Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) came under fire on the Fourth of July for tweeting a false historical quote pushing components of Christian Nationalism ideology and falsely attributing it to a founding father.
“Patrick Henry: ‘It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religions, but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ. For this very reason, peoples of other faiths have been afforded asylum, prosperity, and freedom of worship here.’,” Hawley tweeted.
The catch: Founding Father Patrick Henry — a slave owner most famous for his declaration, “Give me liberty or give me death,” — never said the quote Hawley tweeted.
Nor did any of the other Founding Fathers.
The line was reportedly originally published in a white nationalist publication in 1956 — 157 years after the founding father’s death.
Hundreds of Twitter users took advantage of the opportunity to slam Hawley for his public mistake.
As of Wednesday morning, Hawkey’s tweet was still up on the social media platform.
But the senator from Missouri wasn’t the only one who got sloppy over the holiday.
The Republican Party’s official Twitter account also posted a tweet on Tuesday to mark the Fourth of July. The tweet — that included a graphic with two flags next to each other — was captioned: “247 years ago, our forefathers told Ol’ King George to get lost! Happy Independence Day from the GOP!”
But, once again, there’s a catch: They used the Liberian flag instead of the American flag in the graphic.
Unlike Hawley, the GOP account quickly took down the tweet. But not before getting slammed for mistaking the American flag for the flag of a country that has a history of its own tied to American slavery.
