GOP Lawmaker Calls Abe Lincoln the 'Same Sort of Tyrant' As Hitler, Thinks the Civil War Was 'Unnecessary'

By Ellie Shechet  |  April 13, 2017 | 2:25pm
Politics

North Carolina rep. Larry Pittman was evidently not in great spirits yesterday after his unconstitutional bill to restore a same-sex marriage ban in the state was slapped down by the Republican House Speaker. And what do Republican officials apparently love to do when the going gets tough? Make an extremely offensive reference to Adolf Hitler, of course!

After Facebook commenters started piling into one of his posts to criticize his ridiculous bill (oh, and another bill he’s got in the works to require “abortionists” to tell their patients, falsely, that “the process can be reversed”) Rep. Pittman made the following curious argument, which has since been deleted:

“And if Hitler had won, should the world just get over it? Lincoln was the same sort if tyrant, and personally responsible for the deaths of over 800,000 Americans in a war that was unnecessary and unconstitutional.”

Just to summarize, an elected state official has just taken a stringent anti-Lincoln stance and explicitly communicated that he would prefer it if black people were still enslaved. To put this in better personal context, in 2012 Pittman called upon the state of North Carolina to bring back public hangings. This is what gerrymandering hath wrought, folks.

“Rep. Pittman and his ultra-conservative allies in the General Assembly have no sense of decency, no sense of shame and no sense of historical fact,” North Carolina Democratic Party Chairman Wayne Goodwin said in response to Pittman’s comments. “I call on North Carolina’s Republican leaders to immediately condemn these outrageous and offensive statements.”

Rep. Pittman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

 
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