"A Very Principled Man"

Morning Dispatch

How dare you annoy me with facts.

In response to news that a Haitian nonprofit organization, the Haitian Bridges Alliance, wants criminal charges brought against JD Vance and Donald Trump for their targeting the Haitian community in Springfield, OH with baseless claims about eating people’s pets, Rep. Clay Higgins (R-LA) wrote:

Lol. These Haitians are wild. Eating pets, vudu [sic], nastiest country in the western hemisphere, cults, slapstick gangsters… but damned if they don’t feel all sophisticated now, filing charges against our President [sic] and VP [sic].

All these thugs better get their mind right and their ass out of our country before January 20th.

When asked about Higgins’ post, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson had this exchange with a reporter:

Johnson: Clay Higgins is a dear friend of mine and a colleague from Louisiana, and a very frank and outspoken person. He's also a very principled man. I didn’t even see it but he tweeted something today about Haitians.

Reporter: He told them to get out of the country by Jan 20th.

Johnson [rolling his eyes]: Ok. He was approached on the floor by colleagues who said that was offensive. He said he went to the back and he prayed about it, and he regretted it, and he pulled the post down. I'm sure he probably regrets the language he used. But you know, we move forward. We believe in redemption around here.

(I want to pause for a moment to say that Mike Johnson is the worst kind of hypocrite and the fact that he is second in line to the presidency should fill all Republicans with shame and the rest of us with horror.)

Based on an appearance on CNN last night, Higgins’ “prayers” didn’t seem to have much of an effect on him:

It’s all true. I can put up another controversial post tomorrow if you want me to. I mean, we do have freedom of speech. I’ll say what I want. It’s not a big deal to me. It’s like something stuck to the bottom of my boot. Just scrape it off and move on with my life.

So much for redemption.

Does it need to be said that a “very principled man” could not possibly be the kind of vile racist xenophobe Higgins clearly is? But, of course, he’s a Republican so we’re supposed to accept that these things are just baked in now.

Rep. Steven Horsford (D-Nev.) filed a motion to censure Higgins but such a vote won’t take place until after the election because Congress is in recess until November 12th. Besides, any vote would almost certainly be along party lines and with Republicans in the majority, nothing will happen. After all, how can Republicans claim to have a problem with the anti-Haitian bigotry of a congressman when they support and endorse the anti-Haitian bigotry of the people in their party who are running for president and vice president? What Higgins wrote is despicable, but he got permission to write it from Donald Trump and J.D. Vance.