This state lawmaker thinks Abe Lincoln wrote the Constitution Opinion [View all]

(Detroit Free Press) If you're not extremely online, you probably learned about Michigan state Rep. Josh Schriver for the first time this month, when he tweeted about "replacement theory," the idea that scary Black and brown people are working to displace and replace white people.

Replacement theory is racist, xenophobic and imaginary, and it's the tip of the Josh Schriver iceberg. (Please stick around, because even for a Michigan Republican in the year of our Lord 2024, Schriver is an outlier, out of step with his partisan peers. His positions — faithfully explained on Twitter and in a regular newsletter to constituents — lack rationality or consistency: He thinks Abe Lincoln helped write the U.S. Constitution, that raising the legal age for marriage to 18 would encourage kids to have premarital sex, and there's a whole bit about married couples getting roofied that I lack the words to articulate. There's the rapping — I'm sorry to have to tell you about the rapping. He's taken to Twitter to rebuke Satan at least once. And he's voted no a lot, even when most other Republicans voted yes.)

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He's regularly befuddled by the processes of the state House, often complaining to his constituents that the legislative agenda isn't issued till Monday, when voting starts Tuesday, giving him little time to read and seek "wise counsel" on the bills at hand. (This isn't how it works — weekly agendas are issued on Mondays, but each member of the Legislature is expected to follow bills from introduction to committee to a full floor vote, with updates from party leadership about which legislation is advancing - no lawmaker ought to be starting from scratch on Mondays.)

He is confident that this is not the government the architects of the Constitution envisioned — this is where Lincoln makes an appearance — Schriver, a graduate of Michigan State University and a former teacher, wrote to constituents on June 17: "Our Founding Fathers had a very different visions [sic] of what government is supposed to look like. Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Benjamin Franklin and other architects of the U.S. Constitution supported a government with checks and balances ... the culture of state government is the exact opposite of what our Founding Fathers envisioned. ...............(more)

https://www.freep.com/story/opinion/columnists/nancy-kaffer/2024/02/16/michigan-josh-schriver-replacement-theory-state-legislature-mileg/72586010007/