The GOP clown show continued this week as Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-N.C.) faced criticism over a Twitter post criticizing the Black Lives Matter movement that prominently featured Nazi imagery, including a swastika. The post included a link to a recent article from the right-wing publication known as the New York Post that had a photo showcasing Nazi imagery as its featured image. As such, the photo became the featured image in Cawthorn’s post as well. The Post story was entitled “BLM chapter calls American flag ‘symbol of hatred’ only used by racists.” Now, Cawthorn’s tweet with the article has been deleted.
In his original post, Cawthorn wrote that the “American flag symbolizes unity, patriotism, independence, pride, and love for our country,” adding that Black Lives Matter supposedly “continues to expose their radical hatred of this country.” Pretending like comments backed by a single group of people somehow represent the entire “Black Lives Matter” movement seems so willfully ignorant that it’s embarrassing. While formal organizations operate under the “Black Lives Matter” umbrella, it’s a movement — not some kind of centralized, hierarchical group. Applying even the slightest level of critical thinking would no doubt make that obvious. Yet, Cawthorn continues — and he’s so haphazard in his approach that he plastered Nazi imagery in one of his latest ignorant rants.
The specific photograph that the New York Post used for his article — and that went up in Cawthorn’s post — showed members of the National Socialist Movement participating in a 2008 march. Presumably, the idea was to show the “racists” that the Black Lives Matter group referenced. The Congressman’s spokesman Micah Bock asserted that equating “the American flag to a symbol for fascism is historically suspect, and factually inaccurate,” adding that Cawthorn “denounces this false comparison arising from the BLM movement, and equally denounces false comparisons from white supremacist groups.” Cawthorn, meanwhile, has his own troubling connections to racist imagery. Once, he visited Nazi leader Adolf Hitler’s vacation home known as the Eagle’s Nest, sharing that a stop at the site had been part of his “bucket list.”
