Another Grrr Moment

What do we make of Clay Higgins? Is he:

a. Delusional

b. A Liar

c. A Republican

d. A Representative from Louisiana

e. A MAGA member

f. All the above

You might remember Clay Higgins from that time back in 2016 when he declared “Kill them all” and wanted to start a ‘Christian war’ against radical Islam.

Yes, because war works so well. Check Russia’s continuing war of aggression against Ukraine for example, or the never-ending killing between Israel and HAMAS to verify how fucking great that’s working out.

Now, Rep Higgins is channeling Mike Lindell. No, Mike Lindell isn’t even dead yet. But ‘My Pillow’ Lindell clings to declarations that, “…we have enough evidence to put everybody in prison for life –300 some million people.”

Lindell made that claim back in 2022. He’s still out there making it. None of that ‘evidence’ he claims to have has been revealed.

Also note that the U.S. population is 332 million. Lindell is claiming to have evidence to have almost 90% of the population imprisoned — ‘for life’. Adults make up about 78% of the population, so he’s including children. There are also about 38 million registered Republicans, so Lindell is jailing about six million of the GOP, based on his purported evidence.

Should we ask him what prisons he plans to use? Should we address with him how the economy will continue to function after he’s imprisoned 90% of the population?

First, let’s just ask him to show that evidence, or shut up about it and go away.

And yet, this is the same course which we see Rep. Clay gleefully skipping down.

I’ll let NYTimes reporters Luke Broadwater and Alan Feuer take it from here.

Even by a conspiracy theorist’s standards, the wild claims made by Representative Clay Higgins, Republican of Louisiana, stand out.

The hard-right congressman, now in his fourth term in the House, has said that “ghost buses” took agents provocateurs to the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, to instigate the riot. He has claimed that the federal government is waging a “civil war” against Texas. And he has called the criminal charges against former President Donald J. Trump for mishandling classified documents a “perimeter probe from the oppressors.”

But far from relegating Mr. Higgins to the fringe of their increasingly fractious conference, House Republicans have elevated him. They made him the chairman of the subcommittee overseeing border enforcement, and Speaker Mike Johnson named him one of 11 impeachment managers tasked with trying to remove the homeland security secretary from office in a Senate trial set to take place next week.

None of it has dampened Mr. Higgins’s penchant for spreading unsupported theories, many of which portray law enforcement and the government in an evil, conspiratorial light.

This week, in a lengthy podcast interview, he expounded at length on his belief — based, he said, on his own extensive investigation and evidence that only he has been able to see — that federal law enforcement officers entrapped Mr. Trump’s supporters into violently attacking the Capitol on Jan. 6. He was repeating a conspiracy theory that has been debunked repeatedly.

Over the course of a two-hour interview on the “Implicit Bias” podcast, Mr. Higgins, wearing a shirt emblazoned with the logo of the Three Percenters, a right-wing antigovernment militia, repeated the lie that the 2020 election was fraudulent. He laid out an outlandish story that tied the rise of the coronavirus pandemic to what he said was a plot by the government to infiltrate pro-Trump online forums and urge members to engage in “riotous” behavior, as he put it.

Finally, he said, also groundlessly, that federal agents posing as Trump supporters traveled to Washington on Jan. 6 and tricked Mr. Trump’s backers into carrying out mob violence.

Really. REALLY? Here we go again.

A MAGA election denier claiming they have evidence no one else has ever found. They’ve never shared this evidence. Higgins specifically claimed his findings were based on evidence that only he could see.

To be a conservative or hard right politician is one matter. But to make wild claims of conspiracy without showing any evidence supporting these conclusions has become too much.

Yet, the way that the GOP treats its members making these outrageous claims, lying about evidence they have (or are so delusional that they THINK they have real, hard evidence which no one else has noticed or can see), has entrenched being delusional and lying as the GOP party norms. GOP voters eagerly support them in sufficient numbers that these liars are voted into office again and again.

So what do I make of these voters? Are they:

a. Delusional

b. Ignorant

c. Hate the United States

d. All the above

I asked this sadly but earnestly. Because, how can you continue supporting people actively undermining our government’s structure and claim that you support that government? How can you expect that government — our federal government — to continue functioning if you’re filling positions with people who spread wild conspiracies based on lies or evidence only ‘they’ can see?

If the government fails, do you really expect the nation to continue to exist as a democratic republic?

Fortunately, there are intelligent and engaged voters in most of the country, Democrat, Republican, and Independent, voting for capable people to represent them.

Fingers crossed that they emerge in Louisiana and boot Clay Higgins from office. Please make it soon.