Joseph Zambon
Rep. Langworthy's Latest Sunday Night Diatribe
Summary
- Congressman Nick Langworthy released his weekly letter to constituents on 7/28/24.
- He describes his questioning of the Secret Service Director during the Oversight and Accountability Committee hearings, which led to her resignation.
- He described introducing legislation to withdraw student visas for those engaged in political protest.
- He used inflammatory, demeaning, and sexist language to describe the Vice President of the United States and members of Congress absent from indicted Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to a joint session of Congress.
- His comments are part of the Trump campaign strategy to impugn the qualifications and integrity of the first woman of color to seek the presidency.
Sunday night (July 28, 2024), Republican Congressman Nick Langworthy (NY-23) released his weekly email to constituents (full text here).. It contained the usual name-calling, half-truths, and misleading statements we’ve come to expect from this highly partisan, far-right MAGA politician. After all, Langworthy owes his present job to Donald Trump and to the upstate New York Republican county chairmen who drove Chris Jacobs out of Congress for his stand against assault weapons.
Langworthy wrote in his missive, “It’s disgusting and deeply disrespectful that Vice President Kamala Harris and other Democrat leaders like Nancy Pelosi chose to boycott the speech and side with the terrorist sympathizers.” Among the 40 or so legislators absent from Netanyahu’s address to Congress, Langworthy singles out two women. That seems misogynistic to me.
Let’s dissect that sentence. “It is disgusting…” Calling the Democratic nominee for President of the United States disgusting because she and many of her colleagues chose not to be a prop in political theater orchestrated by Republican Speaker of the House and January 6th Insurrection apologist Mike Johnson is itself disgusting. Langworthy follows the Trump formula for creating disparaging nicknames for opponents, as I wrote in my last post. Instead of calling Vice President Harris “Laughin’ Kamala” or “Lyin’ Kamala” as Trump does, Langworthy calls her “disgusting” as in “Disgusting Kamala”.
He also wrote, “…deeply disrespectful…” Langworthy forgets who he and the other members of Congress represent. They don’t represent an Israeli politician who has been indicted by the Israeli attorney general for bribery, fraud, and breach of trust in three separate cases (Case 1000, Case 2000, and Case 4000) and who is currently under trial after having had to relinquish all of his ministry portfolios except for Prime Minister. Really!! Inviting a person currently indicted and in a criminal trial to a joint session of Congress?
But we should remember that Langworthy also supports a person found liable for the sexual abuse of E. Jean Carroll and, in a separate case, convicted of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records as part of an illegal conspiracy to undermine the integrity of the 2016 presidential election by concealing hush money payments to an adult film star, Stormy Daniels. At least there haven’t been any accusations of sexual abuse involving Netanyahu.
The question is not why about 40 Democratic House and Senate members and one Republican member of the House skipped the prime minister’s address. The question is why the rest of them were present, listening and applauding a politician reviled by many in his own country for his failure to obtain the release of Israeli hostages. Someone who has been indicted and is on trial in Israel. Why would the Speaker invite Netanyahu to address Congress?
Together, Langworthy’s line “…disgusting and deeply disrespectful…” strikes me as a dog whistle – “coded or suggestive language in political messaging to get support from a particular group.” For Vice President Harris, former Speaker Pelosi, and Rep. Ilhan Omar – all women and the latter two both victims of political violence – the coded message seems to be, “You should be grateful to be here, and you should mind your place.”
Langworthy’s language is just the start of the coming onslaught of racist and sexist attacks against Vice President Harris orchestrated by Trump. Trump hired notorious political hit man Chris LaCivita to run his campaign. Based on LaCivita’s history, we can expect more coded and more blatant sexist and racist attacks on Vice President Harris.
LaCivita was the architect of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth campaign against Vietnam war hero and Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry. The New York Times called LaCivita’s Swiftboat campaign “one of the ugliest smears in modern US politics.” Republican Senator and former prisoner of war John McCain called it “dishonest and dishonorable.” No one will be able to smear Langworthy or Trump for their time in service because neither of them served.
LaCivita was a consultant and principal media advisor to the Swift Boat Veterans. He wrote and produced their controversial commercials smearing Kerry. “Swiftboating” has come to mean “attacking opponents by questioning their credibility and patriotism in a dishonest manner; a smear campaign.” One of the smear ads created by LaCivita is shown below.
In the same sentence, Langworthy takes it up a notch and writes, “…chose to boycott the speech and side with terrorist sympathizers…” He also writes, “Their absence sends a glaring message about whose side they are on in our mission to defeat evil.”
This is reprehensible language – equating absence from a political rally held under the guise of an address to Congress with support for terrorism and evil. It is outrageous and unacceptable language from my congressman.
The sole Republican skipping Netanyahu’s speech also believed it was political theater. Rep. Thomas Massie tweeted that Congress was undertaking “political theater on behalf of the State Department” and “I don’t feel like being a prop, so I won’t be attending.”
Langworthy’s language is reminiscent of demagogues such as Senator Joseph McCarthy, who was largely responsible for the Red Scare in the early ’50s and for blacklisting real or suspected communists. The supreme demagogue is, of course, former President Donald Trump.
Interestingly, McCarthy and Trump are linked by their relationship to notorious lawyer Roy Cohn. Cohn played a major role in McCarthy’s anti-Communist witch hunts, and he was Trump’s lawyer and mentor. Trump’s favorite strategies of “deny, deny, deny” and “delay, delay, delay” are reported to come from Cohn.
As retiring Republican Senator Mitt Romney said, “It’s pretty clear that the [Republican] party is inclined to a populist demagogue message.” That is one reason why Senator Romney is not seeking re-election.
Langworthy uses inflammatory language in his message. He calls the absentees “disgusting and deeply disrespectful.” That they “side with the terrorist sympathizers.” A “disgraceful slap in the face” and “useful idiots.”
This is not just disturbing to read, but it can lead people to commit acts of violence. As Brookings reported, “…a range of research suggests the incendiary rhetoric of political leaders can make political violence more likely, gives violence direction, complicates the law enforcement response, and increases fear in vulnerable communities…hateful speech spurs negative emotions.”
For example, the near-fatal attack on 83-year-old Paul Pelosi (mocked by NY-24 Congresswoman Claudia Tenney) occurred at the hands of conspiracy theorist Paul DePape, who told police, “There is evil in Washington.” Inflammatory postings led Edgar Welch to shoot up the Comet Ping Pong pizzeria in Washington D. C., which he read was harboring a child abuse ring led by Hillary Clinton. In 2020, when President Trump tweeted that COVID-19 was a “Chinese virus,” the use of the term exploded along with incidents of hate against Asian Americans.
Langworthy should know that his posts have consequences. His inflammatory writing is not just a political game. People can get hurt.
The Red Scare 1950-54 was led by Senator Joseph McCarthy, the source of the term “McCarthyism.” The end of McCarthyism and of Joseph McCarthy’s influence occurred during the Army-McCarthy hearings. Attorney Joseph Welch was defending a young colleague McCarthy was trying to implicate as a communist. Welch famously told Senator Joseph McCarthy, “Until this moment, Senator, I think I have never really gauged your cruelty or recklessness…Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?”
Congressman Langworthy, have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?