JUNE 2024 IGNOMINIOUS ABSURDITY OF THE MONTH: THE IGGY

1. Senator Tom Cotton. A new name has popped up in the chatter about Donald Trump’s potential pick for vice president: Sen. Tom Cotton. He’s reportedly high on the list because of his “experience and the ability to run a disciplined campaign.” As a running mate, the Arkansas senator “would carry relatively little risk of creating unwanted distractions for a presidential campaign already facing multiple legal threats,” according to The New York Times.

But it sure seems risky to put a no-holds barred racist, sexist creep on a debate stage with Vice President Kamala Harris. Cotton traded in his dog whistle for a racist bullhorn years ago, and has made headlines with his outrageous statements and behavior.

Here is a mere sampling of Cotton’s low lights:

Attacking Ketanji Brown Jackson:

During the confirmation hearings for Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, Cotton teamed up with other deplorables on the Senate Judiciary Committee to harangue the nominee about everything from QAnon theories to her history as a public defender, attempting to paint her as an adherent of “critical race theory,” as if that’s a bad thing.

Cotton really sunk to the bottom, however, when he all but called Jackson a Nazi sympathizer during a floor speech. “You know, the last Judge Jackson left the Supreme Court to go to Nuremberg and prosecute the case against the Nazis,” he said. “This Judge Jackson might’ve gone there to defend them.”

“Judge Jackson voluntarily represented three terrorists in three cases,” Cotton complained to CNN. “And she called American soldiers war criminals. I have no patience for it.” Jackson, of course, did not call U.S. troops war criminals.

Those were the accusations that prompted Democratic National Committee Chair Jaime Harrison to call Cotton the “lowest of the low” and a “little maggot-infested man.”

Attacking the first Muslim American appeals court nominee:

Cotton’s recent bigoted attacks on Adeel A. Mangi, the first-ever Muslim American federal appeals court nominee, also made headlines when he subjected the Pakistani-born attorney to a barrage of Islamophobic questions about the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel, al-Qaida’s 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center, policy issues regarding the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories, and antisemitism in general.

Cotton bragged about his harassment of Mangi on X (formerly Twitter), crowing about his “gotcha” question trying to paint Mangi as antisemitic. Which is ironic, given Cotton’s previous antisemitic tweet history. .

Blocking nominees of color:

Cotton has a history of opposing Democratic presidents’ Black and brown nominees. From 2014 through 2016, Cotton blocked President Barack Obama’s friend and nominee Cassandra Butts—a Black woman—from an ambassador job. Why? When Butts met with him about his block, she told The New York Times’ Frank Bruni, Cotton admitted it was because “he knew that she was a close friend of Obama’s … and that blocking her was a way to inflict special pain on the president.” Butts died of cancer more than 800 days after her nomination.

Defending slavery:

Of course, Cotton’s racist theatrics haven’t been confined to Senate hearings. He authorized legislation in 2020 to ban public schools from using a curriculum based on The New York Times’ 1619 Project, which dissected slavery’s impact on our country’s founding. He justified his bill by calling The1619 Project “left-wing propaganda” and revisionist history at its worst.”

Cotton added that children should instead be taught that slavery “was the necessary evil upon which the union was built.”

That infamous New York Times op-ed:

And don’t forget Cotton’s gross New York times op-ed titled “Send In The Troops,” which called for Donald Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act and use “an overwhelming show of force” against protesters who took to the streets nationwide in the wake of George Floyd’s murder at the hands of police. The column incited fierce backlash, which led to backpedaling from The New York Times and the opinion page editor’s resignation.

None of this will diminish Cotton’s prospects with Trump, who likes him because he’s a smart guy with an elite education. Also, he’s a reliable sycophant.

Cotton has refused to condemn Trump’s love of Vladimir Putin and has bragged about how he ignored the evidence and arguments in Trump’s first impeachment.

“My aides delivered a steady flow of papers and photocopied books, hidden underneath a fancy cover sheet labeled ‘Supplementary Impeachment Materials’, so nosy reporters sitting above us in the Senate gallery couldn’t see what I was reading,” Cotton wrote in his 2022 memoir.

Everything about Cotton appeals to Trump—and everything about him is revolting.