Madison Cawthorn has moved from awful to alarming. Time to pay attention.

Few of us want to pay attention to Madison Cawthorn.

In less than a year in Washington, the freshman representative from North Carolina has built the wrong kind of national reputation with allegations of sexual assault, a steady drip of misinformation, and far too many palm-to-face-moments. Just last week, Cawthorn proudly proclaimed that he had “formally requested that the U.S. cabinet invoke the 25th Amendment” and remove President Joe Biden, although that’s not something a U.S. representative can “formally” do. That request also misspelled the name of Vice President Kamala Harris.

Such antics leave Democrats incredulous and at least some Republicans shaking their heads. For all, Cawthorn is a somber and regular reminder that our country has grown so polarized that Republican voters felt compelled to pull the lever for a candidate with a glaringly thin resume and a bloated history of lying.

But now, Cawthorn has veered from awful to even more alarming. It’s time to pay attention again.

At a county GOP gathering in Western North Carolina on Sunday, Cawthorn repeated false claims that the 2020 election was rigged, then suggested that there could be “bloodshed” if such election fraud continued. Video from the Macon County event shows Cawthorn telling a small gathering that “we all know it was a stolen election.” That apparently includes North Carolina’s race for governor, which Cawthorn suggested was won by Republican Dan Forrest, although election results showed Gov. Roy Cooper with a 250,000-vote margin of victory.

Cawthorn also encouraged COVID vaccine “civil disobedience” and called masks “anti-science” before things got truly alarming. According to reports, Cawthorn claimed Democrats want to arm the Taliban with automatic weapons and said “we all need to be storing up some ammunition.” A few moments later, he turned back to the election: “If our election systems continue to be rigged, continue to be stolen, it’s going to lead to one place and that’s bloodshed,” he said.

He added: “As much as I am willing to defend our liberty at all costs, there’s nothing that I would dread doing more than having to pick up arms against a fellow American.”

Those statements have a familiar ring, of course. It’s the kind of rhetoric Republicans, including Cawthorn, engaged in after the 2020 election and in the weeks, days and hours that led to the Jan. 6 insurrection. Also troubling: When a Macon County attendee asked Cawthorn when he was going to “call us to Washington again,” he said: “We have a few plans in motion I can’t make public right now, but this is something that we’re working on.”

Perhaps this is nothing more than a politician puffing out his chest and playing to the home crowd. But while a Cawthorn spokesperson told CNN that the Representative was “CLEARLY advocating for violence not to occur over election integrity questions,” what’s actually clear is that he’s shoving his audience toward outrage with one hand while holding up the other to urge restraint.

We now know such cuteness can be treacherous. We know what happens when Republicans tap into anger this way and fuel it with falsehoods and fiery accusations. We’ve seen how too many Americans are ready to believe the worst in our electoral system and are poised to be steered into action. Cawthorn, who once called those Capitol invaders “disgusting,” now calls them “political prisoners.”

His fellow Republicans, including those in North Carolina, should respond. They should join Democrats in condemning Cawthorn and, in a bipartisan effort, censuring him in the U.S. House. Republicans surely would rather not target one of their own and face the possible wrath of their base, not to mention the former president. But Cawthorn can no longer be dismissed as a silly Congressman braying from the mountains of North Carolina. His rhetoric is dangerous, not only to his party but his country. It’s time to stop ignoring him.

This story was originally published September 1, 2021 at 12:42 PM with the headline "Madison Cawthorn has moved from awful to alarming. Time to pay attention.."