Louie Gohmert, ladies and gentlemen.
Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) warned Wednesday that “radical Islamists” are being “trained to act like Hispanic[s]” and cross the U.S.-Mexico border.
“We know Al Qaeda has camps over with the drug cartels on the other side of the Mexican border,” he said Wednesday on C-Span. “We know that people that are now being trained to come in and act like Hispanic [sic] when they are radical Islamists. We know these things are happening. It is just insane not to protect ourselves, to make sure that people come in as most people do … They want the freedoms we have.”
He compared the United States to Israel, and said that the nation might need a border fence in the wake of the Boston Marathon bombings. “Finally the Israeli people said, ‘You know what? Enough.’ They built a fence, and the rest is a wall to prevent snipers from knocking off their kids. They finally stopped the domestic violence from people that wanted to destroy them. I am concerned we might need to do that as well,” he said, adding he didn’t know whether the attack in Boston was domestic or foreign in origin.
Gohmert has previously asserted that pregnant women were coming to the U.S. to have babies to take advantage of birthright citizenship, where their infants would grow up to be terrorists.
Far be it from me to give advice to the GOP, which would have every right to be suspicious of any help I’d be willing to give them. I don’t really believe they’re sincere about “rebranding” themselves, since most of what they’re saying is that they just need to do a better job of communicating the same old ideas they’ve always held and that will be that. But to whatever extent they are sincere about giving themselves a makeover – and even I will admit that they are to some extent on immigration and gay rights – I don’t see how you can truly claim to have changed while people like Louie Gohmert remain in good standing. If the powers that be in the GOP don’t see the likes of Gohmert as a problem, or are unwilling/unable to to anything about it if they do, then no change is possible. Juanita, our state’s foremost expert on all things Louie, and Campos have more.
It’s not that they are insincere (in this case), it’s that they are incapable of it. The only thing that is going to “rebrand” the Republican party is a massive die-off. And after that… perhaps insincerity will have a chance.