Madison Cawthorn Is a Raging Anti-Semite and Also Very Stupid
The GOP wunderkind is a religious predator who preys on members of other faiths, but he's fun, too!
I have to admit, I'm somewhat thankful for Madison Cawthorn, the GOP's new star congressman who, at 25, is set to be one of the youngest U.S. representatives in history.
Cawthorn, who managed to get himself elected despite – or, these days, perhaps because of — calling Hitler "the Fuhrer" during a visit to Adolf's German vacation home (he said it had "been on my bucket list for awhile") and using his website to attack New Jersey Sen. Corey Booker as someone "who aims to ruin white males running for office" (he later insisted it was simply a "syntax error"), is clearly the sort of straight shootin' son-of-a-gun the Republican Party can rally around these days. Which is why, when he does an anti-Semitism, he doesn't couch it in the transparently bullshit guise of targeting "globalists" or "Soros." No sir, that's a coward's bigotry, and Cawthorn is no coward. You have to appreciate it.
In a just-published interview with the Jewish Insider, Cawthon was asked whether he'd ever converted Jewish people to Christianity, as a follow up to his earlier assertion that "you’re probably not really a Christian" unless you go out proselytizing.
“I have, unsuccessfully. I have switched a lot of, uh, you know, I guess, culturally Jewish people," he reportedly answered with a laugh. "But being a practicing Jew, like, people who are religious about it, they are very difficult. I’ve had a hard time connecting with them in that way.”
Ha ha ha ha. A hilarious jape.
To be perfectly clear, this is the sort of anti-Semitism that's so blatant and unapologetic, it can, paradoxically, be easy for some to miss as such. The codewords and dog-whistles people have trained themselves to identify aren't at play here, and in their absence is Cawthorn's straightforward admission he doesn't consider anyone who doesn't go out and try to end Judaism as a religion to be a Christian.
Oh, and don't worry, it's not just Jews either. According to Insider, Cawthorn had to be actively convinced to allow the paper to publish the fact that he had read the Quran (I leave it to you to draw your own conclusions as to why he was embarrassed to say he'd read one of the world's foundational religious texts) in an effort to make it easier for him to convert Muslims to Christianity.
"The thing I found when I was actually reading through the Quran is that Christianity — that is a very easy switch to make to lead a Muslim to Christ," he explained, adding later that he'd successfully converted "several Muslims to Christ because of that."
This is all fine and good because, as Cawthorn bragged in regards to his own upbringing: "My family is a bunch of true frickin’ believers. It’s Christians that are, like, fun to be around, too."
Whew, he's like, a religious predator who preys on members of other faiths, but he's fun to be around, too!
Lest Cawthorn's various ultra-Christian attempts to erase other faiths worry you that he might not be such a great guy to be writing America's laws, don't you worry. He's also incredibly grounded and has a strong sense of his place in this country's narrative arc.
"I’m a lover of history," he bragged to Insider while discussing being in the House for his congressional orientation. "It’s incredible to be in a place where we had the vote to decide to have the Emancipation Proclamation, where we decided to go to World War II, where the civil rights battles were fought."
Does Cawthorn, lover of history that he is, know that the Emancipation Proclamation was an executive order issued by Lincoln that never got a vote in the house? Does he think the battles for civil rights were fought (past tense) only on the storied battlefields between the congressional cloakrooms and the podium, and not in the streets of Birmingham and the lunch counters in Greensboro? Who can say, really?
Fortunately, Cawthorn also has a coherent and extremely understandable political mission statement, which he shared in the interview.
Please, follow along if you can:
I think kind of an overarching value you can say is freedom, but it’s more just strong conservative ideas, but delivered empathetically, that also take into account that not everybody has the same life or lifestyle or the same experiences and we need to do the best we can for everybody. But there are certain people in our community we need to cater to, which is not a hugely winning argument among the deep red conservative base. But really, my accident really showed me that there are people who struggle with some things that you just can’t know about unless you’ve lived it. And so that’s my big message.
Profound. Inspiring. Truly we're dealing with a new kind of Republican who has really put some thought into coming up with new ideas like conservatism... but with empathy – Something I assume means doing stuff like taking the time to actually wave to the small children in cages before deporting them without their parents. You know, so they understand that you care.
When it comes to this freshmen class of incoming GOP thud-brains, Cawthorn looks like he's gonna fit right in.