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Anti-Haitian GOP Cong. Clay Higgins [1]

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Date: 2024-09-27  

GOP Congress Member Clay Higgins–Another Member of the Trump/Vance “Hate Haitians” Caucus September 27, 2024

In MAGA Land, whatever Demagogue Donald and his VP buddy J.D. Vance says remains absolute “gospel” to their demented cult of followers. No fact checkers, no members of the news media, or any person living in the reasonable universe can get these cult members to change their views of false facts. When Trump and Vance stated that legal Haitian residents of Springfield, Ohio were kidnapping dogs and cats and eating them, much of MAGA World bought this sicko lie. And it isn’t just Donald and J.D. who push this false nonsense. Now, we have one of Demagogue Donald’s super-loyal foot soldiers, GOP Congress Member Clay Higgins, buying into this racist/zenophobic garbage and taking it even further to the point of actually threatening these law-abiding Haitians with violence. Cong. Higgins called Haiti the “nastiest country in the western hemisphere” in a September 25, 2024 social media post on X. Higgins went on to say that these Haitians, the majority of whom are in the U.S. legally, should, in his words, “get their ass out of our country.” Higgins was furious that a Haitian non-profit, the Haitian Bridge Alliance, had filed a citizen criminal charge against Trump and Vance for their false animal-eating comments about them that had triggered dozens of bomb threats in Springfield (nbcnews.com, Gregorian & Richards, 9/25/24). Higgins repeated the horribly false charge in these words, “Lol. These Haitians are wild. Eating pets, vudu, nastiest country in the western hemisphere, cults, slapstick gangsters … but damned if they don’t feel all sophisticated now, filing charges against our President and VP.” Message to Higgins–Trump and Vance are, fortunately, not our POTUS and VP now and must never be. Higgins continued to rant on X that “all these thugs better get their mind right and their ass out of our country before January 20th (nbcnews.com, 9/25/24).” On that date, should the MAGA gang win in 11/2024, Trump and Vance would be sworn into office (Gregorian & Richards, 9/25/24). Suboh Chandrah, the attorney representing the Haitian non-profit that filed the charges stated that Higgins’s post “is not a dog-whistle but the trumpeting of a clear threat (nbc.com, 9/25/24).” Exactly. After a “ y uu ge” outcry by the public and in Congress, Higgins was forced to pull this post down, something he had originally refused to do (See Gregorian & Richards, 9/25/24, nbc.com). Who is this Clay Higgins?

Fourth-term GOP Congress Member Clay Higgins (63) presently represents Louisiana’s 3rd Congressional District (CD). The Pelican State 3rd CD is known as Cajun Country. It was settled more than 200 years ago by French-speaking former residents of Canada when the British forced them to leave their land of Acadie which was renamed Nova Scotia. This group of French exiles called this southern Louisiana area Acadiana. They made this area famous for crawfish and French cuisine. The center of Cajun Country today is around Lafayette just west of the Atchafalaya Basin, where the Mississippi River waters pour through bayous and canals. Cajun French continues to survive along with spicy food, Cajun music, and its Black-influenced variant of zydeco (Cohen & Cook 2022 Political Almanac). Oil and gas has helped Cajun Country thrive. Oil rigs are commonly seen here. Lake Charles, west of Lafayette, has had between 2013 and 2018 a 28% job growth, the strongest in the nation. San Diego-based Sempra Energy opened a second liquefied natural gas terminal here. Hurricanes, however, often severely damage this area (Cohen & Cook 2022).

After the recent redistricting, the LA 3rd goes from the southern coast from the Texas border east to St. Mary Parish, including much of Cajun Country. The 3rd’s population is centered in Lafayette Parish and Lake Charles-based Calcasieu Parish. The Pelican State 3rd, like many oil and gas supported districts, is extremely conservative. Donald won 68% of the vote here in 2020, his best district in LA. LA, even though it voted for Democrat Bill Clinton in 1992 and 1996, has since turned “super-Red” like the rest of the Deep South. LA has a “Red” average in the high 50’s. The Cook PVI, Partisan Voting Index, gives the LA 3rd an R+21 score. LA, like most Southern states, remains racially polarized with 59% of its white population usually voting in the “Team Red’s” corner (Cohen & Cook 2022).

GOP Cong. Clay Higgins unexpectedly won an open congressional seat in 2016, the year Trump won election and carried LA by 38 points. Cong. Higgins has a cult following and is known as the “Cajun John Wayne.” His Tea Party style played well in rural areas of his district. He is a former police officer and manager of an auto dealership. In law enforcement, Higgins was a former captain and spokesperson for the St. Landry Parish sheriff’s office. He attended Louisiana State University and was in the U.S. Army and LA National Guard. He has a gruff outsider appeal like Demagogue Donald. Higgins gained local attention with his “Crime Stopper” videos which he narrated. Despite an ex-wife claiming that he owed her more than $100,000 in child support, he still won a primary with 13 candidates and a subsequent run-off. A super-PAC organized by friends of his used the Trump-like slogan, “Make Louisiana Great Again (Cohen & Cook 2022).”

In the House, Higgins is a rock-hard conservative obsessed with security on the U.S./Mexican border. In 2019-2020, Cong. Higgins had a composite 23% Liberal v. 77% Conservative rating (Cohen & Cook). He is considered a reliable vote for GOP leadership which seems to ignore his combative comments in Congress (Cohen & Cook 2022). And this awful and false comment about Haitians is not the first time that Rep. Higgins has made belligerent and provocative statements. Two months before the 2020 election, he had a conflict with Facebook in which a threatening comment he made was removed (Cohen & Cook 2022). Even on the international stage, Higgins is belligerent and provocative. In a visit to the Auschwitz death camp in southern Poland, he prepared a five-minute video that he took inside a gas chamber where he argued that the military must always be “invincible.” The Auschwitz Memorial criticized his film with a tweet saying that people visiting the gas chambers should “have mournful silence. It’s not a stage (Cohen & Cook 2022).” However, IMHO, everywhere and every place is a stage for Cong. Higgins on which to strut.

And there is more. On 9/2020, Cong. Higgins created another controversial Facebook post that accompanied a photo of armed Black militia members at a protest in Louisville. Higgins stated, “If they showed up in Louisiana, I wouldn’t even spill my beer. I’d drop 10 of you where you stand.” After Facebook removed this post, then LA Democratic Cong. Cedric Richmond stated that Higgins’s comments were “disappointing, but not surprising.” Richmond correctly added, “My colleague still has not learned that words have consequences, especially when they come from supposed leaders (Cohen & Cook, 2022).” Because of, or maybe despite all of Higgins’s comments and actions, Demagogue Donald endorsed Higgins in his first re-election. Higgins has since coasted to easy victories (Cohen & Cook 2022).

And now, even after Higgins was forced to take down his awful anti-Haitian animal-eating comments, he still declared that he stood by them! Higgins stated, “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 (cnn.com, 9/25/24)!” Higgins stated that he had “prayed” over removing this post. Higgins was defended by fellow Louisiana Congress Member, now Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, who claimed that Higgins had regretted putting up these comments (cnn.com, Grayer, Rimmer, & Gainor, 9/25/24). Give me a break!!

Cong. Higgins can keep getting re-elected in the LA 3rd as long as he wants. However, as I keep repeatedly saying, he and his fellow wacko Trump GOP cultists must become irrelevant backbenchers in any future U.S. Congressional sessions. How can that happen? If Democrats come out in droves plus in early voting and on Election Day 2024 and vote to elect the Harris- Walz ticket, take back the House (just a net gain of 4 seats are needed), and increase our Senate margins, we can basically ignore Higgins and his fellow Trump cultists.

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