By any fair measure, Sen. Katie Britt had a rough few days, though she has no one to blame but herself. Nearly a week ago, the Alabama Republican had the unenviable task of delivering her party’s official State of the Union response, which didn’t go especially well.
Britt’s overwrought delivery, wild tonal swings, and kitchen setting were unusually cringeworthy, drawing mockery from her critics and drawing complaints from GOP officials. The fact that the Republican’s remarks were parodied on “Saturday Night Live” helped drive home the obvious point: The senator’s response failed.
But as it turns out, this wasn’t the only problem with the Alabaman’s presentation. Britt, in her remarks, also went after President Joe Biden’s immigration policies by referencing a horrific story about a woman who’d been raped and sex-trafficked by Mexican cartels starting at the age of 12. What the senator neglected to mention is that the story was 20 years old and had nothing to do with Biden.
Given an opportunity to apologize or express some degree of contrition for having misled the public, Britt instead pretended that she’d done nothing wrong, reality notwithstanding.
Nearly a week after creating this mess, the Republican and her political operation are taking an additional unfortunate step: As The Daily Beast reported, Britt launched a fundraising campaign based on her fiasco.
After a State of the Union rebuttal that even some in her own party felt embarrassed by, Sen. Katie Britt (R-AL) is trying to use that backlash to her advantage, writing in a fundraising email Tuesday that her “heart is broken” for those she said she was speaking on behalf of.
“[A]s I watch the dishonest leftist media and the liberal elites making a mockery of everything I’ve dedicated my entire life to protect, laughing at the destruction of the American Dream, disrespecting how our country has descended into a dystopian nightmare for countless families … I’m disgusted,” Britt’s financial appeal read.
“And I know you are too, Friend. So I’m counting on you to send message [sic] with me!” the fundraising letter added.
To be sure, this isn’t altogether surprising, but it reflects something deeply strange about contemporary Republican politics.
Britt misled the public. She got caught. She now wants supporters to send campaign contributions to effectively reward her for a debacle of her own making. What’s more, if recent history is any guide, the appeal for donations is very likely to work: A significant number of GOP voters will effectively conclude that if the senator is facing criticisms from media outlets for misleading the public, she probably deserves some money. The result creates a twisted set of incentives: Republican politicians are being told that their controversies can be lucrative, which has the unfortunate effect of encouraging them to create more controversies. This post updates our related earlier coverage.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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