In the 2020 cycle, the Republican Party decided that Rep. Steve King (R-IA) was a bit too embarrassing as an out and proud white nationalist.
A generic Republican primaried him in a pretty safe seat. The generic Republican won. The generic Republican won because a large and powerful faction of the GOP decided that they needed to police a boundary as King could cost them votes and power. King had lost his committee assignments. King had no fundraising from traditional GOP donors. He was frozen out.
Now we’re seeing a significant faction of the GOP is trying to take out Rep. Cawthorn (R-NC) in the soon to occur North Carolina primary. A major oppo hit just dropped this evening. Yeah, don’t get out of the boat but the hashtag is accurate and understated.
Oh God #madisoncawthornsextape https://t.co/Kwq0IVwzKp
— Artist formerly known as Deven Nunez Cow (@EmmReef) May 4, 2022
It is very likely that a GOP boundary will be effectively policed in the next couple of weeks with Cawthorn.
This is interesting as an example of politics. It is more noteworthy, I think in seeing who gets the full treatment of a freeze-out and full oppo dumps and who does not. M.T. Greene (R-GA) is not getting the full freeze despite representing an extraordinarily safe GOP seat where a generic Republican would vote for the leadership line no matter what.
Seeing where the boundaries are drawn and enforced is always a fascinating process.
Shalimar
Never seen anyone have so much trouble finding a hole.
Mike in NC
The imbecile Cawthorn has been twice stopped bringing a loaded handgun to an airport. Does anybody doubt there will be a third and fourth offense? Republicans seem to get away with anything with no consequences.
prostratedragon
Looks like it’s now the day after tomorrow.
japa21
FTFY
kindness
The oppo is coming from inside the house!!!
Spanky
@Shalimar: You watched it so we don’t have to?
randy khan
I think the difference is that Cawthorn creeps out a certain part of the Republican base. He’s kind of in an uncanny valley. Greene seems to represent pure id, which is quite on-brand these days.
bbleh
Seeing where the boundaries are drawn and enforced is always a fascinating process.
In this case, it’s pretty obvious. (Hint: it has three letters, and the first one is G. Can you guess it? I knew you could!)
MTG was openly unfaithful with gym clients in a heterosexual way. This, although it seems clear to me is slightly sexualized dominance behavior and no more truly gay than ass-grabbing in a locker-room shower, nevertheless looks gay, and for the sex-panicked core of the Republican Party, which includes the geriatric country-clubbers as well as the lead-paint-eating fundies, gay is the kiss of death.
Ah well, couldn’t happen to a nicer asshole …
TaMara
Look, I don’t care if Cawthorne wants to dress in women’s clothes and play around with his of-age cousin.
I care about how much he wants to oppress others and step on the constitution.
But I find it very interesting that the GOP thinks the quickest way to take him out is to insinuate he is gay. It says everything about that party (not that we didn’t already know that, but they aren’t hiding anything these days, are they?). The party of homophobia and misogyny has had a big week.
LAO
@Shalimar: hahahaha. But I sort of wish I could unsee the video.
Kropacetic
To be perfectly honest; when I heard Cawthorne’s statement on the cocaine orgies, that was the first time I ever heard anything about a group of Republicans and thought “that is normal, acceptable behavior*.” So of course they’re mad.
And imma find that sex tape. I don’t care, I’m curious and he ain’t bad to look at .
*Republican zeal for prosecuting the War on Drugs notwithstanding.
LAO
@TaMara: I totally agree and it’s why I believe this is a republican hit job.
japa21
@LAO: Which is why I made surer I didn’t look. I want him to win the primary.
Jeffro
Say it with us, snooze media:
GQP…
IN…
DISARRAY!!! (and while on fire, heading over a cliff!)
They caught the car with overturning Roe, the J6 Committee is marching on and hearings start next month, the Rick Scott plan is public, the McCarthy tapes continue to drop…
…as a certain wino hack used to say, “Let us savor” ???
Old School
So much the respite thread. Now I’m going to be traumatized indefinitely.
BruceFromOhio
ewww
NotMax
So no Madison bare pardon?
//
Lord Fartdaddy (Formerly, Mumphrey, Smedley Darlington Mingobat, et al.)
It does strike me as odd that they haven’t given Greene the heave-ho. It can’t be good for their overall chances to have this seriously mentally ill woman be one of their most widely seen members. There’s really something wrong with her–like she needs some kind of psychiatric help, medicine or something. There’s Looey Göemert-Lauren Boebert run-of-the-mill crazy, and then there’s whatever’s wrong with Greene. Nobody like that should be anywhere near any office of public trust, as much for her own sake as for everybody else’s. Whoever she listens to, family, staff, friends, whoever they are, they aren’t doing her any good by standing by and letting her do this to herself.
NotMax
@Lord Fartdaddy (Formerly, Mumphrey, Smedley Darlington Mingobat, et al.)
Also too, Gosar. Certifiable looney tunes.
Another Scott
Beau of the 5th Column says that MC pissed off the NC GQP and that’s who wants him gone (4:58) (not primarily/only the DC folks). MTG might have better relations with the GA GQP. Dunno.
Having fewer crazy, stupid people in office is important.
Cheers,
Scott.
PaulWartenberg
If the scuttlebutt about Cawthorn getting exposed and humiliated like this on social media is from GOP operatives punishing him for talking about cocaine-fueled sex orgies, doesn’t this just make everyone else – I know I am – start to realize “hey, shit, maybe Cawthorn was right about it” anyway?
The smart move would have been to let the Democrats in NC push him off the ballot for his insurrection activity on January 6th. But all this stuff exposing Cawthorn is just way over the top, like he has touched a raw nerve, and it’s gonna make us think “hmmmmmmmm, what’s the GOP really hiding…?”
Ruckus ??
@Lord Fartdaddy (Formerly, Mumphrey, Smedley Darlington Mingobat, et al.):
Is it possible that those who possibly could help her, are along the same lines as she is? That they don’t understand that she’s crazy, because they are as crazy as she is, and in similar ways. Normal to some is not the same as actual normal.
PaulWartenberg
also:
https://twitter.com/PaulWartenberg/status/1522010479090180100
Spanky
@Lord Fartdaddy (Formerly, Mumphrey, Smedley Darlington Mingobat, et al.):
@NotMax:
It’s the looney wot gets them elected. It’s hard to stand out in a crowd of GQP candidates.
David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch
/fixed
Shalimar
@Spanky: In the under a minute clip, the guy Cawthorn is bare-assed bouncing on is hard to see but appears to be both dressed and perpendicular to him. They’re joking with each other, same as in the dick-grabbing video.
No idea whether Cawthorn is gay or bi, but this wasn’t sex and this type of infantile joking was common among the straight guys I knew when I was in college.
PaulWartenberg
@NotMax:
don’t be an ass about it, NotMax.
LAO
@Lord Fartdaddy (Formerly, Mumphrey, Smedley Darlington Mingobat, et al.): I think we all over estimate the power of institutional republicans. Also, crazy is now, their brand because their base is insane. I don’t see that there is any incentive or political will to remove these members.
germy
Raoul Paste
It’ll be interesting to see how Cawthorne responds to this. Probably youthful indiscretion, et cetera.
Maybe this really is a GOP hit piece.
Do Trump next
Alison Rose ???
Sure, Jan.
sukabi
@PaulWartenberg: my reaction to the repubs sex orgies was duh!
A party that has as many sex scandals as they’ve had and has associates like Roger Stone (known, admitted orgy participant, wife swapper) working doing opposition research and various dirty tricks for decades is undoubtedly doing shit like that as entrapment insurance once they’ve found a new member’s kink….
MagdaInBlack
@Ruckus ??: She is classic high school “mean girl” crazy. I would imagine that her friends, assuming she has any, are just like her
LAO
@Raoul Paste: He already issued a statement on twitter. In sum and substance, youthful crass horseplay, And he won’t be blackmailed!!!!!
germy
@Alison Rose ???:
Drip drip might be a poor choice of word.
brendancalling
@PaulWartenberg: of course he was telling the truth. That’s why they’re coming down on him like a ton of bricks. I hate him too but this is the party of Matt Gaetz, Marge Green, and Roger Stone.
They’re all perverts.
Josie
@Shalimar: Was it common for guys to film each other playing like this? That’s what I find puzzling–that they would want to film it and let it get shown to others.
MisterForkbeard
Come on guys. The fact that Cawthorn did these things isn’t the scandal, it’s that Republicans performed an egregious breach of trust and leaked it.
I hope Kevin McCarthy puts the full force of his caucus into finding out who is doing these things. Also, that the media should pick up these complaints
Alison Rose ???
@germy: My thoughts exactly,LOL
David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch
@Shalimar:
I dissent. I went two very liberal colleges (which had active Marxist-Lennist clubs) and I attended a lot of parties where people got shit faced and guys never did this.
MomSense
@MisterForkbeard:
Thenohoto of him wearing lingerie is the only time I’ve seen him look happy
Starfish
@Shalimar: I did not watch the video, but you are on point. Boys were just fake humping everything in their late teens and early twenties, and I have no explanation for the behavior.
You said it more eloquently.
TonyG
@Lord Fartdaddy (Formerly, Mumphrey, Smedley Darlington Mingobat, et al.): Well, this is a party that still supports Donald Trump, who is certainly mentally ill. The craziness is a feature, not a bug, with these people.
eversor
@Lord Fartdaddy (Formerly, Mumphrey, Smedley Darlington Mingobat, et al.):
Greene speaks for the Qanon/Evangelical crowd. Among those groups either what she’s saying isn’t that crazy, they flat out agree with it, or it’s fine as long as she punches the right way. She’s got a natural base, and it’s one the GOP can’t piss off.
Boeberts shtick is just hot chick with a gun which has a constituency, it’s just a narrow one.
Kropacetic
@David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch: Agreed. I’m gay and once had a lot of straight friends, never saw any sort of homoerotic joking play. And god forbid I was to joke about it, even targeting myself. The ego of too many straight man can’t even take the hint of a challenge.
eversor
@Raoul Paste:
He ratted on their cocaine orgies, and called them old.
JPL
@bbleh: She was also having other affairs at the time. Gotta admit she is in good shape.
I hope Cawthorne outs her also.
Peale
@PaulWartenberg: the gop is releasing this stuff but blaming the Dems for it. This is one of those tests. Yeah, the GOP will dump Crawthorn, but the quieter Dem voters will get mad at us for tossing out porn to the public.
eversor
@JPL:
MTG is not in good shape. That sort of bloated, puffy face, lots of water retention stuff is not being in good shape. She looks like one of those older people that never bothers to actually cut and uses roids… which would also explain her behavior. Everyone who goes to the gym knows people like that and they are always nutters.
Peale
@TaMara: Aaron Shock was not the most corrupt gop member of congress. But it certainly didn’t take much for them to drop him.
danielx
Not looking, not looking, not looking….
Anne Laurie
There’s something I refer to as the Rochester Rule, after the madwoman in Jane Eyre: Never play neurotic games with a genuinely crazy person; they don’t care if they die as long as they can make *you* lose.
It’s a common, common-sense aversion. Their colleagues slang on Gohmert and Boebert, because they’re annoying & taint the whole coalition. It would be nice to replace them with people less irritating, but as long as G/B vote GOP, it’s not a big issue.
But MTG has her own funding (her family is willing to pay to keep her in Congress and not at home, for reasons), and she’s in a safe district. Maybe she could be ejected — if someone w/Thiel or Mercer money ran a video of her sexually submitting to AOC, or performing a coathanger abortion on a sobbing blond teenager — but she would happily burn down the entire party during the battle.
They’d be very happy if some hapless Democratic hero were to successfully challenge her, but they’re not gonna risk their own happy little lives on the long shot.
Starfish
@Kropacetic: I hate to break it to you. My high school classmates did this because the class above them had done it to them. It turned really awkward because about 10% of the guys in my class turned out to be gay.
There was definitely one guy in my class who would definitely say “Oh, please do not fake hump me” while enjoying the thing in a way that made the guys doing it feel really awkward.
scav
Flitting too near the high camp trans spotlight might even be worse than the log-cabin ghey to the current GQP.
persistentillusion
@Kropacetic: Not getting out of the boat, me. Thanks for your willingness to go landward so that those of us who don’t wish to, will not need as much brain bleach.
Kropacetic
@persistentillusion: Harder than I thought…to find, I mean…
Kropacetic
@Starfish: Maybe it’s a regional thing, like culture and shit.
Leto
In other dipshit GoP scandal news: Photo emerges of Dr Oz casting ballot in Turkey’s 2018 presidential election.
Splitting Image
@PaulWartenberg:
Seems to me that the last time they worked so hard to kick one of their darlings out of the party was when Milo Yiannopolis admitted he was into boys.
That was around the time they started throwing pedophile around as an insult…
Steeplejack
VeniceRiley
I used to drink with that old gay Republican guy that published the california political insider zine … Hofsteader? Someone hung like that, though there is another with a similar name. Back in the day, in West Hollywood, he was a regular at E”toille (?) good times. He must be dead by now. I wonder if he’s rolling in his grave.
different-church-lady
Guy’s a lock for the nomination in ’28.
Starfish
@Kropacetic: It could be. There is a lot of homoerotic stuff going on in Southern football culture, and you would never point it out because there is a lot of violence in Southern culture in general.
Kropacetic
@Starfish: I’ll stick to New England for now.
eversor
@Splitting Image:
What Milo said was worse. What Milo said was that gay men targeted teen boys. And part of gay culture was as a young teen having sex with an adult man. And that this was all totally normal and good.
And it wasn’t that the GOP took him out. It was that all his book deals and stuff went away and he ended up millions in debt after that and was done for.
Ohio Mom
@Starfish: I definitely didn’t run in crowds like that but I don’t doubt that such crowds have long existed.
But until relatively recently, everyone did not have video cameras in their pockets. Cawthorn was born too late, couldn’t happen to a more deserving guy.
Mallard Filmore
@David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch:
So you’re saying only conservative college guys do this …
Ken
I may be mixing up Republican liars, but I thought I recently read here on Balloon Juice* that Cawthorn won his primary by falsely calling his opponent a never-Trumper. I can’t imagine the primary voters of his district have gotten any smarter, so it might work again. He could even call the opponent a woke never-Trumper.
* Your Source of Truth™
Gin & Tonic
@Ohio Mom: I say a silent prayer every morning that there were no smartphones or video cameras when I was Cawthorn’s age.
persistentillusion
@Kropacetic: Snort.
zhena gogolia
@NotMax: OMG, you guys have to go crazy when I have to help my husband do the dishes from our dinner party.
eversor
The other thing about Cawthron is he said there was going to be a slow drip effort to discredit him. So I’m guessing there is worse than this video that’s going to land.
TonyG
Ernst Rohm did not meet Hitler’s high standards, and was dealt with accordingly.
delk
He’s only 26 and has spent more than half his lifetime on social media. I’m sure there are a ton of things he has posted that are just waiting to be leaked.
TonyG
@Ken: Given the fact that the opposite of “woke” is “asleep”, it makes perfect sense that “woke” is now the ultimate insult among the GOP-fascist crowd.
eversor
@delk:
I doubt he put that there. What usually happens with these sorts of things is they text out a video in confidence and the other person saves it. Or they are stupid enough to upload it to say iCloud or have iCloud backups enabled which means anybody with half a brain can go snag it, as apples security is dogshit.
That’s how Manafort got caught. They couldn’t get into his phone but the idiot backed up his stuff to iCloud.
Keeping stuff off social media or deleting it doesn’t matter. If you ever texted it to someone or had iCloud backup on you’re done it’s out in the wild.
Peale
@eversor: it’s the Greek Love! His feelings on immigration aren’t the only retrograde thing about his politics.
Lyrebird
@Starfish: Yeah there is still too much racism and homophobia and abuse of women all over this land, but it sure seams like some types of sexualized humiliation are more popular in the South.
I understand why the racism side of those Gov. Northam yearbook photos was the focus of that story, and it was not time to be all, what about the sexism and homophobia? But yeah at his med school it was apparently considered normal to do drag performances mocking Black women. Not because a drag show could be fun.
I knew plenty of people – straight male white people – who would have thought the dry hmping party was fun and video worth because tee hee hee.
Trying not to barf here. Because of the hypocrisy and casual cruelty, not because of the specifics of the video. This story is reminding me why I got the hell out, even though those people certainly were not everyone.
PaulWartenberg
@Peale:
serious question: WHERE is all this stuff coming from? What news source? What website? What twitterbot account?
debbie
@Spanky:
I saw it. There are no words.
debbie
@LAO:
He gave them the footage to hang him with.
NotMax
@Peale
Manikopita?
//
Peale
@Starfish: reminds me of the story one of my high school friends told me when I met him the summer after freshman year in college. He was at some kind of Christian school where there were no coed dorms, women had to be in by 10:00pm, need permission to leave campus. Anyway, he mentioned that it was odd that they would have naked wrestling matches in the hallway of his dorm. It wasn’t “gay or anything”. I guess that’s the benefit of going to sex segregated schools. At my own college with coed floors, we were always clothed in public spaces.
Leto
Data broker is selling location data of people who visit abortion clinics.
eversor
@PaulWartenberg:
Various. I’m guessing that his friends had these videos and talked too much resulting in being pushed/paid to release them or he did the full stupid. Which is he was stupid enough to backup his phone to iCloud, or someone he sent them to was stupid enough to backup to iCloud and varous ratfuckers simply pulled all them off there.
This stuff usually happens with celeberties but the way it works is someone scrapes iCloud and pulls down all your texts, photos everything. And then either blackmails you on releasing them, or filters all the stuff through different media outlets and buries you.
Knowing all that, and Cawthrons own comments that means there is a LOT more of this stuff and it WILL get worse.
Scout211
@Leto:
They have now stopped selling the location data.
eversor
@Peale:
I went to public highschool in the DC area but knew a lot of the kids at the local girls/guys only Christian private schools. The sheer amount of homoerotic behavior, including guys raping other guys, rampant alcoholism, debauched parties with the girls schools including bragging about drugging them and running trains on them was utterly insane. So stuff like this from Cawthron, and the Kavanaugh fiasco strikes me as “not only do I believe in the instant I’m told it, but it doesn’t strike me as even close to nearly as bad as some of the stuff I knew happened”.
James E Powell
@Lord Fartdaddy (Formerly, Mumphrey, Smedley Darlington Mingobat, et al.):
I don’t think Greene or Boebert are costing the Republicans any votes anywhere. They are both going to be easily re-elected. Whatever crazy & evil stuff they say just dissolves into the ether. The press/media never hold it against Republican party, generally.
Martin
You never told us you knew Brett Kavanaugh.
Martin
@Leto: Women outside of safe states like CA need to stop using online period/ovulator calendars. That data will be used against you.
debbie
@Martin:
I wouldn’t trust it in safe states either. Not worth the risk.
RaflW
Gotta wonder if a secondary or tertiary target of this oppo, at least by way of veiled threat, is Lindsey Graham. His ‘secret’ if such exists (I frankly don’t know but he is that classic southern never-married gentleman) may be a weapon the GOP holds over him.
Graham may also act how he does because he’s just the hollow, horrible, craven person he appears to be.
Leto
@Martin: it def will; there’s already been calls for people to delete those apps because of the data tracking/selling aspect. Some people honestly didn’t know that, but I’m sure everyone will know about it soon enough.
cliosfanboy
Wasn’t Greenes father a known nutter?
Captain C
@RaflW:
I suspect if he has a real sex secret, it’s pretty depraved. Otherwise, his open secret is probably fine with everyone concerned (including his voters) as long as it remains that and he’s discreet enough for deniability on everyone’s part. I’m not sure what he’s done to provoke whoever’s sending these out. And of course, he could have some hinky* financial or other legally questionable hijinks as well.
That’s definitely at least a part of it.
*autocorrect tried to make this ‘kinky’
Bobby Thomson
Cawthorn is an Omertà risk. Literally the only unforgivable sin in the Republican Party.
Shalimar
@Josie: I never saw anyone with a camera in the ’80s, or any pictures. Or nudity either outside of showers, and I tended to shower alone in the middle of the night to avoid any fun experiences in the communal showers. But we’re living in a cameraphone age now, so it isn’t surprising idiots like Cawthorn film everything.
Shalimar
@RaflW: Graham doesn’t face voters again until 2026. Outing him in this manner is pointless right now because he isn’t subject to any threat of losing his job.
Butter Emails!
@Peale: you would have to be a complete idiot to believe the Democrats were releasing this.
1. Smearing someone as gay isn’t something most Democrats keep in their box of political dirty tricks given the party’s position on gay rights.
2. Timing is off. If they have the materials to bury a vulnerable opponent in mud, Democrats would use it during the general election. They’d only use it during the primary if it would give them a weaker candidate in the general. That’s not the case here.
UncleEbeneezer
@Gin & Tonic: Amen. Cancel Culture would’ve gotten me several times over, lol!