Southern Republican torn apart for 'abject' Trump bootlicking

A hometown columnist in deep-red Louisiana is showing no mercy to a Republican U.S. Representative who appears to be "the new leader in the contest for which U.S. Senate candidate in Louisiana’s Republican primary can show the most abject toadyism to President Donald Trump."

“Sometimes Trump is right, but when he is wrong, he can be spectacularly wrong,” reports Baton Rouge Advocate columnist Quin Hillyer. “It takes a special level of toadyism to campaign as if it’s a virtue to support one of Trump’s most spectacularly wrong choices.

U.S. Rep. Julia Letlow (R-La.) is currently blasting her incumbent opponent, Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) for delaying a hearing on Trump’s nomination of Casey Means for surgeon general, even though Means has never been licensed as a physician.

[Means] has so many oddball beliefs, both personal and medical, that she might as well be an AI-generated caricature,” said Hillyer. “Even one of the wackiest members of MAGA-world, conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer, says that Means’ selection shows ‘the inmates are running the asylum.’”

The Advocate reports that Means is an anti-vaxxer who opposes “basic childhood vaccine regimens that have proved their effectiveness for decades.” She also advocates experimentation with illegal psychedelic compounds and urges her followers to do the same. Additionally, the Southern Baptist Convention’s policy wing opposes Means’ nomination due to “abundant cause for medical, moral, and legal concern.”

Hillyer says she “prayed to photos of my ancestors … and wrote mantras and manifestations on small pieces of paper and tucked them around the shrine.” She also talks to trees, “letting them know I was ready for partnership, and asking them if they could help.” Plus she embraces the ‘woo’ because “Quantum entanglement tells us our choices today ripple for eternity.”

Yet, Letlow is blasting Cassidy, a medical doctor, for holding up Means’ confirmation — even after Cassidy got burned once already for confirming Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who espoused anti-vaccine beliefs after claiming to Cassidy he would do no such thing.

“Louisiana needs a strong U.S. senator, not a presidential puppet,” said Hillyer. “And the nation’s chief health officer should be a real doctor, not a ’shroom-taking health ‘influencer’… ”