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“First-term U.S. Rep. Madison Cawthorn lost his Republican primary race [last] Tuesday to state Sen. Chuck Edwards… Cawthorn faced negative publicity for speeding and gun violations, as well as for calling Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy a ‘thug.’ He also infuriated fellow Republicans in Congress when he alleged on a podcast that he had been invited to an orgy in Washington.” AP News
Following his loss, Cawthorn posted on Instagram that “The time for genteel politics as usual has come to an end. It’s time for the rise of the new right, it’s time for Dark MAGA to truly take command. We have an enemy to defeat, but we will never be able to defeat them until we defeat the cowardly and weak members of our own party. Their days are numbered. We are coming.” Instagram
Both sides are critical of Cawthorn’s record:
“Among [Cawthorn’s] more notable transgressions: He has been cited (twice) in recent months for trying to board a plane with a gun. He has been busted twice for driving with a revoked license. He has been accused of sexual misconduct by multiple women and of having an inappropriate relationship with a male aide. He has brazenly lied about his background, including key details of the 2014 car crash that left him with limited use of his legs. He is facing accusations of insider trading…
“But wait! There’s more! Mr. Cawthorn has said nasty things about Volodymyr Zelensky, even as the Ukrainian president struggles to defend his nation from the butchery of Vladimir Putin. Cheering the not-guilty verdict in the trial of Kyle Rittenhouse, the teenager who killed two people during the unrest after the police shooting of a Black man in Kenosha, Wis., Mr. Cawthorn urged his social media followers to ‘be armed, be dangerous.’ And he has been among the most aggressive, irresponsible peddlers of Mr. Trump’s election-fraud lies, at one point warning that if America’s election systems ‘continue to be rigged’ and ‘stolen,’ the result can only be ‘bloodshed.’… America is better off without Mr. Cawthorn in Congress.”
Michelle Cottle, New York Times
“Just a sampling of Cawthorn’s misdeeds, since he entered Congress, reads like a cheap thug’s rap sheet. He has been stopped by airport security for attempting to bring a gun through, twice. He’s been stopped for driving with a revoked license, and is charged with that violation. He’s brought disgrace to his party, and to the institution of Congress, through his crude behavior, and accusations of others inviting him to orgies and drug-infused parties…
“The 26-year-old Cawthorn rode to prominence as a good-looking, wheelchair-bound young man with a story of overcoming challenges. He spoke well and even I believed he had potential after his appearance at the Republican National Convention. But character has a way of displaying itself in even the most publicly curated individuals.”
Steve Berman, Racket News
Other opinions below.
“There are new (or perhaps simply resurgent) ideological currents roiling conservatism, and the Republican Party by extension. It is possible, and, indeed, important to represent them without damaging our civic order. Which is an additional reason to be dissatisfied with Cawthorn’s conduct…
“Are there legitimate questions to be asked about U.S. involvement in Ukraine? Yes. Is the Ukrainian government ‘incredibly evil’ and Volodymr Zelensky a ‘thug,’ as Cawthorn contended? No. Is it reasonable for states to end pandemic-era voting accommodations and otherwise reform their voting systems? Yes. Should they do so under the threat of ‘bloodshed’ if they don’t, as Cawthorn insinuated? No…
“It’s easy and, indeed, necessary to chastise Cawthorn, given this record, and to be glad voters in his district had the good sense to remove him. But in this case, it is not only their good they are serving… His time in office has made it clear that the kind of public celebrity he sought and received would never help him manage or move past what ails him. Such a process is best undertaken away from the public eye, in the company of friends, family, and with whatever care he needs.”
Jack Butler, National Review
“Yes, his own party’s leadership had enough of his behavior and so rejected him. But recall that Cawthorn himself once tried to reject his own voters: At one point he wanted to change his congressional district to root out ‘Never Trumpers.’ The vicissitudes of redistricting actually lowered his electoral chances in his adopted district, and his 11th District voters didn’t like being cast aside by their young star, even if he claimed he was only doing it to serve the MAGA cause.”
Jim Swift, The Bulwark
“Cawthorn wasn’t taken down as part of some ideological course correction or a trimming of Trump-era excess… Cawthorn’s biggest sin was simply attacking other Republicans and making life difficult for their ideological project…
“In March, he implied, in an interview with an obscure podcast, that other members of Congress—Republicans, presumably, since no Democrat would give him the time of day, let alone party with him—had offered him cocaine and invited him to orgies. Cawthorn was, at this point, still leading in the polls, despite the emergence of several primary challengers…
“But after the cocaine and orgies allegation, the race started to shift, in large part because Republicans called in the code red: attacking—and spending big—to defeat him… He lost because he was immature and screwed up and because he said his colleagues were doing drugs and having group sex. But his loss is very much the exception to the larger trends currently unfolding.”
Alex Shephard, New Republic
“At its core, Dark MAGA is a Pinterest mood-board exercise for young white nationalists who demand that Trump embrace fascist symbolism in his second term. It is also aspirational fan fiction––à la the America depicted in Philip K. Dick’s novel The Man in the High Castle, in which the U.S. is incorporated into the Third Reich… Much of the movement’s ideology is masked with multiple layers of irony, but in one ‘#DarkMAGA’ post, an apparent proponent of the movement wrote that Dark MAGA calls for ‘Torture, nuclear holocaust, genocide, extermination.’ It is unclear if Cawthorn is aware of the meme’s origins, or if a sanitized version trickled into his social media feeds.”
Caleb Acarma, Vanity Fair
