Orgies and cocaine on the agenda of the Capitol, according to the youngest congressman | International

“Never a dull moment” (in English, Never a dull moment), is one of the kindest phrases, that can be written without falling into the vulgar, that best define the capital of the United States, the heart of political power. American congressmen and lobbyists know that in every meeting in which they participate, in every conversation in which they express an opinion, there is someone who takes notes, even mentally, that at some point, a year later, five years later or a quarter a century later, they will appear in a shocking title that, even briefly, will be all the rage in bookstores.

Following that maxim of living to the limit, a vision that took the Netflix series to the extreme House of Cards, The youngest congressman to arrive at the nation’s Capitol has set fire to the ranks of the Republican Party this week with comments typical of the character that Kevin Spacey represents in the saga that gives life to Francis Underwood.

Madison Cawthorn, a Republican congressman from North Carolina, said last Thursday that his fellow caucuses had invited him to participate in an orgy and had snorted cocaine in his presence. With only 14 months in the nation’s Capitol, the 26-year-old was questioned in the podcast de John Lowell Warrior Poet Society if the portrait of immorality and human baseness that he staged House of Cards it fit reality. “Is it fiction or are we rather looking at a documentary?”

Well, according to young Cawthorne, it’s common currency to be invited to join an orgy or to have leading members of the establishment embarked on the fight against drugs inhale lines of cocaine as if nothing had happened. “As a president said about the series House of Cards, the only thing that is not credible about it is that education legislation can be passed as quickly as it happens in that fiction,” Cawthorne said. Therefore, not only group sex and drugs would be part of daily politics in Washington; so would blackmail, defamation, treason, and even murder.

It portrays the young man confined to a wheelchair as a result of a traffic accident in 2014, a sordid political world in which secrets are trafficked that can ruin careers or stories are kept -in this case, journalists- with which to eventually blackmail someone in a position of power.

“My whole life I’ve looked up to these guys, I’ve always paid close attention to politics,” explains Cawthorne. “And suddenly they invite you, ‘hey, we are going to have a meeting of a sexual nature in our homes, you should come,” continues the young man. “And I am perplexed and ask myself ‘what did you just invite me to?’ “That’s when you realize you’re being asked to go to an orgy.”

The statements have created a perverse effect of denunciation with names and surnames, since the highest leaders of the Republican Party demand to have a conversation with the young Republican to ask for explanations for his incendiary comments. Scott Perry, chairman of the ultra-conservative House Freedom caucus, to which Cawthorne also belongs, is demanding that the North Carolina politician identify individuals he says have taken part in sexual bacchanals or have succumbed to the alluring poison of drugs.

As Mark Leibovich writes in his book This Town, Washington is a “widely misunderstood” city. Engulfed by money, by lawyers and journalists, there is a real gold rush to achieve the biggest gossip in the nation’s capital. That gossip has angered House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, who said he planned to have a face-to-face talk with Cawthorn.

According to information on his website, this owner and president of a real estate investment company defines himself as a staunch defender of the Second Amendment of the Constitution -which gives the right to bear arms-, a constitutional conservative “who is committed to upholding the values ​​of faith, family, and freedom in America.”

Since his election, Cawthorne has caused his fair share of political storms. The latest had to do with criticism rained down on him from members of his own party for describing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as a “thug” amid Russia’s brutal invasion. Let no one be fooled, from his website the politician already makes a declaration of intent. “Faith. Family. Liberty”. “We sent Washington a weapon [Cawthorne] that ends with the political division and gives us back the America that we have lost”.

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