, is one of them.

“We get a lot of transplants,” Johnson, 56, said. “People move to this area, and they come in as a Democrat, and after they’ve lived here a little bit they realize you don’t really have a voice in local elections if you are a Democrat.”

The Hendersonville hairstylist has been unaffiliated since 2020, long before a PAC dedicated to Cawthorn’s ouster, American Muckrakers Inc., implored Democrats to re-register as unaffiliated so they could choose a Republican ballot and vote against Cawthorn in the primary. She voted for Wendy Nevarez, who earned the endorsement from American Muckrakers.

“Actually, several of my clients switched their affiliation,” Johnson said. “We just didn’t feel like he could be a voice for anybody.”

 

[smittykins]

 

[smittykins]

“No tallywhacker”—where did he think he was, Ridgemont High?

Edited May 19, 2022 by smittykins

[Cartmann99]

Spoiler

 

[AnywhereButHere]

Dark MAGA? WTF is Dark MAGA? That sounds like a really bad and terrifying anti-hero parody.

[Ozlsn]

2 hours ago, AnywhereButHere said:

Dark MAGA? WTF is Dark MAGA? That sounds like a really bad and terrifying anti-hero parody.

This new Marvel series sucks.

[Cartmann99]

The 'Dark MAGA' movement dreams of a vengeful Trump destroying his enemies, and is using 'meme warfare' to amplify its threatening vision, say experts

Quote

A burgeoning online movement known as Dark MAGA is calling for former President Donald Trump to return to power and take revenge against his enemies. 

What began as a fringe campaign posting threatening Terminator-style memes on social media is gaining traction among prominent Trump supporters such as Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene.

Experts warn that the movement, which often features white nationalist and neo-Nazi imagery, could be the latest example of the far-right online laundering extremism into the mainstream using meme warfare.

What is Dark MAGA?

Dark MAGA is a "post-alt-right online aesthetic movement" rooted in the radical pro-Trump online space, according to the Global Network on Extremism & Technology (GNET).

Memes with the Dark MAGA aesthetic frequently depict Trump in dramatic black and red-tinted images, often with laser beams shooting out of his eyes.

"A big part of the aesthetic involves memes of a God-like, authoritarian Trump getting revenge on perceived opponents," Dr. Caroline Orr Bueno, a behavioral scientist researching far-right extremism, told Insider. 

"It's an aggrieved movement centered around the idea of a vengeful return to power. They're embracing the role of the villain and stripping away any facade of decency or political correctness." 

Although not explicitly endorsed by Donald Trump, the movement appears to be gaining more mainstream support – including from Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who on May 7 posted an image with the Dark MAGA aesthetic.

Prominent far-right activists, including Jack Posobiec and Amanda Milius, have also shared similar images of themselves, helping to bring a previously fringe movement into the mainstream.

The first documented use of the #DarkMAGA hashtag on Twitter was on January 21, according to GNET, but it started to spread across social media platforms in March.  

Some of the content attached to the hashtag on Twitter depicts Trump carrying weapons, calling for the death penalty, or picturing the Trump Tower in a dramatic dystopian scene. 

Meme warfare as propaganda

The movement is deeply entrenched in "meme warfare" and internet trolling techniques common among online far-right communities, according to Tim Squirrell, head of communications and editorial at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue.

"You have to imagine meme warfare as a propaganda war that many people believe they are waging on a day-to-day basis," Squirrell told Insider. 

One of the movement's goals appears to be to "unite disparate factions of right-wing extremism," which largely fractured following the infamous Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, 2017, where white supremacists were observed chanting "You will not replace us" and "Jews will not replace us, says Squirrell.

At the same rally, James Alex Fields Jr., an avowed white supremacist, drove his car into a group of anti-racism protesters, killing 32-year-old Heather Heyer.

Its other goal is to "expose more mainstream Trump-supporting conservatives to the most extreme narratives, icons, imagery, and people," Squirrell said.

The Global Network on Extremism & Technology said many images feature far-right symbols, including Nazi sun wheels, swastikas, and wolfsangels, which threaten violence or revenge.

GNET analyzed about 4,000 memes associated with Dark MAGA, and within a subset of 100 memes found, 38 portrayals of Donald Trump, 12 overt Nazi symbols, 9 US flags, and four references to QAnon. 

According to Orr, the Dark MAGA aesthetic is inspired by accelerationist/neo-Nazi movements and iconography, including fashwave, terrorwave, and the so-called "skull mask network."

With Marjorie Taylor Greene, an elected congresswoman, and other prominent Trump supporters engaging with and amplifying Dark MAGA, it is bringing a previously fringe movement into the mainstream.

"Marjorie Taylor Greene has a history of – I guess the technical term for it is shitposting – saying really provocative stuff as a mechanism for gaining attention for riling up the 'libs,' for dividing opinion amongst the MAGA caucus," Squirrell said.

When asked by Insider why Greene shared the image and whether she endorsed the Dark MAGA movement, her spokesperson Nick Dyer responded: "You are a Blue Anon conspiracy theorist."

Squirrell noted that this type of movement is typically "cloaked in about five layers of irony."

"So if you point it out, you always run the risk of people saying, "well, that's not what I'm doing, you shouldn't take this so seriously, what's wrong with you?" he said. "But it's a serious movement. It has serious people behind it. It has serious money behind it."

Greene's image has gained over 50,000 likes and nearly 20,000 replies and quote retweets– some of them supportive, some critical.

"Outrage generation" is a common tactic in the online far-right playbook, Squirrell explained, who often use over-the-top memes rhetoric designed to provoke a backlash, which generates high engagement and amplifies their content.

Some noted on social media that Anthony Scarramucci, Trump's former White House director of communications, also had an image of himself with lasers coming out of his eyes as his Twitter profile picture.

In a phone call with Insider, Scaramucci said that he had uploaded the photo a year ago as part of an unrelated inside joke with people in the crypto-currency community.

He said he removed the image on May 7th after "lunatics from the right-wing fascist community" posted similar photos.

Dark MAGA could further radicalize an already radical movement 

Whether or not Dark MAGA is a cause for concern will depend on how successful it is at gaining mainstream support, according to Squirrell.

"The worry is that it further radicalizes an already fairly radical movement," he said.

"Anything which attempts to legitimize political violence, which attempts to say that Trump should take no prisoners and that he should be engaging in quite Machiavellian action is dangerous."

The movement capitalizes on Trump supporters' "deep resentment" over various perceived injustices, ranging from the myth that the 2020 election was stolen to fears about the shifting demographics of the US population, according to Orr.

She said that the Dark MAGA revenge narrative underscores the dangers of the continued propagation of the stolen election myth by Trump and much of the Republican Party. 

"I also think the movement indicates that they have no intentions to play by the rules, so we should expect more events like January 6," Orr said.