GOP Rep Madison Cawthorn tweets swastika to attack Black Lives Matter, deleted after criticism

[ad_1]

First-year Rep. Madison Cawthorn, RN.C., tweeted a photo of neo-Nazis last week, only to delete it days later following criticism on Twitter.

The controversy, first reported by The Asheville Citizen-Times, centers on a tweet Cawthorn posted on July 9 in an attack on members of Black Lives Matter who claimed the American flag is an expression of racism.

“The American flag symbolizes unity, patriotism, independence, pride and love for our country. BLM continues to exhibit its radical hatred of this country,” Cawthorn wrote in response. Publish an article whose vignette featured neo-Nazis from the National Socialist Movement, a far-right white supremacist organization marching on Capitol Hill in 2008.

According to the Citizen-Times, one of the men pictured donned a shirt emblazoned with the word “skinhead”. The man was shown holding the hand of a boy wearing a shirt with a swastika, an ancient Indian rune appropriated by the Nazi party during the Third Reich.

Following a storm of criticism on Twitter, Cawthorn spokesperson Micah Bock told the Citizen-Times that the tweet was deleted, although Bock did not explain why the photo was included in first place.

“Representative Cawthorn has denounced fascism in all its forms,” ​​Bock said in a statement. “The American flag has stood for freedom since the founding of our nation, and the BLM movement would do well to remember that during World War II the flag flew proudly as American soldiers destroyed Nazism in Europe.”

“To equate the American flag with a symbol of fascism is historically suspect and factually inaccurate,” Bock continued.

Cawthorn, 25, was elected the youngest congressman last year. Despite his political emergence, the right-wing freshman has already stood out as a rising star in the Republican Party, not least for his ability to make headlines.

In August last year, Cawthorn sparked outrage when old Instagram posts from 2017 surfaced of the congressman posing for a photo in the Eagle’s Nest, Adolf Hitler’s vacation home in Germany. At the time, Cawthorn said the site was on “a bucket list for a while” and “didn’t disappoint.” Cawthorn later denied having visited despite evidence to the contrary. In the past, Cawthorn has also posed with a Betsy Ross flag (a banner associated with white nationalism) and a Spartan-style helmet (a symbol used by members of the far-right Oath Keepers), as the Observer observes. .

The Charlotte Observer noted that the name of Cawthorn’s real estate business, SPQR Holdings, refers to “an abbreviation of a Latin phrase meaning the Senate and the Roman people, a phrase from the Roman Republic, often used by white nationalists. “.

Cawthorn has also been charged with sexual misconduct dating back to his college days, in addition to lying about how he became paralyzed.

[ad_2]