GOP's Madison Cawthorn scorched in local paper for his 'dereliction of duty' amid flooding disaster

On Monday, the Haywood County Mountaineer published an op-ed slamming Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-NC) for ignoring the needs of his constituents amid catastrophic flooding that has wrecked homes and businesses across Appalachian North Carolina.

"In a 24-hour span from Tuesday into Wednesday, Western North Carolina experienced flood destruction on a level not witnessed for 17 years," wrote Callie Pruett. "Yet, as the floodwaters rose with fury — destroying homes and businesses in their path — and finally receded in the late morning hours of Wednesday, Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-NC-11) released no statement, no list of resources or shelters for constituents, and not a single tweet in support of the thousands in WNC residents suffering from the flood. On Wednesday morning, more than 30 of his constituents were still tragically unaccounted for, according to the Haywood County Sheriff's Office."

Cawthorn, who has repeatedly used his social media platform to attack COVID-19 vaccination efforts, still found time to tweet while the crisis was going on, noted Pruett — he wrote about Trump's border wall and Instagrammed pictures of himself "smoking cigars and listening to conservative podcasts."

Meanwhile, wrote Pruett, Cawthorn and his staffers seemed genuinely caught off-guard by the flood of constituents begging for help, not even realizing their services would be needed.

"Cawthorn's first public comments on the matter were around 24 hours after the Pigeon River reached initial flood levels, followed by retweets of hours-old resources from other public organizations working on the crisis," wrote Pruett. "His tweets in support of the community and of photo ops with damage came more than 12 hours after floodwaters fell back below the flood line. Too little, too late."

You can read more here.