The wife of Republican Virginia Senate candidate Hung Cao ran a fiery conservative mommy blog and accompanying social media channels where she once told former President Barack Obama to “stay in Africa.”
During 2013, April Lakata Cao authored The Conservative Parent, where she posted missives to her website and Facebook page, a number of which were also cross-posted to X.
Although the blog and Facebook page have been scrubbed, many of the posts on X are still live today.
In them, Cao intimated Muslims should be killed (“peace those Muslims,” she wrote), dipped her toes in the discussion around Obama’s nationality and race, said Black Obama administration officials were racist, and shared conspiratorial InfoWars posts about the Department of Homeland Security arming itself against citizens.
Cao is running against incumbent Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), a race Kaine is expected to win. He did not respond to a detailed inquiry sent via email on Thursday.
Cao is a former Navy captain who touted his service with “special operations.” He emigrated from Vietnam in 1975 to Virginia before joining the military. According to his bio, he served tours in Irag, Afghanistan and Somalia, before launching his political career. Cao kicked off his campaign warning that he intimately knew the threat of communism, running to fight Democrats who have helped our country take a “dark turn.”
His wife of over 25 years, April Lakata Cao, spent the early and mid-2010s as a military spouse and politics and mommy blogger, where she penned missives such as “A Message to Fathers: Keeping Your Daughters Off the Pole,” “Allowing Boys in the Girls Bathroom and Vice Versa,” and “Perpetuating the Santa Myth,” arguing that allowing kids to believe in Santa would later destroy their faith in God.
Archived versions of The Conservative Patriot introduce “April Lakata Cao” as a “military spouse and writer, but most importantly, mom to four beautiful children.”
She said The Conservative Parent “was born out of a desire to promote and encourage conservative values in the home.”
The Caos now have five children, pictures of whom April routinely shares on social media.
Cao was prolific online, repeatedly writing about her family life on her blog and other sites. Some of these posts are still live.
The Conservative Parent and its Facebook page are no longer available. A year after launching it, Cao shifted the blog to be more family-focused, rebranding it as “A Well Done Life.”
Though dormant, A Well Done Life’s Facebook page has 19,000 followers.
On the X account @awelldonelife, Cao calls herself a “Professional Writer by night, homeschool mom to four beautiful kids by day. Military wife. Truth teller. Christ follower.”
A review of Facebook posts from The Conservative Parent and @AWellDoneLife found that they are verbatim.
Old tags on X show people replying to @AWellDoneLife as @ConservParent, which is the handle shared on the site.
The posts are typical Tea Party-esque missives of the early 2010s. Cao called Hillary Clinton a liar over Benghazi, wrote about attending CPAC, shared her support for Rand Paul, and remarked on top issues of the day, like the Boston Marathon bombing and the fight over gay marriage.
In response to a story about Obama’s trip to Africa, where the White House endorsed voter IDs, she insinuated Obama isn’t an American citizen.
“Hypocrisy much? Am I the only one hoping Obama takes a shine (again) to Africa and decides to stay?”
She also appeared to wade into the birther debate when, in February 2013, Cao wrote, ”OBAMA FORGED DOCUMENT CASE: Why haven’t I heard about this on the news today? Even if it comes to nothing it’s still being heard by the Supreme Court,” and shared a link to an Examiner story that covered an effort in 2012 to decertify the election results in California because “Obama is a citizen of Indonesia” and was “using a forged birth certificate, forged Selective Service Certificate and a Social Security number which was never assigned to him as a proof of his identity.”
On X, given the character limit at the time, some posts are not available in full. The original Facebook posts have been deleted.
However, a search for identical phrases shows the Facebook posts that were shared by readers of the site. The Conservative Parent is often tagged in those posts, while the link says it comes from A Life Well Done.
Cao also pushed harsh rhetoric towards Muslims. In response to a news story from the Washington Times about a Syrian cleric that says “Islamic cleric decrees it OK for Syrian rebels to rape women” Cao wrote, “Would these be the same rebels we’re running guns to? So peace those Muslims.”
On her Facebook page, Cao stoked fears about a government crackdown on conservatives, writing, “Inquiring minds want to know. What’s with those 1.6 billion rounds of hollow points? Training my behind,” flagging a link to InfoWars about a conspiracy that the Department of Homeland Security was arming itself against domestic, right-wing threats.
A House investigation ensued after outcry, and DHS told the panel that the 1.6 billion figure was wrong; that it was purchasing 100 million rounds of ammo for 70,000 agents, spread out over five years.
In another post, she said she doubted Michelle Obama’s empathy for a teen girl who was fatally shot. “I find it incredible that the First Lady has tears for a girl that suddenly fits the gun control agenda” appearing to reference a speech Obama gave in Chicago that day.
Months earlier, she claimed the incident Obama referred to had been ignored.
“I don’t see this sweet little girl’s face splashed all over the news with cries for gun control. Why? Maybe because it’s not emotional enough to make a political statement? ” she said, according to a share of her post on Facebook, which included a link to a now-defunct Fox story that referred to the death of 15-year-old Hadiya Pendleton, who performed at Obama’s inauguration.
Cao also waded into the gun control debate, using the standard conservative rhetoric about people who misbrand AR-15s as assault rifles.
A post linked on her site’s sidebar but inaccessible on the Internet Archive is titled “It’s Not an Assault Rifle.”
Cao, though, wasn’t entirely sure herself, asking her followers at one point, “HELP! Is the AR for ArmaLite or ArmaLite Rifle? Thanks!”
She also alleged the Obama administration was filled with racists,
“Racists hide in plain site so easily in this Administration,” she wrote, sharing a story about remarks made by former Rep. Mel Watt (D-N.C.) that recirculated after he was nominated for a role in Obama’s administration.
In comments, Watt, who is Black, said he had no use for white voters who wouldn’t vote for a Black candidate, saying they needed to be “factored out” of the democratic process.
When Obama spoke about the death of Trayvon Martin, delivering a famous quote about how it could have been him, Cao wrote, “I can’t believe we elected this man. I am deeply saddened by his inability to see how destructive his words are. God help our country.”
According to URLs the Daily Dot viewed, Cao’s blog contained hundreds of posts, many of which are no longer available.
At least one that can’t be found includes her unvarnished take on Michelle Obama.
“Read my take on Michelle Obama at The Conservative Parent online!” she tweeted, with a URL that ends “ why-i-have-no-regard-for-michelle-obama/.”
In a post way ahead of its time for conservative ire, she challenged a story out of Massachusetts about schools allowing trans students to use the bathrooms that correspond with their gender identities.
“I know I shouldn’t have to point out the obvious, but a penis means you are a boy and a vagina means that you are a girl.”
She then went on to say schools shouldn’t respect students’ preferred gender because “choosing to act like a girl when you are anatomically a boy is, indeed, a CHOICE.”
Continuing, Cao painted a hypothetical of her son identifying as an “ alien named Ping Pong from the planet Crunch” and that “aliens from Crunch don’t pee standing up. They pee in the sink. In the girls bathroom” demanding to know if a school should accommodate him.
Not all of her posts were political, though. In one, she explained how telling your kids to believe in Santa Claus could later shake their faith in the Lord.
“When the time comes to explain that this unseen yet wonderfully perfect almost-man is not real but simply a nice story … how will you convince them that the most important Man, who is also God, is as real as we are.“
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