After Mocking Casada Critic For Beastiality, Rep. Holt Calls Constituent “Mentally ill”

Last week the Jackson Sun reported that Rep. Andy Holt had tweeted a juvenile graphic mocking Republican Madison County Commissioner Jay Bush as being “Someone who would sneak into your house at night, eat all your raw hot dogs, and finger your cat” – echoing an insulting meme that had been posted on the page of Speaker Casada’s PAC (and is still there).

Holt’s post was in response to Bush saying there’s nothing “conservative” about Glen Casada needing another $7 Million to run the Tennessee House and giving his Chief of Staff a $130,000 raise in one year – which is objectively true.

After deleting the post, Holt then mocked anyone who found the whole thing distasteful.

It turns out insulting those who disagree with him was not an isolated incident for Holt.

Holt has once again insulted someone who disagrees with him, this time a constituent who had the nerve to disagree with him on a post on His Facebook page celebrating the passage of the “Heartbeat Bill” – a constitutionally suspect bill which seeks to ban abortions after a fetal heartbeat is detected (usually around 6 weeks) and makes no exceptions for rape and incest – meaning a young high school girl raped and impregnated by her coach would be forced to carry the baby to term.

(An Oregon man was just imprisoned for raping and impregnating an 11 year-old girl. Rep. Gloria Johnson had an amendment which would have protected that girl, but she, and her amendment, were ignored)

Holt’s Facebook post celebrated the passage of the bill as “great news”:

Most of the comments underneath the post were in agreement with him, but a few were not.

Caroline Ideus, a constituent of Holt’s, left a comment calling the passage of the bill “terrible”, adding:

“Decisions about a woman and her baby should be between her and her healthcare provider, not the government. The GOP is all about small government, but wants to govern everything about women’s health when most of the GOP lawmakers are men.”

Holt responded:

“Ms. Ideus, thank you for acknowledging that the abortion procedure (for which you are advocating), is actually about a mother and her BABY. You are so entrenched in political ideology that your willing to condone the life of a baby human’s life. Liberalism is truly a mental illness…“

Ideus’ Twitter profile says she’s an English teacher at UT-Martin, which is in Weakley County – one of the counties Holt represents.

Holt’s “your” typo and misuse of the word “condone” aside, it seems fair to say that calling a constituent who disagrees with you “mentally ill” and making light of mental illness in general is beneath the dignity of any office.

But maybe Andy thinks the rules don’t apply to him, as he clearly didn’t when he didn’t get that permit for his hog farm. 

If you agree that this is not how state legislators should act, holler at Rep. Andy Holt and let him know HERE.

The full exchange: