On Friday, at this year’s edition of the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) was spinning deception less than one minute into his remarks. He claimed that CPAC attendees aren’t allowed “anywhere near” the capital, but this claim is a gross misrepresentation of reality. Large crowds like CPAC aren’t allowed in D.C. because of the still very serious pandemic, but individual CPAC attendees are perfectly allowed within certain areas of the city like everyone else. Casting the restrictions as some kind of anti-conservative conspiracy is just ridiculous.
Tom Cotton suggests liberal hypocrisy for DC/Maryland not allowing CPAC up there while Dems endorsed 2020 BLM rallies. "Maybe if CPAC had promised to burn down buildings and tear down statues, they'd have let us up there."
(Outdoor rallies allowed in DC, not indoor conferences.)
— Dave Weigel (@daveweigel) February 26, 2021
Cotton’s clown show continued. He described a “contrast” between the Black Lives Matter protests that somewhat freely unfolded in D.C. and the block on CPAC events, delusionally adding as follows:
‘Just think about that contrast. That contrast strikes at the heart of our freedom — that your rights may depend on what you say or what you believe or the color of your skin. That’s the opposite of freedom, and conservatives everywhere, and really just normal Americans, who don’t subscribe to every fad and fashion of the far left, see risk everywhere they turn. Big business may take your job away. Big tech may deplatform you. Your liberal college may kick you out of school. Your liberal governor may shut down your church.’
Cotton added that leftists have supposedly lost the so-called “un-ambivalent appreciation of America,” and the Senator subsequently described their supposedly anti-American mindset as “cancel culture” and “wokeness,” which is… bizarre. He thinks that “cancel culture” — which is the right-wing’s favorite term for a general effort to enact accountability for documented destructive behavior — is somehow “anti-American”?
It’s weird how right-wingers have spun an entire boogeyman out of the word “woke,” which is just a slang term that has roots in the vernacular of Black Americans. There’s not some kind of anti-conservative or anti-American conspiracy! It’s just a word that Black people (among others) have used, but conservatives seem terrified.
This banner is flying over CPAC right now for all to see. Ron DeSantis does not want you to retweet this. So retweet far and wide. pic.twitter.com/1gvGpYZkcj
— Remove Ron (@RemoveRon) February 26, 2021
Cotton’s comments really get to the root of modern right-wing thought. It’s awash with paranoia — Cotton and those who accept his worldview think that just about every corner of society is somehow out to get them. They see conspiracies everywhere — as Cotton’s comments exemplify, the mindset that underlined the widespread right-wing acceptance of the idea that the 2020 presidential election was secretly rigged for Biden fuels much of the conservative worldview. Cotton went to such an extreme that, with his complaint about the supposed denial of certain rights to gather in D.C. on the basis of skin color, he insinuated that white people are somehow the victims in the United States, because the Black Lives Matter protests moved forward but the largely white CPAC event didn’t.
Tom Cotton defends the op-ed he wrote for the New York Times last summer urging Trump to send in troops to quell Black Lives Matter demonstrations pic.twitter.com/pRunA8PV23
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 26, 2021
Eventually, Cotton — who served in the Army — insisted that the country is “worth dying for,” adding that conservatives are “under attack,” which sounds, quite frankly, like incitement to violence against perceived political opponents who are supposedly carrying out this make-believe “attack.” Watch Cotton’s comments below:
