It is tempting to denounce Madison Cawthorn in the aftermath of the North Carolina representative’s recent loss in his Republican primary for the state’s eleventh congressional district. Cawthorn, now 26, was only 24 when he won his primary in 2020, going on to win election that November. Having campaigned for the most part as a new kind of Republican, attempting to capitalize on his youth, he was steadily undone by it, making a series of moral and strategic errors that led to his defeat. His example is instructive, though mostly in the negative. But, for all his flaws, he deserves our sympathy.
The Madison Cawthorn of early 2020 seemed different from the one who lost on Tuesday. His was an inspiring, improbable tale: a promising young man, hoping to serve in the military and enter public service, his life tragically marred by a car accident inducing his paralysis — yet rising, through sheer determination and affability, from his waylaid station to a congressional seat anyway.
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