Talking About Twisting Yourself Into Knots, Can Anyone Believe In Jesus And Trump At The Same Time?

 

When I sat down on Monday morning to write this post, YouGov had just released 3 new polls for battleground states, Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania-- collectively 46 electoral votes that Trump can't afford to lose. The Elections Research Center report on the polling noted that Trump is losing more and more heavily in these states as time goes on-- and as more people vote early. By Monday morning 60,507,338 people had already voted, including 1,985,687 Michiganders, 1,461,135 Pennsylvanians and 1,344,535 Wisconsinites. Among voters who had already cast their ballots, Biden is ahead by wide margins:

• Michigan: Biden- 75%, Trump- 23%
• Pennsylvania: Biden- 87%, Trump- 9%
• Wisconsin: Biden- 73%, Trump- 26%

In all three states, Trump's hold on his racist, neo-fascist base has remained the same but a larger share of undecided voters have decided-- and they're largely voting against Trump. Also, significant numbers of voters who had been toying with voting for third-party candidates have decided to vote for Biden instead.

When the pollsters factored in voter intention of those who haven't cast their ballots yet, it's closer, of course-- but not that close:

• Michigan: Biden- 52%, Trump- 42%
• Pennsylvania: Biden- 52%, Trump- 44%
• Wisconsin: Biden- 53%, Trump- 44%

One of the demographic cohorts most likely to be sticking with Trump are poorly educated white evangelicals. On Sunday evening, Matt Kaufman, a former editor for Focus on the Family’s Citizen magazine, explained to Bulwark readers why Christians should dump Trump. A conservative Christian himself, Kaufman is offended by Trump's torrential lying and gaslighting; pathological narcissism; pettiness, bullying, and cruelty; Twitter tantrums and schoolyard name-calling; corruption and abuse of public power for private interests; assaults on institutions and standards across government and culture; admiration and emulation of dictators; derogation of public servants, statesmen, and heroes; elevation of cranks, crooks, and clowns; bizarre rants and conspiracy-mongering; shameless appeals to the ugliest instincts; blatant racism; staggering ineptitude; and sheer stupidity. And that was just the beginning! He claims there are many Christians like him-- disgusted with Trump-- who are keeping it to themselves. But most conservatives won't abandon him because they see him as the lesser evil compared to Democrats.

That’s their eternal bottom line. No matter what this president does, no matter how indefensible, the greatest dangers they see always come from the left. How can I fail to back Trump, they wonder, with those threats looming? The closer Nov. 3 comes, the more urgently some of them want to know.

...If a president is (say) an utterly amoral, unstable, incompetent, insecure egomaniac, then he’s just got to go. Likewise if he acts like an autocrat, a thug or a criminal. Or if he’s beholden to hostile foreign powers. Or if he tramples the constitutional boundaries of his office, undermines basic norms and institutions, shreds the social fabric, poisons civil discourse, promotes tribalism and sets Americans at each other’s throats. He’s. Got. To. Go.

...It’s not enough for us to behave well individually if we collectively support someone who behaves like Trump. How many people will believe we’re not motivated by hate and fear if we tie ourselves to someone who traffics in both-- someone who invites the worst elements of society to come out and play? How many will believe we are motivated by conscience if we rally behind someone who’s devoid of one? What kind of Christian witness is that to the world?

In short, how much do our political allegiances damage the faith that we’re supposed to be spreading?

In the end, this might be the most compelling reason for Christians to reject Trump. There’s no shortage of others. Yes, he’s bad for our society in so many ways. Yes, he’s bad for the very causes some of us see as reasons to support him. Above all, though, he’s bad for the cause of Christ-- in ways more destructive than an army of avowed enemies could ever be.

From a Christian’s perspective, nothing should matter more than that. And if something does-- like defeating Democrats at all times, at all costs-- then I fear we’re falling into the devil’s trap. In The Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis had some things to say about the spiritual perils of politicized Christianity-- how factionalism and partisanship can skew our priorities. See for yourself in chapter 7: Like most things Lewis wrote, it’s worth the time.

I know the partisan temptation well: I’ve felt it often enough, particularly when I was a young man. And in my line of work, I also know the temptation to focus so heavily on certain issues that you lose sight of the big picture. Breaking away from those mindsets is a long-term process that takes conscious effort. But break away we must. If the Donald Trump experience doesn’t motivate us to do it, I don’t know what will.

I'd like to ask you to consider how Kaufman's analysis fits a young candidate the Republican Party is allowing to build himself up into a superstar of their future, North Carolina Nazi Madison Cawthorn, who we've written about since his surprise primary run-off win in June for the seat vacated by far right extremist Mark Meadows. Young Cawthorn is far to the right of Meadows and he was the subject of Judd Legum's attention this week, noting that "as election day approaches, a darker side of Cawthorn has emerged." Like virtually all Nazis, Cawthorn is also a racist and a virulent white nationalist. What pisses Legum off is that Cawthorn's racism hasn't stopped some of America's most prominent corporations from backing his campaign.

[A]fter Cawthorn scored an upset, the Republican Party lined up behind Cawthorn and corporate money began to flow to his campaign. Recent corporate PAC contributions to Cawthorn's campaign include:

Popular Information contacted all ten of these entities and asked whether Cawthorn's racist attack had any impact on their support for his campaign. AT&T and Exxon Mobile acknowledged the inquiry but did not provide a response. The other entities did not respond.

Cawthorn's truth problem

Over the course of the campaign, Cawthorn has been caught lying to create a more compelling narrative for voters. One of his campaign videos, for example, says that Cawthorn "planned on serving his country in the Navy with a nomination to the U.S. Naval Academy... until tragedy struck." But in a 2017 deposition related to the car accident, Cawthorn admitted he was rejected from the Naval Academy before the auto accident.

...Pressed on his lack of experience to be a member of Congress, Cawthorn said in an October 2 interview with a local media outlet that he had worked full-time for former Congressman Mark Meadows for two years.

“I don’t have 40 years of work experience, I’m only 25 years old, but I have worked in a congressional office for two years,” Cawthorn said.

Asked if that was full-time, he responded, “Yeah, I was full time.”

That was false. Records show "Cawthorn worked part-time on Meadows’ staff from Jan. 15, 2015 to at least Aug. 1, 2016." Cawthorn's campaign acknowledged that he was not, in fact, a full-time employee. He was paid about $1300 per month. "Madison was a permanent employee for Meadows who was paid on a part-time basis because he was physically incapable of performing some normal office duties due to his accident," a Cawthorn spokesperson said.

Cawthorn also regularly describes himself as a real estate investor and public speaker. But his financial disclosure, filed in March as a requirement of his candidacy, lists no income from either vocation. The form does not list any earned income from any source.

Multiple women allege Cawthorn made "unwanted sexual advances"

While Cawthorn was not accepted by the Naval Academy, he did attend Patrick Henry College for about a year. Ten of Cawthorn’s former classmates authored a letter this month condemning Cawthorn for his “gross misconduct towards our female peers” during his time as a college student.

During his brief time at the college, Cawthorn established a reputation for predatory behavior… Cawthorn would take young women to secluded areas, lock the doors, and proceed to make unwanted sexual advances. It became a regular warning in the female dorms not to be caught alone with Madison Cawthorn. Additionally, he referred to female students as 'bitches' and 'sluts,' both in private amongst his friends and often publicly. He also called our female peers these derogatory names when they refused to go for a ride in his car.

The letter was signed by 166 current students and former alumni of Patrick Henry College.

In response, Cawthorn’s campaign told the AVL Watchdog that the letter contained “unsubstantiated and anonymous accusations” and accused without evidence opponent Moe Davis for spurring the allegations.

Days later, the campaign published a letter of endorsement from Patrick Henry College alumni. It was signed by six people-- two of whom work on Cawthorn’s campaign. This letter describes the original letter as an attack from “liberal sources, as well as, discontented PHC alumni.” According to the AVL Watchdog, however, the authors of the original letter were not in contact with Davis’s campaign or any other political group. In fact, many of them describe themselves as conservative Christians.

In August, World, a Christian news magazine, reported that Cawthorn had made unwanted sexual advances on at least three women since 2014. “Two women say he forcibly kissed them. One woman told me he grabbed her thigh and moved his hand an inch or two beneath her dress,” wrote Harvest Prude.

Even before World published its report, one of the women mentioned in the piece, Katrina Krulikas, took to Instagram in August to publicly describe how Cawthorn forcibly tried to kiss her in 2014. Krulikas was a member of the same Christian homeschool community as Cawthorn.

“This older guy had taken me to the woods on our first date, only to pry into my sexual past and then try to force himself onto me,” Krulikas said. “I texted a friend, expressing how I didn’t feel comfortable being alone with Madison again, how he had been extremely aggressive and creepy towards me.”

Cawthorn’s campaign told World that Cawthorn had previously apologized to Krulikas “if his attempt to kiss her when he was a teenager made her feel uncomfortable or unsafe.” At the time of the alleged incident, Krulikas was 17 and Cawthorn was 19.

According to Krulikas, Cawthorn’s apology was “insincere.” He told her he “thought [she] was playing coy” and that “[he] can see in hindsight how that was over the line.”

“I believe that it should be noted that this [apology] came 6 years after the fact, when his political career is now at stake and he faces the possibility of public scrutiny,” wrote Krulikas.

Cawthorn cozies up to QAnon

In August, Cawthorn posted a video claiming that cartels were coming into the country and “kidnapping our American children and then taking them to sell them...on the sex slave market.” This claim, which is not supported by experts on human trafficking, is commonly echoed by QAnon believers. “I want to set free all the American children who have so tragically been taken from us,” Cawthorn said.

Cawthorn, who was visiting a private border wall at the time, suggests in the video that this information is coming from official channels. “I’m here meeting with a lot of ICE agents, a lot of federal agents and many sheriffs,” Cawthorn said.

On the trip, Cawthorn posted a photo with Lauren Witzke, the GOP Senate candidate who was photographed in a QAnon t-shirt and repeatedly posted QAnon hashtags. (Witzke nevertheless claims she does not believe in the conspiracy.) Cawthorn also took a photo with Mary Ann Mendoza, a member of Trump’s advisory board, who was disinvited from the RNC after promoting an anti-Semitic, QAnon conspiracy theory.

  A spokesperson for Cawthorn told the AVL Watchdog that Cawthorn “categorically disavows ‘QAnon.’” When asked by the AVL Watchdog to provide sources for Cawthorn’s statement, the spokesperson shared a March 2019 news release by The Department of Homeland Security. The release, which focuses on migrants, made no mention of American children being trafficked by cartels.

This isn’t the first time Cawthorn pandered to the fringe. Cawthorn met with congressional candidate Lauren Boebert. Boebert, who is running for office in Colorado, once said that she hoped Q was real because it meant “America was getting stronger.”

Moe Davis is now polling even with Cawthorn and, although the DCCC is ignoring the race, has a shot at beating this monster, who is already planning a Senate race in 2026 against Cal Cunningham, another step towards his eventual goal. If you'd like to give Davis some last minute love for his Get Out the Vote efforts, please use the ActBlue thermometer above.

You Know Who Madison Cawthorn Is-- Now Meet The Democrat Who Is Going To Save North Carolina And The U.S.A. From ThisNeo-Fascist Little Goon

North Carolina’s 11th district on the western edge of the state includes the stunning Blue Ridge Mountains, Great Smoky Mountains National Park and some of the most beautiful forests, waterfalls and vistas in the country. It also includes Asheville, a small, artsy, craft beer-loving liberal city that anchors this district … but hardly defines it. Asheville and some of Buncombe County are a bright blue dot in a sea of deep red conservative voters. Despite redrawn lines that ended the gerrymander and Republican stranglehold on the 11th, there remains a highly divided electorate in this still red-leaning district that makes challenging it challenging for a Democrat.

This year though, NC-11 has a really exception candidate, Moe Davis, former Chief Prosecutor at Guantanamo, who retired over the government's use of torture. An Air Force colonel (ret.) and former Director of the Air Force Judiciary, Davis is up against the GOP's "it boy," Madison Cawthorn who isn't even in office yet and has been caught lying about:

• the Naval Academy, which he says was going to take him but in reality rejected him before his accident.
• being a CEO of a real estate investment firm
• being a motivational speaker. (Cawthorn has not held any job since 2016, when he worked part-time answering phones and reading news clips for then Rep. Mark Meadows, and has never held a full-time adult job.)
• being accepted at Harvard-- where he never really applied
• being in the military, allowing Fox Business anchor Maria Bartiromo to say he had served his country, when he never did, pretending his tragic car accident was related to battlefield valor

Instead, Madison Cawthorn has been credibly accused by numerous women of sexual misconduct, is a semi-closeted white nationalist, neo-Nazi and admirer of Adolph Hitler, a shameless COVID-denier, host of numerous super-spreader events and a crackpot conspiracy-theory nut. He's very ambitious and sees the NC-11 House seat as a stepping stone to a Senate race [presumably against Cal Cunningham in 2026]. I invited Moe Davis to introduce himself to DWT readers by way of a guest post on the broadband problem in western North Carolina. Please hear him out and consider contributing to his campaign here or by tapping on the Blue America 2020 Trump District Democrats thermometer on the right.


Digital Divide In Western North Carolina
-by Moe Davis

Broadband internet is no longer a luxury. It is a necessity for business, education, medicine and service in the 21st Century. But in some counties of rural Western North Carolina, as many as 50 percent or more lack access to broadband.

That has to change.

I support Rep. Jim Clyburn’s Accessible, Affordable Internet for All bill that will provide $80 billion to help extend broadband to rural areas throughout Western North Carolina.

Homework Gap

Covid-19 has greatly exacerbated the long-standing digital divide that disadvantages rural students. Students without access to broadband have had difficulties doing homework that requires the internet for quite some time now. Distance learning due to the pandemic has made this issue critical and urgent. We cannot allow our children to fall behind. Seeing students sitting in cars with their parents in the parking lots of local libraries and schools doing schoolwork has become common place throughout WNC. It is unacceptable.

Telehealth

Telemedicine has been growing in popularity even before the pandemic, and has seen a boon in the last 6 months. We can expect this pattern to continue even after the pandemic is over as we have entered a new era in medicine. Doctors are monitoring their patients with biofeedback software that requires high speed internet connection. Diabetics can measure their blood sugars with an app, if they have connectivity, cancer patients can receive treatments without going to the doctor’s office or hospital. We can expect a more efficient and cost effective medical care system but every patient needs access to it for cost reductions to be optimum. We can close the gap in health outcomes between rural and urban citizens when we close the digital gap.

Public Safety

Rural communities have a disadvantage when first responders cannot access patient information such as allergies, recent medical procedures and more when responding to unconscious patients. When folks cannot get “Silver Alerts” or “Amber Alerts” when children or the elderly go missing, we delay finding the vulnerable. Our elderly need life alert systems also. Our citizens need home protection systems that require broadband connection. Law enforcement officers need access to personal background information while responding to dangerous situations like domestic violence calls.

Economic Development

Now that we know so many folks can work from home, I expect that trend to continue. This means that many more people who love our mountains can move here regardless of who they work for. Entrepreneurs and other companies can be free to open business here, stimulating and growing our economy. Green jobs can explode as farmers turn to growing hemp for the production of plant based “plastics”. Those plastics can be produced right here in Dist 11 also. This vision for a green economy in WNC is only possible if we ensure 100% broadband access throughout the district. Broadband access is a right and should be considered a utility much like electricity. NC H129 needs to be overturned allowing local municipalities to offer broadband.

Pretty Nice Package For Such A Toxic Product-- Meet The Future Of The North Carolina GOP

A month ago we took a quick look at a GOP super-star in the making, Madison Cawthorn, the 25 year old right-wing, certifiably insane person who beat Trump's candidate for the deep red seat Mark Meadows gave up to become Trump's 20th Chief of Staff. It's the reddest district in North Carolina-- R+14-- and Trump won it in 2016 with 57.2%.

Cawthorn will face retired Air Force Col. Moe Davis in November. Carefully gerrymandered, the 11th district includes the whole of the western part of the state except Asheville, which was considered too dangerously blue for the far right haven the legislature was creating. Even the part of Buncombe County that was left in the 11th performed as a D+10 in the 2018 election (with the Asheville part of the district in NC-10, while swamped by the extreme right wing lunatics who live in Gaston, Catawba and Cleveland counties, performed at a D+39 in the same 2018 midterm.) In 2016, Buncombe County was all about Bernie. He beat Hillary 30,913 (62.1%) to 17,604 (35.4%) and he also beat all 10 Republican candidates that day combined. Trump came in second in Buncombe with just 8,403 votes. In the general election Bernie voters mustered what enthusiasm they could for the corporate Democrat, and Hillary managed to beat Trump countywide-- 55.7% to 41.1%.

Now we hear that since winning his primary, and needing to win independent votes, not just Republican votes, young Mr. Cawthorn-- a Nazi-sympathizer-- has deleted nine Instagram photos in which he was celebrating a trip visit the Berchtesgaden retreat of his idol, Adolph Hitler. The Jewish Telegraphic Agency published 3 of the pictures with Cawthorn's caption (click to blow up the image and make it legible

click on the image to read the caption

The Jewish Telegraphic Agency, referring to Cawthorn as "a right-wing Republican congressional candidate in North Carolina" and reported that he "has taken down pictures he posted to Instagram from a 2017 vacation to the Eagle’s Nest, the Nazi retreat in Germany that Hitler visited more than a dozen times."

Madison Cawthorn’s pictures were removed Monday, the same day that a report in Jezebel made the case that he is "following the playbook of other, more successful far-right Republicans in recent years, attempting to rebrand his extreme views … as squarely in the mainstream of the Republican Party."

In addition to calling Hitler Führer, a term of reverence, Cawthorn also named his real estate company SPQR, a term popular among white nationalists, and displays in his home an early American flag that the Anti-Defamation League says has been appropriated by far-right extremists, according to the Jezebel report.

Cawthorn defeated a Republican who had been endorsed by President Donald Trump in June’s primary. Since the primary, however, the 25-year-old candidate has worked to convey his support for Trump, according to a report by AVL Watchdog, a nonprofit news organization covering the portion of North Carolina that Cawthorn is seeking to represent in the House of Representatives.

The AVL Watchdog report published over the weekend includes many of the same details as the Jezebel report, as it spells out the far-right vision that Cawthorn, who would be one of the youngest-ever congressmen if elected, is offering local voters. But it did not include the Eagle’s Nest vacation photos, in which Cawthorn said a trip to Hitler’s retreat had been on his “bucket list.”

After the Jezebel report was published, the pictures began circulating on social media before they were deleted. Among those who shared the photos on Twitter was Moe Davis, the Democrat opposing Cawthorn in North Carolina’s 11th District, a traditional Republican district in the western part of the state.

The two men are competing to fill the spot in Congress vacated by Mark Meadows after he became the Trump White House chief of staff earlier this year. Davis is a retired Air Force colonel who resigned as Guantanamo Bay’s chief prosecutor to protest a policy allowing evidence obtained through torture to be used in trials. While he is considered a long shot to win in November, population shifts mean the district may not be as safely Republican as it once was. “Hitler’s vacation retreat is not on my bucket list,” Davis tweeted Monday.

Esther Wang wrote the Cawthorn story for Jezebel, noting that "Cawthorn often talks about the need for Republicans to have a fresh young face, and to wrap conservative ideas in 'better packaging' and 'better messaging' that is less 'abrasive.' But 'better packaging' is just that--packaging. Cawthorn is following the playbook of other, more successful far-right Republicans in recent years, attempting to rebrand his extreme views-- which include what I would describe as white supremacist-adjacent nationalism-- as squarely in the mainstream of the Republican Party. In doing so, he’s co-signing those ideas for a new generation of voters who may be turned off by Old White Men but who might embrace them from a fellow millennial."

Wang wrote the definitive piece on Cawthorn, one that will be a reference point when he eventually runs for the Senate, clearly his goal. She pointed out that "Much of Cawthorn’s professional background has been accepted at face value, with news articles about him... running with the persona he has cultivated: that of a young, successful businessman who, inspired by personal tragedy and a quagmire of medical debt, is on a mission to stop the horrific spread of socialism. But look even slightly beyond the surface and that story begins to look more like a padded resumé, one composed of what seems like half-truths and lies by omission." And Wang looked more than just slightly beyond the surface:

Cawthorn paints himself as a promising young man with plans to become a Marine until the 2014 car accident that left him partially paralyzed. “He planned on serving his country in the Navy with a nomination to the U.S. Naval Academy,” one of his campaign ads states, until “tragedy struck.” Almost every single news article about Cawthorn mentions that he was nominated to the Naval Academy by his former boss Mark Meadows, now White House Chief of Staff; it’s easy to then assume that he was accepted by the Naval Academy. But it turns out, according to a 2017 deposition Cawthorn gave as part of his unsuccessful lawsuit seeking $30 million from the auto insurance company that had already paid him $3 million, he was actually rejected by the Naval Academy, and was informed of his rejection before his car accident.

Cawthorn’s biography also neglects to highlight his actual time in college, which seemingly consisted of one semester at Patrick Henry College in Virginia, a small conservative Christian university described as “God’s Harvard” that operates as a sort of feeder school for those who want to enter right-wing politics. According to that same 2017 deposition, Cawthorn said he attended Patrick Henry College starting in the fall of 2016 and studied political science, but dropped out. The reason he gave? “Heartbreak,” he told the attorney, saying that his first fiancée (he was engaged to another woman before Bayardelle) “ran off with my best friend.” But he also admitted his grades were terrible. “I would think probably my average grade in most classes was a D,” he recalled, pinning the cause partly on the injuries stemming from his accident.

So Cawthorn was never admitted to the Naval Academy, and is by his own admission a college dropout-- details that on their own are inconsequential. But when combined and coupled with the lawsuit, they paint a clearer, and more complete, picture of Cawthorn that differs from the image he has presented to date.

This includes his assertion that he is a real estate investor. In 2019, according to a scan of Cawthorne’s Instagram page, he appeared to do a lot of relaxing for someone who is supposedly a busy entrepreneur-- in between working out, claiming to train for the Olympics (a goal which he gave up that July), giving a few motivational speeches here and there, and proposing to Bayardelle-- Cawthorn traveled to the Bahamas, Mexico, and traipsed around Europe. Of course, it’s not disqualifying for a potential member of Congress to be a dick who loves to go on vacation and work out-- so many of them do! I myself enjoy vacations, though I personally try to avoid making offensive jokes. But it does raise the question of how the 25-year-old Cawthorn-- who appears to have no consistent source of income other than his real estate business and the occasional paid speeches to churches and businesses-- supports himself.

So I took a look at his financial disclosure form, where he’s supposed to list out all of his assets and income sources. According to the form Cawthorn submitted, he, as he put it himself, “made most of my money in the New York Stock Exchange,” which is helpfully characterized as “unearned” income. Under the section for “earned” income, i.e. where one would include income one made from, say, a job? It was blank.

Which isn’t surprising, because, according to public records, Cawthorn didn’t spend much of 2019 investing in real estate. To be fair, he’s only a budding real estate investor-- Cawthorn registered his real estate company, SPQR Holdings LLC, in August of 2019, using his home address (SPQR Holdings has no other office, as far as I can tell based on the registered address for his LLC, and the company appears to have no other employees other than Cawthorn himself). SPQR Holdings seems to have only been involved in one real estate transaction in its admittedly brief existence. In October of last year, Cawthorn bought a six-acre property in Genoia, Georgia, at a tax foreclosure auction, for $20,000. (My attempts to reach the previous owner of the property and have a conversation with him about how he felt about losing his land through foreclosure, and to a potential future member of Congress to boot, were sadly unsuccessful.)

I suppose registering an LLC and buying a single property technically qualifies someone to call themselves a real estate investor, but it definitely reads as more akin to playing with the idea of being a real estate investor, perhaps so one could describe oneself as a “real estate investor” when mounting a run for Congress instead of someone who supports himself largely through his stock market investments. Cawthorn has in interviews pitched himself as a sort of folksy everyman, a “fighter” who didn’t even need to get a college degree before running for Congress. (He does not mention his brief time at Patrick Henry in the interviews I’ve read, and in a recent interview he offhandedly described colleges as “indoctrination camps.”)

“I think we need more people who put on steel-toed boots every single morning rather than a tie, shaping our public policy,” he proclaimed during a July 20 interview with Turning Point USA’s Charlie Kirk, heavily implying that he was part of the former group, which is odd given that he’s pitched himself as a “real estate investor.” I guess calling oneself a “real estate investor,” if one takes the Trump sons as a model, conjures up images of working at construction sites, a hard hat jammed on one’s head. But unfortunately for Cawthorn, even the Trump sons seem to have more actual real estate experience than he does.

And then there’s the matter of the name of his LLC-- SPQR, the acronym of the Latin phrase “Senatus Populusque Romanus,” which means “the Senate and the Roman people,” from the time of the Roman republic. Cawthorn may just be a big fan of Mary Beard, but unfortunately for him, the acronym SPQR has lately become quite popular among white nationalists. Given his previous goal of becoming a U.S. Marine, and the popularity of the debate over whether a Marine unit could take on the Roman legions, I initially waved off the name of his company as some strange holdover from the days when he dreamed of being in the Corps.

But in many of his television interviews filmed from home during the pandemic and as he ran for office, Cawthorn can be seen speaking in front of a version of the U.S. flag that’s commonly called the Betsy Ross flag. During the hours I spent watching both Cawthorn’s and his fiancée’s videos on Instagram, I spied a second Betsy Ross flag in their home, one clearly displayed in their garage, which seemed odd to me—I haven’t spent that much time in the homes of white people who live in the South, but according to my colleague Kelly Faircloth of Georgia (which, along with North Carolina, was one of the original 13 colonies), it’s not exactly common to see the Betsy Ross flag proudly displayed. The Betsy Ross flag, which features a circle of 13 stars instead of the more common 50 stars in the upper left-hand corner, has, like the phrase SPQR, been similarly appropriated by some extremist movements.

According to Rolling Stone, the flag has “been associated with the Patriot Movement, an anti-government, extremist right-wing movement that encompasses smaller fringe movements such as the militia movement, the sovereign citizen movement, and the tax protest movement.” Mark Pitcavage of the Anti-Defamation League told Rolling Stone that the militia movement “has been using the Betsy Ross flag, among other Revolutionary War-era symbols, since its inception.” He explained that these movements use “old flags from that era” because “they view themselves as analogous to American revolutionaries.” And Robert Evans, a journalist who covers far-right groups in the U.S., told Rolling Stone that he has “definitely seen the original U.S. flag appropriated by white nationalist groups.”

...I reached out to Ben Lorber, an analyst who studies anti-Semitism and white nationalist movements at Political Research Associates, to ask him what he made of Cawthorn’s use of SPQR and his display of the Betsy Ross flag prominently in his home. Lorber noted that the Betsy Ross flag had been seen at the Unite the Right rally in 2017, and most recently at some pro-police rallies, though he said the usage of the flag by extremist groups “is not prominent.” More striking, he told me, was Cawthorn’s decision to use SPQR in the name of his business. As Lorber told me via email, the term SPQR has been “adapted as a symbol by many white nationalists, who falsely glorify the ancient Roman Empire, much as they view the present-day U.S., as a proud white civilization that collapsed due to multiculturalism and immigration of non-white foreigners,” and has been used “to assert a similarly specious equivalence between an idealized Greco-Roman past and contemporary Western civilization, which they view as under attack by sinister forces of progressivism.” Cawthorn, Lorber wrote, “should clarify to the public why he used the acronym for his company name, and whether he holds these disturbing views.”

I agreed with Lorber, and I had a lot of questions for Cawthorn. He hasn’t exactly had to answer that many difficult questions during his run for Congress, so I wanted to know, why SPQR? Why his love for the Betsy Ross flag? What did he think of the Black Lives Matter protests, and what were his views on immigration beyond, as he states on his website, that “our immigration system is in crisis,” that “we need to secure our borders and we need the rule of law,” and that he opposes “the continued allowance of sanctuary cities?” In a softball interview with the New York Times, Cawthorn claimed to “love legal immigration” and to “love how the diversity adds to our country”-- did that love extend to DACA recipients, whom Trump is continuing to threaten? To international students in the U.S. on student visas?

But his campaign, as I mentioned, never responded to my numerous requests for comment. He was too busy hanging out with Donald Trump and Rudy Giuliani, I guess!

I didn’t need to hear back from his campaign to know where Cawthorn truly stands, though. Read or watch interviews that he’s given to conservative outlets, and it becomes clear that he seems himself squarely in the Ted Cruz, Tom Cotton wing of the Republican party. During his lengthy interview with Charlie Kirk, Cawthorn spoke freely about what he believes. Feminists, whom he mistakenly seems to believe have achieved pay parity with men, are now going too far. “You have this third wave feminism that comes in that says, ‘No, we don’t want to be equal to men, we want to be greater than men at this point, we want to put them down.’” The Black Lives Matter movement, he told Kirk, has been “hijacked by Marxists.” The LGBT movement, he asserted, used to be “just two people who want to be able to get married.” But trans rights are a step too far for Cawthorn. “Now it’s saying we need to be able to have gender reassignment surgery for 12-year-olds,” he warned.

And that was just in the first 15 minutes. On every issue from abortion to immigration to civil rights, Cawthorn picked the most far-right position one could feasibly take without being labeled an obvious white supremacist. He called Roe v. Wade an “archaic ruling,” and described abortion as “murder” and “genocide.” When the conversation turned to reparations, Cawthorn proclaimed that the example of Asheville, North Carolina-- whose city council recently approved a program to invest in community businesses and homeownership that the council described somewhat confusingly as “reparations”-- “sets a dangerous precedent,” because it leads to a “victimhood mentality.”

“On another part,” he added,” it’s saying that they’re owed something. Did we not pay enough when 600,000 Americans died to free slaves?” He called the New York Times’ 1619 Project the “Project 1692,” because, he said, “it’s more like the Salem witch trials.” And one of the “biggest problems” in “minority communities,” Cawthorn asserted, isn’t systemic discrimination and racism, but “fatherless homes.” He explained further, apparently without any knowledge of how welfare reform has reduced already minimal benefits to practically nothing: “We subsidize fatherlessness because there are so many financial benefits to these young women to not get married and have more children, because then they can get more subsidies for those children. And then you have a woman who has seven kids from three different fathers, but none of those dads are around.” As for immigration? He told Kirk he believes in a merit-based immigration system, and that due to the pandemic, sounding thisssss close to Stephen Miller, “We should not be accepting new people into our country right now.”

“I do not believe that it’s my job as an American to be the caretaker of the rest of the world,” Cawthorn said. “Because one, we’ll lose our national identity, and two, we can’t support it.”

Cawthorn has proven that he’s learned a valuable lesson, one that’s been gleaned from watching a generation of Republicans: If you craft the right story, as riddled with holes as it may be, you can sell people anything.

Last Night's Primary Election Results-- Wins And Losses

Ballots are still being counted almost everywhere. Kentucky has already announced that there will be no final vote count until June 30-- which is when the state's two biggest counties, Jefferson (Louisville) and Fayette (Lexington) plan to release their results. Both are considered strongholds for Charles Booker and not a single vote is in the preliminary totals, which represent the 2,005 counted precincts out of a statewide total of 3,685-- 54.41%. This morning Schumer's establishment candidate, Amy McGrath led progressive Charles Booker 27,668 (44.7%) to 22,564 (36.5%), with a second progressive, Mike Broihier a distant third with 3,900 votes (6.3%). As of June 3rd, Massie had raised almost $41 million to Booker's $788,525. She spent $21,492,634 to his $503,623.

The only other Kentucky contest worth noting was the Republican primary in the 4th district, 12 counties that go from the suburbs east of Louisville and south of Cincinnati right into coal mining country as far as the West Virginia border. Trump and the GOP DC Establishment made an attempt to replace independent-minded, libertarian incumbent Thomas Massie with extremist Trumpist robot Todd McMurtry. As of the last FEC deadline, Massie had spent $996,338 to McMurtry's $328,026. An ad hoc Trumpist SuperPAC called Civic PAC spent $132,500 smearing Massie. It didn't work and he has apparently won in a landslide. With 85.42% of precincts counted (463 out of 542) Massie has 16,801 (88%) votes to McMurtry's 2,300 (12%).

Before we get to New York, there were also some relatively sleepy contests in Virginia-- except one. Progressive champion Qasim Rashid beat Lavangelene Williams 21,768 (52.8%) to 19,469 (47.2%) in the first congressional district, an amalgam of 18 almost random counties from the exurbs of DC to the exurbs of Richmond plus James City and Fredericksburg city. Most of the voters live in very blue Prince William County, very red Hanover County and swingy Stafford County. The district PVI is R+8 but Trump just won it with 53.6% in 2016 and incumbent Rob Wittman was reelected last cycle with just 55.2% and could be ousted by Qasim in November.

Now, New York. Let's go through the congressional results district by district, although I want to begin with NY-14, the Bronx and Queens district won in 2018 by AOC. A transpartisan coalition-- funded largely by Wall Street-- backed a Wall Street Republican pretending to be a Democrat, Michelle Caruso-Cabrera and spent immense sums of money smearing AOC with an intensity and virulence no one ever sees in a Democratic primary. The voters weren't buying it and AOC kicked her ass, 27,103 (72.6%) to 7,254 (19.4%). Two vanity candidates drew almost 3,000 votes (close to 8%). Caruso-Cabrera can't switch back to the GOP and run as a Republican in November-- although she is evacuating her Queens apartment and moving back to Trump Tower-- so the GOP is running some guy named John Cummings. You can contribute to AOC's November campaign here.

NY-01 is eastern Long Island, most of Suffolk County and Democrats were vying to see who would take on GOP incumbent Lee Zeldin. There was some fear that the two moderately progressive candidates, Perry Gershon (who Zeldin beat in 2018, 51.5% to 47.4%) and Nancy Goroff, would split progressive votes and allow a more conservative Democrat, Bridget Fleming to win the nomination. Instead, there's an incredibly tight race for number one between Gershon and Goroff, that is unlikely to be decided 'til every last vote is counted and, probably, recounted. As of this morning with all 473 precincts counted:

• Perry Gershon- 5,166 (35.5%)
• Nancy Goroff- 5,022 (34.4%)
• Bridget Fleming- 4,062 (27.9%)
• Gregory-John Fischer 322 (2.2%)

NY-02, the south shore Long Island district that includes parts of both Nassau and Suffolk, should have been a hotspot election... but wasn't. Peter King announced her retirement and Republican Andrew Garbarino will run in his place. The DCCC picked Jackie Gordon-- a typical DCCC pick-- as their candidate and she beat Patricia Maher, who has run unsuccessfully against King before. Sleepy race and Gordon, predictably won with about 73% of the vote (374 precincts out of 524 counted-- about 70%).

The north shore district, which includes some of Suffolk County and a tiny bit of Queens is mostly Nassau and the incumbent is New Dem Tom Suozzi. With just 45.6% of precincts accounted for, he seems to have beat back a weak challenge from the left by Melanie D'Arrigo, 58.9% to 32.7%. It's considered a swing district but Suozzi is an effective and popular congressman and is likely to beat Republican George Santos by something like 60-40% as he did in 2018 against Republican Dan DeBono.

One of my big disappointments of last night was Gregory Meeks' apparent win over Democratic Socialist Shan Chowdhury, although as of this morning, only 39 of 492 precincts have been counted. Predictably-- Meeks being the Queens County machine boss-- NY-05 was the capital of voter suppression and election fraud. I spoke with Shan this morning and his lawyers are investigating how Meeks was able to steal the election and what they can do about it.

The next district with a seriously contested primary was NY-09 a Brooklyn district stretching from Sheepshead Bay to eastern Park Slope, with Prospect Park, Brownsville, Brooklyn College, Flatbush, part of Midwood and Crown Heights in between. Yvette Clarke has one of the most progressive voting records in Congress-- and the second most progressive of any New Yorker in Congress (even higher on the ProgressivePunch list than AOC!) but was primaried from the left again. Grassroots super-progressives Adem Bunkeddeko and Isiah James took about 27% of the vote between them. With all 532 precincts reporting, Clarke was reelected with 62.3%.

In the 10th district (incongruously Manhattan's West Side and Brooklyn's most Hasidic neighborhoods) Jerry Nadler beat back two opponents, an internet progressive and a gay Zionist, former Andrew Yang staffer, to win with 61.8%.

Tragically, odious Blue Dog Max Rose had no primary opponent in the Staten Island, south Brooklyn 11th district. The NRCC chosen candidate, Nicole Malliotakis, won the Republican primary with 70.4%.

In the 12th district there is an incredibly tight race that will probably be finalized next week. Wall Street shill Carolyn Maloney may be defeated by Suraj Patel in this Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens district.

NY-15 in the South Bronx was a real clustefuck on several levels. Longtime progressive incumbent Jose Serrano decided to retire, triggering a complicated primary with a dozen candidates, each appealing to a narrow segment of the population. The common enemy was pretend Democrat Ruben Diaz, Sr., an anti-Choice, homophobic sociopath and Trump supporter and there was tremendous anxiety that the more progressive candidates would split the vote and elect Diaz, who has the most name-recognition in the district. With all 490 precincts counted, this is how the top vote getters fared:

The most closely-watched race in the state was for the Bronx-Westchester district where incumbent Eliot Engel was the designated Joe Crowley of 2020 and faced off against progressive reformer Jamaal Bowman. The most corrupt of the Democratic establishment backed Engel-- Hillary Clinton, Andrew Cuomo, Chuck Schumer, Kirsten Gillibrand, Bob Menendez, Nancy Pelosi, Adam Schiff as well as the DCCC, and a pack of sleazy local politicians. Jamaal was endorsed by virtually every progressive organization in the country as well as by Bernie, AOC, Elizabeth Warren, Ayanna Pressley, Katie Porter, Zephyr Teachout, Marianne Williamson and progressive state legislators Alessandra Biaggi and Jessica Ramos. With 91.5% of the precincts in, Jamaal won 21,851 (60.9%) to 12,769 (35.6%), an ignominious finish to Engel's career as Netanyahu's top shill in the House. This was Jamaal's statement this morning:

From the very beginning, we anchored our campaign in the fight for racial and economic justice. We spoke the truth-- about the police, about systemic racism, about inequality-- and it resonated in every part of the district.

Many doubted that we could overcome the power and money of a 31-year incumbent. But the results show that the people of NY-16 aren’t just ready for change-- they’re demanding it.

We brought people together across race, across class, across religion, across gender, to fight for justice, to fight for equality, and to fight to create a country that works for all of us. We didn’t let them divide us. And we did it all without accepting a dime from corporate PACs or lobbyists.

The world has changed. Congress needs to change too. But if we can take on entrenched power and wealthy interests here in Westchester and the Bronx, then we can do it all across this country.

I’m a Black man who was raised by a single mother in a housing project. That story doesn’t usually end in Congress. But today, that 11-year old boy who was beaten by police is about to be your next Representative.

I cannot wait to get to Washington and cause problems for the people maintaining the status quo.

Just north of NY-16 is the 17th, also in Westchester plus Rockland County. The incumbent Pelosi-ally is retiring and Mondaire Jones, the most progressive candidate running, had already declared he would primary her. Instead he beat a pack of corporate big money Dems and right-wing state Senator David Carlucci. Mondaire is black and gay and progressive, not the profile anyone would have predicted for the 17th.

In Syracuse, NY-24 nominated progressive Dana Balter by a wide margin (64.5% to 35.5%) over conservative Democrat Francis Conole. In the Rochester district (25), conservative New Dem won renomination against progressive challenger Robin Wilt, who picked up 35.2% of the vote.

And the open 27th in western New York, between the suburbs of Buffalo and the suburbs west of Rochester, had a special election to fill the open seat left behind by Trump ally Chris Collins when he was found guilty on multiple economic fraud charges. An heir to a fortune, Republican Chris Jacobs beat Democrat Nate McMurray but the two will face off again in November's general election, when McMurray is thought to have a better chance to win. You can contribute to Nate's general election campaign-- and to the general election campaigns of Mondaire Jones and Jamaal Bowman-- by clicking on the 2020 Blue America congressional thermometer on the right.

One last thing: there was a special election primary runoff in North Carolina yesterday where 24 year old new-comer Madison Cawthorn defeated Lynda Bennett for the GOP nomination to replace Trump's latest chief of staff, Mark Meadows. Both Meadows and Trump had endorsed Bennett. Cawthorn will now face retired Air Force Col. Moe Davis, the Democratic nominee in the heavily Republican district (PVI is R+14, the reddest in the state, and Trump won the district in 2016 with 57.2%). And, yes, he's a total Trumpist.

A Republican soon-to-be congressman (right)