GOP House Judiciary tweet celebrating Kanye, Trump, Musk widely mocked

The House Judiciary Committee is still standing by a tweet it made on 6 October celebrating three conservative men despite their public implosions in the weeks after the post was made.Earlier this month, the House Judiciary Committee issued a three word tweet – “Kanye. Elon. Trump.”A GOP-run Twitter account promoting Donald Trump is to be expected, but the other two men have, until recently, only orbited the right-wing political world.Rapper Kanye West’s foray back into the world of conservative politics started with an appearance on 3 October alongside right-wing provocateur Candace Owens in which the duo sported “White Lives Matter” t-shirts. West then began making the rounds on conservative media shows, most notably appearing in an exclusive interview with Tucker Carlson on Fox News.Mr Musk became a conservative darling with the announcement that he was buying Twitter for $44bn and the assumption by some that he would reverse moderation policies that some right-wing media figures have argued is biased against them. Speculation circulated that he would reinstate Mr Trump’s Twitter account, which was banned from the site following the Capitol riot.However, in the weeks after the GOP House Judiciary’s post, both West and Mr Musk began facing intense public criticism.West’s criticism peaked after unaired segments of his interview with Carlson were shared with reporters, showing him making numerous anti-Semitic remarks. He then made appearances on podcasts and in public in which he made anti-Semitic comments, ultimately resulting in a pressure campaign that ended his clothing deals with Adidas and The Gap, and bringing a premature close to the school year at his private Donda Academy.The rapper tried to pitch his shoes to Sketchers – a company whose owners are Jewish – and was escorted by security out of the building.Journalist Judd Legum simple stated that the tweet “did not age well.”Mr Musk has also faced mounting criticism in the time since the GOP House Judiciary issued its tweet. Since taking over Twitter, Mr Musk fired several top executives including its CEO, laid off 3,700 employees – and then realised some of them were critical to the site’s operation and asked them to come back – shared a debunked conspiracy theory about Paul Pelosi’s attack actually being a drunken brawl with a male sex worker, and rolled out a highly criticised “Twitter Blue” plan allowing anyone to get a verification badge by subscribing for $8 a month.Immediately after he took possession of the company, posts containing racial slurs spiked by 500 per cent, according to a Washington Post report. Shortly after rolling out the new verification rule, the site was flooded with imposter accounts posting offensive content and misinformation.On Friday, the stock price of pharmaceutical companies producing insulin plummeted after a verified imposter account claiming to be Eli Lilly tweeted that “insulin is free now.”Actor George Takei replied to the tweet: “I’ll take things that implode for 1,000,” making a reference to the game show “Jeopardy.”And then there’s Mr Trump, who spent the day of the midterm elections promoting bogus voter fraud theories to his followers on Truth Social. After the “red wave” of Republican victories in the midterms failed to materialise and many of Mr Trump’s hand-picked candidates failed in their races.Mr Trump also took swipes at Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who poses his biggest primary threat should both men run for the presidency in 2024.The former president called the governor ‘Ron DeSanctimonious’ and took credit for his 2018 success. He even claimed, without evidence, that he dispatched federal agents to Florida to thwart “ballot theft” in the state, which he claims allowed Mr DeSantis to succeed.The problem for Mr Trump is that Mr DeSantis is growing increasingly popular within the Republican Party, and – in the wake of the party’s lackluster midterm performance – has become the preferred choice for some GOP insiders.Despite all of this, the GOP House Judiciary has still not deleted the tweet, which has attracted a steady flow of mockery on the social media platform.”This Oct 6th tweet from Jim Jordan turned out to be prophetic about the GOP agenda. The three musketeers of public implosion,” Josh Marshall of TPM wrote.Politico journalist Ryan Lizza also weighed in, noting sarcastically that the Republican’s messaging was “off.””I guess in hindsight there were signs that the GOP messaging was off this cycle,” he wrote.