House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy Is At It Again with Bullshit Censorship Claim

The first impression of House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s latest Twitter rant about the online “censorship” of “conservatives” might be that he’s the dumbest person ever elected to Congress. But it’s really about how dumb he thinks his supporters are.

The Republican lawmaker from California’s 23rd District—who was caught on tape in 2016 admitting that he believes Russian President Vladimir Putin pays Donald Trump and Rep. Dana Rohrabacher— feigned victimhood by claiming the social media company had censored a tweet by Fox News host Laura Ingraham.

“Another day, another example of conservatives being censored on social media. @jack easy fix: explain to Congress what is going on. #StopTheBias cc @IngrahamAngle,” McCarthy tweeted on Friday.

The Twittersphere responded by roasting the majority leader with all types of humorous replies, including:

“Yes the kind of a$$hole that calls tech support to find out he needs to plug IN his computer to work.”

And:

“He was he kind that used CD ROM trays (just dated myself) as coffee mug holders. Worked in tech and saw it.”

Former Office of Government Ethics Director Walter Shaub even weighed in to politely explain that, “Congressman, it’s your settings. Go into ‘settings and privacy’ and uncheck this box so you can see these kinds of tweets.”

Despite all of this, McCarthy’s tweet remained live for the world to see, nearly two days later. That’s because it was on purpose.

As Splinter’s Paul Blest and Libby Watson already have pointed out, it’s not the first time Republicans have invented a fake scandal to attack social media forums for their “bias” against “conservatives.”

Last May, Facebook was a target. So was Google. In the latter case, McCarthy tweeted a similar accusation involving a Google search for the California Republican Party that listed “Nazism” as one of its ideologies, which easily could have been amended by a simple Wikipedia edit.

“Sadly, this is just the latest incident in a disturbing trend to slander conservatives. These damaging actions must be held to account. #StopTheBias,” McCarthy tweeted at the time.

Like the Ingraham tweet, McCarthy also threatened to bring “individuals” before Congress to testify, according to a report by Vice News.

Trump lackey Devin Nunes played happily along, saying, “I would hope that they just don’t get involved in politics and don’t censor conservatives and Republicans, but if they continue to do it then we have to move obviously to hearings on these issues.”

Trump is in on the game, too. On Saturday, he used his favorite social media forum to claim discrimination, in a series of tweets. “Too many voices are being destroyed,” he blathered:

This game really is getting old.

Correction: An earlier version incorrectly stated that House Majority Leader McCarthy was heard on tape discussing Trump and Rohrabacher last year. The recording was from June 2016.