Freshman Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-N.C.) claimed in a recent interview that he’s been invited to orgies and witnessed drug use since joining Congress. In the same interview, Cawthorn also referenced talking points popular among QAnon conspiracy theorists and members of extremist militias.
On a recent episode of the Warrior Poet Society podcast, Cawthorn described a culture in Washington, D.C. that includes orgies and cocaine.
Asked how much the capital resembles the fictitious show House of Cards that detailed the rise of a nihilistic couple to the presidency, Cawthorn said the sexual perversion in Washington, D.C. he’s witnessed includes invitations from people he’s long-admired to “sexual get-togethers.”
“And then you realize you’re asking you to come to an orgy,” he said.
Cawthorn also claimed to have seen people who lead efforts to eradicate addiction in America doing cocaine.
His comment about drugs and orgies caused something of an uproar among both Republican party leadership and others who want him to name names.
Less attention is being paid to Cawthorn’s statements parroting extremist militia and conspiracy theorist talking points.
Later in the same interview, Cawthorn talked about being comfortable being seen as an outlier or extremist in Congress.
“As much as it seems we’re outnumbered, outgunned, and out-maneuvered by the Washington elites and kind of this cabal that’s running our country, I always am reminded of when our Founding Fathers started that spark of revolution,” he said.
QAnon conspiracy theorists believe that a cabal of satanic, cannibalistic pedophiles runs the world.
Continuing, Cawthorn repeated a myth that’s popular among extremist militias.
“It was really only 3% of the American population of North America actually fought against the British empire,” Cawthorn said.
This figure is commonly cited by Three Percenters, aka III Percenters, which the Southern Poverty Law Center describes as “a sub-ideology … within the larger antigovernment militia movement.” Those who subscribe to what’s sometimes called “Three Percenterism” style themselves as akin to the revolutionaries who fought the tyrannical British, which they liken to the current government.
People wearing Three Percenter slogans and logos are often seen gathering with other right-wing extremists, such as at Unite the Right and the Capitol riot. Members of the Three Percenters were charged in the Capitol riot.
Historians agree that far more than 3% of colonists fought the British in the Revolutionary War. In a widely cited piece from 2017, the Observer reported, “This ‘three percent’ myth is born out of the claim that only 80,000 people served in the Continental Army and militia during the war.”
The Observer found that 80,000 is merely the number who claimed pensions or bounty-land warrants. It doesn’t include the entire Continental Army; nor does it factor in those who served in the U.S. Navy, state navies, Continental Marines, American privateers, or militias. Historians, the Observer revealed, estimate that somewhere between 15% and 25% of the colonists actually fought the British.
Cawthorn went on to slam the political pecking order generally and America specifically. He said that in the future “a lot of people like me” wanting to run for Congress will be unwilling to wait their turn and pay their “dues to the party.”
He said he wants “normal Americans to look around and say, ‘Well who the hell am I in line behind?’”
“Because whoever’s come before me has left a despot of a country that I’m now having to raise my children in that is so divided that we’re we’re almost to kinetic forces meeting each other.”
“I think we’re going to have great patriots rise up and we’re going to take our country back,” Cawthorn, adding, “politically. I’m not saying, you know.”
Cawthorn’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
