LANSING — In case you missed it, this week Trump’s GOP in Michigan are once again making national headlines spouting racist and xenophobic rhetoric instead of delivering for Michiganders – MAGA State Rep. Matt Maddock, in a blatantly racist tweet, sounded the false and incendiary alarm on “illegal invaders” arriving at the Detroit airport…invaders who were in fact the NCAA men’s basketball teams touching down in our great state for March Madness.
The extremist Michigan GOP stood by this ridiculous and racist rhetoric, with newly minted MI GOP Chair Pete Hoekstra, who we know is in the pocket of Donald Trump, reposting the tweet and Michigan Republicans standing silently by as Maddock doubled down on his inane and incendiary language throughout the day on Thursday.
Chair of the Michigan Democratic Party Lavora Barnes quickly called out this latest scandal as a symptom of the xenophobia, irrationality and dangerous extremism that are sown into the very fabric of Trump’s GOP, “these racist social media posts are more disgusting examples of how bigotry has rotted the Michigan Republican Party from top to bottom – they can’t look at a basketball team without going into a conspiracy-fueled frenzy.”
This story has blown up across the country over the last 48 hours and was featured numerous times on CNN last night. Check out some of the coverage below as Michigan Republicans, one again, face national backlash for their embarrassing, dangerous,and hateful rhetoric:
CNN: The Source With Kaitlan Collins
CNN: Anderson Cooper 360
The Daily Beast: GOP Lawmaker Accuses NCAA Team Buses of Being ‘Illegal Invaders’
- March Madness took a hard right turn into out-and-out irrationality Wednesday evening, when a Republican member of the Michigan statehouse baselessly claimed three buses filled with college athletes were in fact “illegal invaders” descending on Detroit from the southern border.
- Maddock, an “ultra MAGA” Trump supporter whose wife was criminally charged as a so-called fake elector in the former president’s scheme to steal the 2020 election, attached two photographs as “proof,” showing a trio of charter buses on the tarmac at the Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport, next to a chartered Allegiant Air A320-214… But the Wayne County Airport Authority debunked Maddock’s declaration on Thursday.
- On Thursday morning, after being excoriated online by people providing various forms of proof that the buses were for the NCAA players, Maddock dug in his heels.
The Michigan Advance: Rep. Maddock decried ‘illegal invaders’ at the Detroit airport. They were college basketball players arriving for the Sweet 16.
- Michigan Rep. Matt Maddock (R-Milford) has drawn scorn from across social media, including fellow legislators, after posting pictures to his X account of a plane landing at Detroit Metro Airport Wednesday night and wrongly claiming they were illegally entering the country.
- Maddock is married to former Michigan Republican Party Co-Chair Meshawn Maddock, who is one of 15 false GOP electors from 2020 charged with fraud.
Rolling Stone: GOP Lawmaker Thinks He Exposed Busload of ‘Illegals’ … It Was the Gonzaga Basketball Team
- Michigan state Rep. Matt Maddock apparently had issues more pressing than college sports in mind when he posted an alarming tweet on Wednesday night.
- Maddock’s pointed question, which has apparently been viewed 4 million times on X (formerly Twitter), is of a piece with far-right conspiracy theories about how the Biden administration is secretly flying thousands of migrants into the country. These unfounded claims have fueled belief in the so-called “Great Replacement” theory, which holds that the population of white Americans is being overwhelmed by nonwhite demographics with the help of Democrats and other nefarious actors. That racist ideology has inspired mass shootings and found proponents in the likes of Elon Musk and House Speaker Mike Johnson.
- As yet, Maddock appears to have taken no notice of the thousands of replies mocking him for the false identification of celebrated American college athletes as “invaders” from across the border, and at this point, it doesn’t look like he’ll be backing down.
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