House Republican Madison Cawthorn flames out

| 10:10 pm EST January 24, 2021
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The so-called party of personal responsibility is encased in a tomb of doublethink. They have conflated the authority bestowed upon them by the will of the people with their own self-interest.

This is evident in the twisting rationalizations offered by the instigators of the January 6th insurrection. Freshman Republican Rep. Madison Cawthorn is one such example, telling CNN’s Pamela Brown “I think I would say that the election was not fraudulent. You know, the Constitution allowed for us to be able to push back as much as we could and I did that to the amount of the constitutional limits that I had at my disposal. So now I would say that Joseph R. Biden is our president.”

But Cawthorn and the like abused their authority when they attempted to discard nearly 10 million legally-cast votes without any justification whatsoever.

Our elected leaders are entrusted with many awesome powers. The government can impose taxes, seize property, imprison citizens, and even wage war. But these powers are not absolute. They were never intended to be wielded without constraint, conscience, or accountability.

A recent occupant of the White House often claimed the “absolute right” to dismiss federal employees, issue pardons, and even detain asylum seekers at our borders. These are not “rights,” which belong to individuals. Rather they are powers of the office which are bound by accountability to the electorate.

Mitch McConnell is sly enough not to say it out loud, but he also believes he can do anything “within the rules” without justification. He was demoted to the minority, yet clings to the last shards of power through a dog-in-the-manger refusal to agree to basic ground rules. He is holding our government hostage to preserve his fractured death grip on power. These so-called leaders have abused their authority. They must now face the consequences.