Republican implosion

| 12:01 pm EST January 25, 2021
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Several new members of Congress took their places following the November 2020 election. Some states chose to send, for lack of a better word, wacky representatives who appear to dwell in or around the QAnon world, including Madison Cawthorn (R-NC). Cawthorn has disavowed QAnon, but a USA Today article from August revealed that Cawthorn believed and repeated QAnon “sex slave” stories. Whatever possessed these people to believe these crazy conspiracy theories may be mind-boggling, but the fact that they have seats in our government is frankly frightening. These same people trying to illegally prevent President Biden from taking office is ridiculous, and Madison Cawthorn is one of the worst.

CNN’s Pamela Brown conducted an interesting interview with Cawthorn. Trying to justify his vote against certifying the election, Cawthorn called ballot drop boxes in Madison, Wisconsin “ballot harvesting,” but Brown was having none of it. She reminded him that those issues had been litigated: “You know the Trump campaign litigated all of this—more than 60 cases, and they lost.” Cawthorn tried pushing back, saying that was one of three cases that were never heard because they lacked standing. News flash, Cawthorn: “Standing” is a legal issue that allows a case to go forward. When Cawthorn admitted he had seen no evidence of fraud, Brown said, “So, you wanted to throw out millions of votes without seeing any concrete evidence of fraud? Because that’s what you were doing when you contested the election.” Cawthorn claimed that was not his intent; his intent was to uphold the Constitution.

Cawthorn’s responses were laughable, and his most egregious claim related to changes in election rules in other states. Incredibly, when Brown pointed out that his own state of North Carolina made similar changes because of the pandemic, Cawthorn responded: “I’m not aware of the laws that were changed inside of North Carolina.” Think about that. Cawthorn does not know what is happening in his own state, but he objected to rule changes in other states. This tells you that his actions were not devised to uphold the Constitution. He is a complete idiot. Yet, he now claims he acknowledges President Biden’s victory and wants to work with him.

Where people like Cawthorn came from and how they got elected will remain a mystery. If, however, they continue to refuse to accept the truth and move forward with relief for Americans, they may find themselves in the boat with other one-term lawmakers. CBS News believes this turnabout reflects the will of these lawmakers’ constituents. In a letter published by CBS News, 16 other Republicans joined with Cawthorn to indicate their intent to and goal of working with President Biden, stating in pertinent part: “ … we hope that we can rise above the partisan fray to negotiate meaningful change for Americans across the nation …” The ball is and always has been in their court. President Biden came into office asking for unity, which many of them fought. Perhaps the voices of their constituents are finally being heard by them.