“We know they’re lying, they know they’re lying, they know that we know they’re lying, we know that they know that we know they’re lying, but they still lie.” —Quote attributed to Alexander Solzhenitsyn (but that’s probably a lie).
Republicans are anxious — very anxious indeed — to tell us that Republican Congressman Madison Cawthorn doesn’t speak for his fellow Republicans. Senator Lindsey Graham rushed to the microphone to assure us that Cawthorn is an outlier “in the largest sense possible on our side.”
In case you dropped out of social media yesterday, Cawthorn was caught on video sharing his deep thoughts on Ukraine:
The reaction was predictably swift and harsh. “In the confederacy of Trumpist lowlifes,” my colleague Bill Kristol tweeted, “he’s the lowest.” Others (quite accurately) accused the North Carolina representative of channeling Russian propaganda.
Liz Cheney called him “another member of the Putin wing of the GOP.”
This is also important to remember:
Until about five minutes ago, Cawthorn’s remarks were more or less basic talking points among the MAGA right; and not just talking points but holy script. His attitude is deeply embedded in the right’s DNA.
So, it’s easy to imagine Cawthorn today, looking around at his GOP critics and asking Dude, what do you mean “outlier”? I’m just saying what we’ve all been saying for years now!
He’d have a point.
For years, the right-wing media — led by Donald Trump himself — has been obsessed with the alleged vileness of Ukraine, first in the wake of the 2016 election, and then with the whole Hunter-Biden-Burisma-I-would-like-you-to-do-us-a-favor thing.
Lest we forget, during Russiagate, Rudy Giuliani and Sean Hannity peddled insane conspiracy theories that tried to blame Ukraine for the election interference committed by Russia.
Back in 2019, our own Tim Miller climbed into that rabbit hole to explain how their theory worked [Warning, it’s crazy-making]:
https://morningshots.thebulwark.com/p/madison-cawthorn-is-not-an-outlier?s=r