Madison Cawthorn: behold the rotten fruit of extreme Republican gerrymandering

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

The congressman from North Carolina brandished a gun as he addressed a Macon county Republican event last weekend. “We all need to be storing up some ammunition,” Madison Cawthorn warned the crowd, as he embraced the big lie about the 2020 presidential race and insisted that “we all know it was a stolen election”.

Then, chillingly, Cawthorn conjured a second civil war being fought over his fraudulent claims. “If our election systems continue to be rigged and continue to be stolen, then it’s going to lead to one place,” Cawthorn said, “and that’s bloodshed … As much as I am willing to defend our liberty at all costs, there’s nothing I would dread doing more than having to pick up arms against a fellow American.”

We awaken every day to pillars of liberal democracy torn down, wrecked norms and ruined institutions, fresh assaults on foundational freedoms from state legislatures and runaway courts, political leaders bathed in the hateful stew of rightwing media and racing to bend a knee before an authoritarian leader who himself bowed before dictators and cared so little for his voters that he offered them bleach during a pandemic.

The roots of this fearful moment run deep: a constitutional system unprepared for a political party willing to play constitutional hardball; a Democratic party that neglected local elections while Republicans invested in a decades-long effort to capture state legislatures and the courts; winner-takes-all districts that break toward extremes under severe polarization; a nation that has never been willing to embrace multiracial democracy.

But there’s a simpler reason that Cawthorn can spew such an abhorrent incitement to violence. His extremism was created intentionally by aggressive partisan gerrymandering. Cawthorn and many of the other demagogues and conspiracy theorists who have hijacked the Republican party owe their seats to the noncompetitive districts Republicans drew themselves a decade ago. Without gerrymandering, Cawthorn would just be another loudmouth Twitter troll pumped full of Newsmax nuttiness. With it, he’s issuing a call to arms as a prominent member of an elite Washington club of 435.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/madison-cawthorn-behold-rotten-fruit-101925560.html

[Comfortably_Numb]

1. Just another tour guide encouraging tourists to visit political officials.

Scrawny little shit with a big mouth writing checks his body can’t cash.

[magicarpet]

2. Brainless Fascist Scum who lust to take up arms with their mindless brethren against the Libs.

[FBaggins]

3. That's an overly forced argument

There has to be a district covering the western part of the state and you would actually have to gerrymander in the extreme to avoid it being a safe red seat.

There are a net two seats in the state that Republicans control because they drew the lines… but the 11th isn’t one of them.