The Revenge of Dark MAGA?

Plus: Sodomy and the Supreme Court

Madison Cawthorn speaks during former US President Donald Trump's rally on April 9, 2022. (Photo by Peter Zay/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

Happy Friday.

Today’s newsletter is jam-packed with weekend stuff, including:

• A short history of SCOTUS and sodomy. (Yes.)

• The GOP flip-flops on terrorism.

• The right’s “Great Replacement” dodge

• CPAC does Hungary

But let’s start with a palate cleanser.

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Madison’s Revenge

“The time for gentile politics as usual has come to an end,” writes Representative Madison Cawthorn who was defeated for re-election earlier this week.

The typo (presumably he meant “gentle”) was interesting, because it’s unlikely that the 26-year-old-soon-to-be ex-Congressman meant to call for a more robust Jewish politics.

He had something very different in mind: The Rise of DARK MAGA.

Nota bene: Dark MAGA is not to be confused with Original MAGA, which is, evidently, not sufficiently “DARK” and must now be purified by Cawthorn and his allies.

I imagine that Madison’s internal fantasy is something like this:

In an Instagram post — equal parts bravado and bitterness— Cawthorn wrote:

I am on a mission now to expose those who say and promise one thing yet legislate and work towards another, self-profiteering, globalist goal.

It’s time for Dark MAGA to truly take command.

We have an enemy to defeat, but we will never be able to defeat them until we defeat the cowardly and weak members of our own party. Their days are numbered. We are coming.

Bold play for a guy who just lost his own primary after getting less than a third of the vote.

But who precisely are the shadow warriors of this Dark MAGA?

Cawthorn helpfully provides a list; and it is everything you’d hope it would be. Lunatics, grifters, conspiracy theorists, white nationalists, crackpots — all the usual suspects, including Steve Bannon, Tucker Carlson, “the great” Charlie Kirk, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and, of course, the former president of the United States:

Exit take: Let the MAGA wars begin.

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A Short History of the High Court and Sodomy

At the heart of Justice Alito’s leaked opinion in Roe, is his argument that only those unenumerated rights “deeply rooted in the nation’s history and tradition” deserve constitutional protection. And he notes, quite accurately, that the constitution makes no mention of “privacy” or abortion.

But, as some critics have pointed out, the constitution also doesn’t mention things like contraception, or private sex acts.

Until 2003 — less than 20 years ago — the Court did not recognize any constitutional protection of sexual privacy, and then did so over the fierce objections of conservative jurists.

Until then, states were free to criminalize gay sex.