Madison Cawthorn is a Republican member of Congress from North Carolina. He was elected last fall when he was only 24, the youngest person ever elected to Congress. He spoke at the Trump rally that preceded the violent siege of Congress on January 6. He is to the very far-right of the Republican Party. He uses a wheelchair due to an automobile accident that almost took his life. He is considered a rising star in the Republican Party, due to his good looks and his rightwing bona fides.
Here are a few things you should know about him, drawn from a profile in Salon.
He was home-schooled. “According to his own claims in a sworn deposition, his work experience as recently as two years before his congressional run was limited to a job at Chick-fil-A, along with a part-time gig in a district office of former Rep. Mark Meadows.” He claimed that he planned to enter the Naval Academy but that he lost his chance because of the accident that almost killed him, but he was rejected by the Naval Academy before his accident. He enrolled in Patrick Henry College but dropped out after a semester. He was a protege of Mark Meadows, but ran against Mark Meadows’ hand-picked successor and beat her.
Cawthorn’s relationship with Mark Meadows and the Meadows family has shaped some of the most formative moments of the young conservative’s life, including the 2014 car accident that left him partially paralyzed and in a wheelchair. Indeed, in the four years between 2013 and 2017, Meadows recommended Cawthorn for the U.S. Naval Academy; had his son, Blake Meadows, find a Florida attorney to handle Cawthorn’s insurance case; hired Cawthorn in his congressional office; and apparently played a role in helping Cawthorn gain admission to Patrick Henry College, which he attended for just one semester, before dropping out with a self-reported D average.
Cawthorn entered Patrick Henry College in the fall of 2016, where he quickly managed to get a bad reputation for preying on young women. “Last October, weeks before the general election, more than 150 of Cawthorn’s former fellow students at Patrick Henry — roughly half the school’s total student body — wrote a letter alleging that his during his brief stint there he had engaged in “sexually predatory behavior,” lied habitually and committed vandalism.“
Cawthorn apparently has altered his resume to make claims about his achievements that don’t stand up to scrutiny. In an article in The Nation, Sarah Luterman wrote about his habit of inflating his role in the Paralympics. Cawthorn has said that he was training for the 2020 Paralympics Games, now delayed until 2021, but Luterman interviewed several accomplished paralympians, and they threw cold water on Cawthorn’s boasts.
Cawthorn frequently said on social media that he was “training” for the Paralympic Games. Technically, such a statement could be true—but only in the sense that I could be training for the Olympic Games. “It’s like a kid saying they want to play in the NBA when they’re on their fourth-grade basketball team,” said Amanda McGrory, a three-time Paralympian who has earned seven medals in track and field. Cawthorn stated on the Christian inspirational podcast The Heal, “I had an opportunity for the Paralympics for track and field.” He did not have that opportunity, nor does it appear he took any meaningful steps that would have led him there.
Paralympians are the best at what they do. Qualifying is a long, complicated process. In addition to being a Paralympian, McGrory is the archivist and collections curator for the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee. She told me: “You have to be involved in a team, usually your college or a local club. And then from there, you establish times at qualifying races, and then from there you get scouted.” Patrick Henry College, which Cawthorn attended for a semester before dropping out, doesn’t have a disabled sports program.
In addition to not being on a team, Cawthorn does not appear to have competed in any qualifying races. Robert Kozarek, a former elite wheelchair marathoner, said he would have met Cawthorn at some point if he had been serious competition. Kozarek himself never qualified for the Paralympic Games. “The community itself is small. There’s probably 50 [elite wheelchair racers] in the entire country, and we see each other four, five, six times a year, at least.”
Cawthorn is a worthy addition to the Republican Party’s growing number of extremists, who feel they can say anything and get away with it. Unfortunately, the Republican leadership appointed him to the House Education and Labor Committee, despite his lack of formal education and character.
I feel sorry for whoever is chairing this committee with Cawthorn and Greene as Republican members who will do nothing to contribute any good ideas to the work of the committee. Only sabotage is what they have to offer.
For pity’s sake, the GOP mass produces these horrible lying, deceiving, incompetent and twisted far right wing nutters the way Jimmy Dean produces sausages.
His visit to Adolf Hitler’s vacation home in 2017 had been on his bucket list. Just saying.
As much as we dislike standardized testing for students, I am beginning to believe that anyone running for public office should be required to pass a civics/history test. After the experience with Trump and some of comments of the “know nothings” in Congress, we should be setting the bar for public office a bit higher. Any wacko or opportunist with a bullhorn or funded by dark money can worm their way into governance. At the very least they should understand how government operates, what their responsibilities are and something about the country they will be serving. Cawthorne is one such self-promoter. Cawthorne has a “pattern of predatory behavior,” and he is likely emboldened by his financial adviser father.
People voted for him.
People fed a steady diet of lies and conspiracy theories may not always use sound judgment
They know they are being fed lies. When a moment arises that the truth crosses paths with the lies ;they shut it out.
“Trump has remade the Republican Party into a white supremacist cult living within a counter-factual wonderland of lies and conspiracies.” Robert Reich
yup
Totally with you on this, RT. Minimal competence required.
The danger, of course, is who shall decide which candidate is competent. In Iran, for example, it is the religious authorities who decide who can run for election.
It seems to me that occasional idiots in office is a small price to pay to avoid tyranny.
Right now, there are a staggering number of idiots in office. Tuberville of Alabama is probably the dumbest man in the Senate.
It seems that the Republican leadership does not know what to do with people like Cawthorne and Greene so that throw them in the House Education and Labor Committee. Neither have any understanding education and are apparently useless in any other committee. It is clear Republicans do not give a damn about improving the education of our children. Guess they want to keep the next generation of voter dumb and ignorant so it is easier to control the masses.
A contrast between the parties:
Democrats put Jahana Hayes, CT teacher of the year, on the House Education and Labor Commottee.
Democrats appointed Jamaal Bowman, experienced middle school principal from The Bronx, on house Educationnand Labor Committee.
Republicans put Marjorie Taylor Greene, QAnon extremist who believes that the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012 and the massacre at Parkland, Florida, in 2018 were staged by professional actors.
Republicans appointed Madison Cawthorne, just elected from North Carolina to the House Education And Labor Committee. Cawthotne was homeschooled and has no college diploma. He dropped out of Patrick Henry College after one semester with a D average.
People like Greene and Cawthorne are put on the education committee to disrupt the proceedings. Many of today’s Republicans reject the notion of the common good.
And it’s not just those two. Burgess Owen who just beat out Ben McAdams (the son of a teacher) has been put on the committee too. He’s not quite as crazy as Greene and Cawthorne, but close
Ah, Burgess Owen. A rightwing Trumpster.
He’s black but will not join the Black Congressional Caucus.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burgess_Owens#Political_positions
Even Mia Love, as right wing as she was, joined the CBC
The right wing evangelicals keep trying! It was supposed to be Josh Duggar but he messed up and got caught in his sex scandal. This time they decided to put forth someone who could garner the “pity” vote….a good looking Ken doll in a wheelchair with a sob story. How low can they go?
Lisa,
You are so right!
Madison is a Ken doll. Perfect.
Is Marjorie Taylor Greene the grown-up Barbie?
I don’t think of Marjorie as a Barbie doll….she’s too loud mouthed and crass. Kelly Loeffler is a Barbie doll.
It’s a stretch to call her “grown-up,” Diane.
More like regressed…and insane.
This is what Trump begat. His very spawn and DNA. We now have two second generation Republican crackpots sitting on the House Education and Labor Committee.
Mad Caw, an up and coming degenerate, has a seat at the table. Despite his near-death accident, he never lost his ability to abuse women. He knew God spared him for a reason. Perhaps now, he can continue to lie and fondle his soul mate on the committee, Marjorie Taylor-Green.
Yes, she who has doubtlessly read, underlined and re-read copies of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which lit her path to the Book of QAnon. Surely, the Almighty put her here to end the Jewish conspiracy for world domination. She has now become MSNBC’s all-day Breaking News story, so all its viewers can soak in her venom. Leave it to cable to make this its through line.
Where have you gone Betsy DeVos? You were foolish enough to believe that teachers should be armed after children and they too were killed at Sandy Hook. But she knew the whole incident was staged. I hope and pray the day comes when a real educator, a Black man, a committee member, Jamaal Bowman crushes her.
I must say that her stand-up routine about the imagined Soros space laser was high comedy!
Aie yie yie. What rock to the Repugnicans find these people under?
Madison Cawthorne is a perfect candidate to switch parties and join Trump’s Loyalist Party if Trump the serial liar actually launches his own party he wants to misname the Patriot Party.
Along with Cawthorne, Trump will certainly have other Lying-Loyalist Republicans switch to his Red MAGA banner.
“The ‘thugs’ that stormed the Capital just joined a long list of others”
… “The activities that America and the world witnessed did not happen in a vacuum or overnight. Trump’s thugs reacted to the cumulative build-up of rhetoric from a long list of more powerful thugs who have leaned heavily into Trump’s divisive and racist rhetoric over the last four years. A few of them are in Congress, like Trump-enablers Sens.
Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), who refused to concede to their pronouncements of election fraud hours after a failed coup of Congress orchestrated by their leader. There are Sens. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) and other Republican leaders who sided often with Trump’s insatiable appetite for power and lack of empathy for America’s more vulnerable populations, especially people of color.” …
https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2021/01/08/the-thugs-that-stormed-the-capitol-just-joined-a-long-list-of-others/
Trump does not need to start his own party. Kevin McCarthy and Mitch McConnell have reassured him that the Republican Party belongs to Trump.
Footage of the Trump and McCarthy meeting!
Trump lap dog, Matt Gaetz, took a trip to Wyoming to bash Liz Cheney because she refused to show loyalty to “The Don.”
It will be interesting to see whether the people of Wyoming stick with the Cheney family or the Trump crime family.
I would think that the Cheney’s have their own loyal constituents who will stand by their “man/woman”.
This guy sounds like a nut head. Hopefully a flash in the pan like Sarah Palin.
The Charlotte Observer begs to agree:
https://www.charlotteobserver.com/opinion/editorials/article248826769.html
Great editorial!
Could it be that Trump has spawned a legion of mini-hims… a possibly disastrous, locus-like plague of comic book villains come to life that is being set upon us to wreak havoc -for real?
It reminds me of the 1950s science fiction film “Them” about preposterous, giant ants that threaten to breed and explode en masse from the sewers of L.A.
Or, murder hornets, as it were…another “highlight” of 2020. What if they got loose on America?
Perhaps Invasion of the Body Snatchers is a better analogy.
I’m talking to someone who seems perfectly reasonable then they go off about COVID vaccines having microchips secreted in by Bill Gates or some other insanity like that.
Or Marjorie Taylor Greene saying that rich Jews caused the fires in California by use of a laser beam, which then led to profits….?
That one’s really disturbing. In the same vein as the stories that circulated in Europe before Hitler.
Hate to tell you, Bob, but those types of stories have circulated for 2 millennia. And the whole Q Anon “drinking blood of babies” is the Blood Libel Antisemitic garbage that has been around for centuries.
It would creep the shit out of Taylor-Greene to learn that her paternal great grandfather was 50% Cherokee, and her maternal grandmother was 25% Jewish. According to rabbinic law this makes her Jewish. Good Shabbos, Marjorie.
Oy vey. No way.
TOW,
you are right. Qanon has revived the age-old “blood libel” against Jews used in the Middle Ages as a prompt for a massacre.
I read recently that Marjorie Taylor Greene accused Hillary Clinton of tearing the face off a baby and using it as her own.
Where do these people come from?
I don’t get why anybody was there on January 6! I’m a teacher in Clearwater Florida and I teach in central panel is County Florida.what’s wrong with those people just going to ask it straight up.. Thank thank God I’m 1000 miles away from those idiots.
Enjoyed visiting your blog, West Coast. The piece about Santa in Florida was hilarious! LOL. Proud Tampon here (that would be a resident of Tampa).
Thank you for visiting me the proper name of my blog is find me in Florida.
Glad to see some new blood around here
I have family in Florida that I visit almost every year and when I do I shop at Publix….. not any more:
Fred Guttenberg
@fred_guttenberg Jan 30 This is a must read thread on
@Publix
The news on the money to fund the insurrection is not new behavior. As a reminder, there are many alternatives to shop at.
Quote Tweet
Andrew Weinstein
@Weinsteinlaw
· Jan 30
Just a reminder that Publix refused to donate to the Parkland victims fund but contributed $100K to @GovRonDeSantis right before he gave Publix the sole rights to distribute the COVID-19 vaccine. twitter.com/ericliptonnyt/…
Show this thread
Thank you for doing this blog greatly appreciated. I will come back to read it. I have a BLOG. Findmeinflorida.org
My take, from another proud Floridian!
https://bobshepherdonline.wordpress.com/2019/05/05/why-you-should-move-to-florida/
I only talk this way because I do, in fact, love this state. It’s a wacky one!
To get serious, again. I’m afraid everything that’s going on may make the last 4 years look like a walk in the park, & G-d help us when we get to the four that will follow.
Again, crazy news every day.
Michael Moore needs to write Dude, Where’s My Country, Part II.
Comeuppance is a word that best fits with that punk. He’s like a dude who wasn’t even qualified for TFA bootcamp.
Just after a murderous mob of armed insurrectionists took over our nation’s Capitol building, I posted two pictures, side by side, on Facebook. One showed a double row of police in full riot gear standing on the Capitol steps at a BLM protest. The other showed a couple police in regular uniforms in the same place on the Capitol steps just prior to the attack on the Capitol. Facebook flagged the post and sent me a warning, saying that my post didn’t provide context.
So, here’s some ****** context: 402 years of white supremacist racism on these shores.
Nothing proves the case better than the two contrasting images.
Powerful! Thanks, Bob.
Representative democracy usually means that people elect qualified people to represent them in Congress, with the authority and confidence of the people to do the right thing. Now, representative democracy means we send representations of ourselves, a nation where 67% tothree fourths of 4h, 8th and 12th graders, since 1990, cannot read to grade (National Association for Educational Progress). We have a nation three fourths illiterate and the illiterate are sending illiterates to govern. And we want to compete with China and Europe.
Your representation of NAEP scores is 100% wrong. NAEP levels are not grade levels. NAEP scores are the highest now than they have ever been. They are far higher today than in 1980 or 1990. They have been flat since 2010,despite or because of constant meddling by politicians and ignorant billionaires.
It is not “illiterates…sending illiterates to govern.” It is moneyed, selfish interests that provide the cynical funds that allow them to skew political discourse. And if you have been paying attention, you’d know that elevating ignorance, whether the candidates are stupid or not, is an American tradition. It began with Aaron Burr and continued through the Know-Nothing Party, the reaction against Reconstruction and Jim Crow, Huey Long, Father Coughlin and America First, Joe McCarthy, George Wallace, Nixon and the Southern Strategy, Ronald Reagan and the grift of trickle down, and the Idiot, just to cite a few examples. Illiterates sending illiterates is too simplistic and self-satisfying, uneducated even.
Oh, and the so-called tea party. Never forget that one to help explain the mess we’re in. Funded by the Koch brothers and assorted billionaires, the same ones trying to privatize education and make it a commodity they can manipulate.
Fareed Zakaria is doing a special tonight on CNN at 9 pm EST about where this extremism got started. He traces it to Newt Gingrich.
I completely agree that the current strain of political catastrophe can be traced back to the 1994 midterm election. It was when Gingrich reached his ascendancy using the idiotic Contract with America. I was recently reminded of this after reading a biography of Jack Brooks, who was arguably the most important scalp taken. As it recounts accurately, Clinton’s missteps in the first two years of his administration did much to feed Gingrich’s assault. Had Clinton listened to Brooks, things might have been different. I’ve got lots of personal stories from that time, but won’t bore you with them.
I don’t want to compete with anyone. I want what’s best for their children, too.
This fails to surprise anyone who saw Rick “let’s see…. what’s that 3rd agency…” Perry assigned to lead the Energy Department. A home-schooled fraud and a violent Q-infected seditionist to help lead American education? In today’s Republican Party? – Abso….f…..lutely!
YUP. Vlad’s Agent Orange appointed to head every department and agency someone committed to destroying it. Like Ricky.
SNL…. Government doesn’t work (Marjorie Taylor Greene).
I read somewhere that Madison Cawthorne routinely misspells his own name.
So did I. I just updated the post to show what I believe is the correct spelling.
Foghorn Leghorn?
Meanwhile, Kevin McCarthy refuses to do anything about Marjorie Taylor Greene even after she made the insane claim that George Soros and other Jewish conspirators used a space laser to start the California wildfires. This is Protocols of the Elders of Zion-level anti-Semitic hate speech, but the Republican leadership response is, “Hey, no prob.”
It can happen here, folks.
There’s a very good reason for this. He doesn’t want to jeopardize the classified intelligence “black budget” by having to reveal funding levels for those Jewish fire starting satellite lasers. Makes tactical sense, actually.
Ah. Very diabolical, these shape-shifting reptilian Illuminati from Alpha Draconis!
Hahhahahhahahah! Perfect, Greg.
I can’t figure out how to paste a photo on WordPress, so here’s a twitter post from me. Madison Cawthone spoke at the pre-insurrection rally on January 6. This is how he was dressed. Dangerous fellow.
That’s one wimpy-looking hunting jacket!
Nazi cosplay.
Ivana Trump said that Trump kept a book of Hitler speeches on his bedside table.
I read a slight variation on that one, Diane. It was that Hillary inserted a straw into the baby’s torn up face to drink its blood, taking in some chemical present in the blood to provide youth.
And Hillary is not Jewish!
That’s what you say. Show me her birth certificate. No, no, not the one her mother fabricated!
Cawthorne is the poster child for Homeschooling.