On New Year’s Day, 48 hours before now-Congressman Madison Cawthorn was sworn into the U.S. House of Representatives, he got a Twitter shoutout from Donald Trump for a video he shared.
In the video, the 25-year-old stares at the camera straight-on as he details his plans to object to Wednesday’s Electoral College result certification.
His tone is serious and his words unwaveringly ultranationalist as he suggests he is doing this for the Republic, that it will fall into tyranny if he doesn’t.
“Do not let your vote get canceled by these bastards,” Cawthorn says.
Everything he says is inaccurate, despite his taunts to viewers to fact-check him. The News & Observer actually took him up on it: the “thousands” of “recent” criminal convictions for fraud votes were actually less than 1,000 spanning 69 years, from the Cold War’s early years to Trump’s first year in office. The other comments were baseless and have been repeatedly debunked.
Five North Carolina Republican congressmen—Cawthorn, Ted Budd, Richard Hudson, David Rouzer, and Greg Murphy—have all released statements that they will be baselessly rejecting the 2020 election results. They reason that widespread yet totally undiscovered voter fraud gives them no choice but to reject the results from states they don’t represent.
“I have a hard time believing our Founders intended for Congress to be a simple rubber stamp of approval for Electoral College votes put forward by the respective states,” Rouzer said in his statement. “I certainly agree that Congress’ role should be as limited as possible, but if the Founders intended a rubber stamp of approval then why didn’t they give this responsibility to an office in the Executive branch or an office in the Legislative branch?”
While the objection to the election results is a fairly common symbolic gesture, the Washington Post reports that it’s uncommon for U.S. Senators to play along (as 12 have said they will). Of course, this means nothing when the loser has actually conceded the race. Although Trump claims Mike Pence has the right to challenge the results, it probably won’t do anything except stoke the fires of right-wing extremists using these claims as reasons to act violently and increase the ever-growing political divide in our nation.
“Not a single one of these spineless, weak Republicans can point to widespread fraud,” North Carolina Democratic Party Chairman Wayne Goodwin said in a statement. “Instead, they’re meekly going along with their tails between their legs because they’re terrified of crossing a lame-duck president so desperate to cling onto power after losing an election that he’ll attack and bully election officials from his own party, spout unfounded claims of fraud, and seek to steal a free and fair election.”The INDY reached out to the remaining Republican U.S. Senators and U.S Representatives who represent North Carolina on Monday night and midday Tuesday, hoping to learn how they feel about their colleagues’ plans and whether or not they’d be joining the mass hysteria. Two representative offices—Virginia Foxx and Patrick McHenry—gave us press secretary emails, who have not responded. Burr and Tillis haven’t responded either. Dan Bishop’s campaign said they had not yet made a formal statement, and were unable to say whether one would be released before tomorrow morning.
That means that every Republican representing North Carolina in Congress has either announced their plans to try and thwart the will of the voters and subvert our democracy or that they’ve remained silent about their intentions.
While the others may not have shared their votes tomorrow, Dan Bishop and Virginia Foxx previously signed on to Texas’ attempt to overthrow the election results. Sort of easy to assume how they’ll proceed tomorrow. Additionally, the N.C. GOP previously expressed the party’s stance on bogus election fraud claims by circulating a petition titled: “Keep Sleepy Joe and Radical Kamala out of the White House.” Pretty sure we know where they stand, too.
If you’re wondering whether these extremists can be kicked out of office, the answer is complicated. The precedents include: supporting the Confederacy (which booted 17 congressmen), taking Mafia money, taking money for political asylum, and plotting against the government… of Spain. So yes, they could be if they did something illegal and two-thirds of each legislature says yes. The likelihood of that happening? Basically zero.
Thankfully, all of the North Carolina reps in the U.S. House who are kissing Trump’s ass by objecting to legitimate election results are up for re-election in 2022. Voters just reelected Senator Thom Tillis for a six-year term, and Senator Richard Burr doesn’t plan to run for reelection in 2022.
If you’re interested in contacting your representatives in Congress, here are the phone numbers for their Washington, D.C. offices. Personalizing your message gives it the best chance of heading to the right people.
Richard Burr (Senator, statewide): (202) 224-3154
Thom Tillis (Senator, statewide): (202) 224-6342
Greg Murphy (District 3): (202) 225-3415
Virginia Foxx (District 5): (202) 225-2071
David Rouzer (District 7): (202) 225-2731
Richard Hudson (District 8): (202) 225-3715
Dan Bishop (District 9): (202) 225-1976
Patrick McHenry (District 10): (202) 225-2576
Madison Cawthorn (District 11): (202) 225-6401
Ted Budd (District 13): (202) 225-4531
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Please do your job and swear in the President we voted for. That would be Biden, since ya’ll are apparently living in a fairy Trump world. Sorry for your loss! But it happened. Now be big boys and girls about, and do your job as it’s supposed to be done.