SMART ASS CRIPPLE by MIKE ERVIN
MADISON CAWTHORN IS NOT MY WHEELCHAIR BROTHER
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MIKE ERVIN, a writer and disability rights activist in Chicago, writes the blog Smart Ass Cripple at smartasscripple .blogspot.com and writes regularly at Progressive.org.
should be ecstatic, but instead I image and agenda to Congress, it Cawthorn portrays himself as feel cheated. would be better for disabled folks the antidote for what he sees as On Election Day, the voters if he wasn’t there at all. the poisonous political agenda of North Carolina’s Eleventh ConCawthorn is so obsessed with of legislators like Ocasio-Cortez. gressional District elected Madi- Congresswoman Alexandria Oc- “She’s definitely the vanguard for son Cawthorn to the U.S. House asio-Cortez that it makes me her party right now,” he said in an of Representatives. Cawthorn, like wonder if there was a girl in his interview, “and that’s something me, is a guy in a wheelchair. And high school who looked like her I want to be for the Republican he’s only twenty-five years old, but wouldn’t give him the time of Party.” which will make him the youngest day. He has often attacked her and member of Congress! three other progressive women in s some readers may recall, Cawthorn will get a lot of at- Congress, sometimes collectively Cawthorn was a featured tention because he’s young and known as The Squad. On his cam- speaker at the Republican Nationhandsome and in a wheelchair. paign website, he says, “I decided al Convention in August. Now I He’s a good orator, too. That’s why I to run for Congress because I don’t readily admit that I didn’t watch a should be ecstatic. I should be cel- want to raise a family in a country nanosecond of that convention as ebrating Cawthorn’s rise it unfolded. I love you to as a major breakthrough death, dear readers, and for disabled folks. Here’s I will do just about anya new voice in Congress thing for you. I’ll swalto speak for us. And he low swords and wrestle knows what it’s like to alligators if it pleases navigate through life in you. But I have to draw a wheelchair because he’s the line somewhere. If been doing it every day you want to know what for several years. diabolical things went But the Eleventh Dison there, you’ll have to trict used to be representask someone else. Please ed by Mark Meadows, Photo of Madison Cawthorn from his Congressional campaign. forgive me. who gave up his seat to But fortunately (or become the latest chief of staff for run by leftwing socialists. We need maybe not), we live in an era the squatter currently still occu- leaders who will stand up and fight where videos are available on the pying the White House. It stands AOC, The Squad, and the radical Internet. So I have watched Cawto reason that his successor would left-wing mob.” thorn’s RNC speech several times, have to be as much of an over-the“My generation,” Cawthorn without having to sit through any top reactionary as he is. And that continues, “is looking for results of the rest of the cavalcade of evil describes Cawthorn all the way. socialism can’t provide. Socialism clowns. His campaign website declares, only produces shared misery.” In In this speech, Cawthorn talk“I’m ready to take on the liberals his victory speech on election ed about the terrible car accident in Congress.” night, Cawthorn said, “The days in which he was involved at the So a moment in history that of AOC and the far left mislead- age of eighteen that made him a should make me buoyant with ing the next generation of Amer- paraplegic. He said he was given a hope and elation has me filled with icans are numbered. Tonight, the 1 percent chance of survival. His dread. Damnit! I really wish I could voters of western North Carolina first public outing in a wheelchair, root for Cawthorn. But as much as I chose to stand for freedom and a he said, was to a professional basewant to be in his corner, I just can’t. new generation of leadership in ball game: “Before my accident I If Cawthorn carries his campaign Washington.” was six-foot-three. I stood out in
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