There is the “Wait, he just tweeted what” category, and then there is a whole new advanced level beyond it that North Dakota Rep Brandon Prichard has decided is his own personal domain of religiously inspired lunacy.
All who are active on twitter will most probably at some point tweet something crassly stupid. When others point it out, most normal people will simply think, “well yes, not cool“, and obliterate it, and perhaps if it merits it also apologise. For Rep Prichard, the opposite is true, he simply doubles down.
What is inevitable about social media in general is that out there there are various different categories of people. here are a couple of major grouping …
- trolls – people who tweet stuff just to provoke
- the fanatical religious who want to convert you
- elected officials tweeting from a position of authority
What makes Rep Prichard unique is that he is all three of the above combined
Let’s take a quick tour of some of his recent highlights.
I’ve picked three gem’s as examples.
Example 1: Jesus as a State Icon for every State
That of course provoked a bit of a response from many. The Freedom from Religion Foundation pointed out just how unconstitutional this actually is and suggested that he needed to apologies or even resign. This was his response to that …
“Godless out of State” … er buddy, FFRF are based in Madison, Wisconsin, so they are not all that far from you. However, we all know that even if they were based within his own town he would happily be ignoring them anyway and would simply carry on with his theological masturbation.
I’m sure you already know this, but let’s be clear about it anyway. Having a belief is not the problem, the issue is his proposal that the government must endorse and mandate his specific belief.
Example 2: Burning Books
He stands ready and willing to burn books that contain things at odds with his specific fanatical beliefs …
Did he actually read them?
No, of course not.
He needs to learn to read books instead of burning them.
The crazy thing about it all is that digital copies of everything are easily accessible. Fire will only obliterate a few hard copies of things in FDT format (FDT is flat dead tree format).
Example 3: US is a Christian Nation
He is of course also promoting this myth …
This is simply not a factual claim. The more accurate term is “lie”.
Is he really this ignorant of US history?
Yes, yes indeed he really is.
Who is this Guy and what do his colleagues think of it all?
The first mind-blowing observation is that this guy is just a 22 year old kid who was still in High School a few years back.
You might wonder how he got elected?
Well, this is North Dakota, and so the numbers are not huge. He won the GOP primary with just 1,369 votes. The next guy behind him got 1,116 votes, and so the difference between this guy and not having him at all was just a handful of votes. For the actual election he got 4,910 votes and that’s half the number of voters. (for details see Ballotpedia)
He has also made a bit of a splash in the local press.
InForum reporter Rob Port also reports …
Many Republican lawmakers have been messaging me, alarmed by Prichard’s posts
Indeed yes they should be, but of course none of there were willing to go on the record to call him out.
Hypocrisy is a trait of his
He Decries Porn …
… but he gives his beloved Lord and Saviour, Trump, a free pass for bonking porn stars.
Honesty is also an elusive concept
On his official campaign website he claims he is a law student at the University of Minnesota …
… but the university says … nope, that’s a lie …
His response?
Oh come now, you can guess.
He accused law school of anti-Christian bias after they confirmed he is not an enrolled student.
If indeed there was some confusion here, he could explain it all to the reporter, but apparently he refuses he engage with the reporter.
Why is he like this?
Well … here comes the sciency bit.
The human brain is not fully developed until about the age of 25. The last bit to fully mature is the prefrontal cortex.
The observation that this is the part of the …
… brain region has been implicated in executive functions, such as planning, decision making, working memory, personality expression, moderating social behavior and controlling certain aspects of speech and language
Now, I’m not suggesting this as an excuse or even a means to give the guy a free pass. All this tells us is that if he was a bit older then he would possibly be moderating his behaviour and not blurting out what he really thinks and believes. We all can see is who he is, it is just an observation that his filters are not yet fully developed.
Interestingly enough the prefrontal cortex is also responsible for decision making, and clearly in his case he has made some rather crap decisions in life.
You can be under 25 and still make good decisions, most do. You can also be over 25 and still make some very bad decisions. In this case that last bit applies to the voters in North Dakota who decided to elevate this specific 22 year old kid into office and turn the state house into a complete circus.
For now all we can do is mock his lunacy, highlight it, and hope that inspires the North Dakota voters to make better choices next time.