Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) is continuing to sound the alarm about dangerous extremism in the Republican Party. Sure, Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-N.C.) recently lost the Republican primary for his seat, but dangerous GOP members of Congress — like Matt Gaetz, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and others — remain, and Kinzinger demanded they be targeted too.
“I mean it’s good for the country, it’s good for the party, it’s good for the 11th District of North Carolina,” Kinzinger said of Cawthorn’s loss. “D.C. has become kind of a growing ground for people that are just more interested in fame than governing, that are more interested in becoming famous than in actually doing really serious work at a time when we’ve got a lot of challenges here at home and a lot of challenges overseas.” But the situation continues. At a different point in what appears to be the same interview, Kinzinger addressed the connection of extremist rhetoric spread by prominent Republicans to the recent mass shooting in Buffalo that killed 10 people and was carried out by a white supremacist harboring beliefs in lies like the so-called “great replacement” conspiracy theory. Kinzinger said on CNN:
‘What I’m asking for is just spit out the cancer. There was a day Steve King used to be a member of Congress from Iowa, and he made some racist comments, and we basically kicked him off his committees. Today, people like Marjorie Taylor Greene, people like Matt Gaetz, Mo Brooks… I would argue that they are leading the Republican caucus… Did they pull the trigger? No. Did they call this guy up and tell him to do it? Of course not. But when we as a party or a movement… throw out these theories or just fish in the waters of white replacement theory or echo some of those kind of fear-based things, you can’t be surprised when some people take that to the level of going and massacring people.’
Rep. Adam Kinzinger to CNN on Madison Cawthorn's loss: "It's good for the country. It's good for the party. It's good for the 11th district of North Carolina."
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) May 18, 2022
In those remarks, Kinzinger also called out the complicity of House GOP leaders such as Minority Leader Rep. Kevin McCarthy in allowing the extremism touted by Gaetz, Greene, and others to lead the way. And it’s not subtle: Tucker Carlson “is CORRECT about Replacement Theory as he explains what is happening to America,” Gaetz posted on Twitter last year. Check out Kinzinger’s comments below:
.@RepKinzinger on Rep. Madison Cawthorn losing his NC primary:
"It's good for the country. It's good for the party… it's good to see him lose."@JohnBerman pic.twitter.com/4sk3dGyf0I
— Joanna Preston (@JoPrestonTV) May 18, 2022
.@RepKinzinger: "What I'm asking for is just spit out the cancer. […] Today, people like Marjorie Taylor Greene, people like Matt Gaetz, Mo Brooks, I would argue that they are leading the Republican caucus." https://t.co/0PGGCUQKtT pic.twitter.com/Cd5ZR26b6A
— The Hill (@thehill) May 19, 2022
The “replacement” conspiracy theory alleges that white Americans are being intentionally crowded out of the electorate and society with non-white individuals, although there’s obviously no real-world evidence of some kind of widespread Democratic conspiracy to “replace” white Americans. But that hasn’t stopped people like Tucker Carlson: an investigation by The New York Times found that in “more than 400 episodes of his show… Carlson has amplified the notion that Democratic politicians and other assorted elites want to force demographic change through immigration,” according to the Times. And the Buffalo shooting is not the first violent, deadly incident to be inspired by racist beliefs about imaginary replacements of white Americans with others.
New: House Clerk sends alert: “The following Member has been added to the Departing Member List: Cawthorn, Madison (R) NC11”
— Hugo Lowell (@hugolowell) May 18, 2022
