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During an appearance at the conservative Turning Point USA conference, Representative Madison Cawthorn, Republican of North Carolina, encouraged his supporters to drop out of college and get home-schooled.
Cawthorn pointed to his own experience, saying he'd turned out well despite only receiving academic instruction from his parents.
You can hear what he said in the video below
Madison Cawthorn today to an audience of mostly college students: \u201cI think you should home school. I was home schooled all the way through. I am proudly a college dropout. Unless you are becoming a doctor or lawyer or engineer, I highly encourage you to drop out.\u201dpic.twitter.com/fgQ6v2yjKf— Ron Filipkowski (@Ron Filipkowski) 1640115970
Cawthorn went on to describe himself as a "proud" college dropout and referred to college as a "scam":
"I am proudly a college dropout. Unless you are becoming a doctor or lawyer or engineer, I highly encourage you to drop out. It's a scam!"
He also recommended that to "try and have a great job, you should be as successful as you possibly can," though he did not further elaborate as to what that meant.
Missing from Cawthorn's speech is the fact that on average, those with bachelor's degrees earn a yearly salary of $64,896 and that those who a obtain master's degree and doctorate make $77,844 and $97,916, respectively.
Comparatively, those who only obtain a high school diploma make just $38,792 on average and those without a high school education make just over $30,000.
According to a deposition obtained by The Washington Post, Cawthorn dropped out of Patrick Henry College after attending only a single semester and receiving mostly D's.
Despite this, he has repeatedly claimed that a car accident was responsible for his decision not to attend the Naval Academy, though Post reporters were able to confirm that he was rejected before the accident took place.
While in Congress, Cawthorn has been one of the more public faces of the anti-democratic movement in the United States, and has continued to push baseless allegations of voter fraud, suggesting that the 2020 general election was stolen.
Naturally, Cawthorn's remarks drew heavy criticism, with many pointing out that keeping the masses ignorant is what helps authoritarians gain and maintain power
Ignorance is the authoritarian's best friend. \n\n"I love the poorly educated."--Donald Trumphttps://twitter.com/RonFilipkowski/status/1473379286140833794\u00a0\u2026— Larry Sabato (@Larry Sabato) 1640205021
A lot of people are dunking on this, but this is what white evangelicals want. This is reflecting values of a christofascist state.https://twitter.com/RonFilipkowski/status/1473379286140833794\u00a0\u2026— Wagatwe Wanjuki \ud83c\uddf0\ud83c\uddea \ud83c\udde7\ud83c\uddf8 (@Wagatwe Wanjuki \ud83c\uddf0\ud83c\uddea \ud83c\udde7\ud83c\uddf8) 1640201308
Weird, given he'd previously claimed he was fit to be in Congress because he almost got accepted to a federal service academy once.\n\nOf course, he was found to have lied about the circumstances of that, sohttps://twitter.com/RonFilipkowski/status/1473379286140833794\u00a0\u2026— Adam Weinstein (@Adam Weinstein) 1640140700
Madison Cawthorn wants kids to follow his path: worship Hitler, assault women, drop out of college, wreck a car, tell vicious lies about the person who saves you, and be so fully awful that your gleeful ignorance and stupidity are your least reprehensible qualities. Please don\u2019t.https://twitter.com/ronfilipkowski/status/1473379286140833794\u00a0\u2026— Jeff Roush (@Jeff Roush) 1640143375
Stay in school, lest you turn out like Madison Cawthorn https://twitter.com/RonFilipkowski/status/1473379286140833794\u00a0\u2026— Brian Ray (@Brian Ray) 1640157148
These fascist dipshits fluctuate wildly between \u201cWestern culture is the best and only culture, a cultural heritage which we must safeguard for the fatherland\u201d and \u201cdefund all schooling, I learned everything I needed at home from flannelgraph Bible stories and I turned out great.\u201dhttps://twitter.com/ronfilipkowski/status/1473379286140833794\u00a0\u2026— A.R. Moxon (@A.R. Moxon) 1640191695
College is for losers may sound like a weird hot take, but the GOP has been pushing higher education as elitism for decades. The goal is to keep their voting base uneducated and vulnerable to propaganda. Frankly, it\u2019s working.https://twitter.com/RonFilipkowski/status/1473379286140833794\u00a0\u2026— Kaz Weida (@Kaz Weida) 1640196165
A sitting Congressman encouraging young people to dropout of school. The Republicunts really want to keep their voters uneducated. Keep \u2018em stupid keep \u2018em voting for stupid people.https://twitter.com/ronfilipkowski/status/1473379286140833794\u00a0\u2026— Rosemarie Lane \ud83c\uddfa\ud83c\uddf8\ud83c\udff4\u200d\u2620\ufe0f\ud83c\udfdd\ud83c\udfa3\ud83d\udc36 (@Rosemarie Lane \ud83c\uddfa\ud83c\uddf8\ud83c\udff4\u200d\u2620\ufe0f\ud83c\udfdd\ud83c\udfa3\ud83d\udc36) 1640176689
The Trump Republicans are now telling kids to drop out of school. At what point will parents finally have enough of the damage these people are doing to their kids?https://twitter.com/RonFilipkowski/status/1473379286140833794\u00a0\u2026— John Aravosis \ud83c\uddfa\ud83c\uddf8\ud83c\uddec\ud83c\uddf7\ud83c\udff3\ufe0f\u200d\ud83c\udf08 (@John Aravosis \ud83c\uddfa\ud83c\uddf8\ud83c\uddec\ud83c\uddf7\ud83c\udff3\ufe0f\u200d\ud83c\udf08) 1640138438
Cawthorn wasn't the only high-profile Republican to make outlandish claims during the Turning Point USA conference.
During an earlier appearance, Donald Trump Jr.railed against supposed "cancel culture" and urged young conservatives to abandon the peaceful rules of the Christian Bible, saying following them has "gotten us nothing."
The conference was also notable for featuring former Alaska Republican Governor Sarah Palin, who insisted she would get a COVID-19 vaccine "over my dead body," telling the crowd of conservatives she doesn't need to be inoculated because she previously had the virus.