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Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day: Daniel Webster- 2023 Update [1]
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Date: 2023-08-16
In both 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, as well as 2022, “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day” presented our original profile of the U.S. House Representative for Florida’s 11th Congressional District, Daniel Webster, who first got swept into office in the 2010 Tea Party Wave after having previously served as the Speaker of the Florida House of Representatives and Florida Senate Majority Leader during a 28 year career as a Florida state legislator (and not as an extra working in the background of a morgue in a horror movie, like you’d expect). Webster is, at the moment, the preferred voice of Republican leadership of the recalcitrant House Freedom Caucus, and has finished second in the past three votes for Speaker of the House as a result.
Now, given how much of a group of extremists the House Freedom Caucus is, you can bet it’s more than Daniel Webster’s resume that impresses them. His record on issues show’s he’s clearly of like mind. Case in point… how “pro-life” is Daniel Webster? Well, while we can’t be sure of if he supports exceptions for rape and incest in his anti-abortion stance, because he refuses to answer the question when asked, we do know he’s voted for virtually every pro-life measure that’s ever crossed his path, including even when Jeb Bush was working overtime in Florida to make sure a feeding tube stayed inside of the long-since brain dead Terry Schiavo, and forcing her to keep on living against her wishes… the central figure in the Florida state legislature trying to write creative laws to drag out that situation even longer was Daniel Webster, while he was in the Florida State Senate.
And that’s hardly the only conservative social position Daniel Webster had. There was also his 1990 sponsorship of a bill to legalize covenant marriage. The draconian measure would have only allowed couples to divorce if only one partner cheated on the other (if both were unfaithful, they must remain married), and did not even offer exceptions for situations involving domestic abuse.
Now, you might wonder where these extreme conservative views Webster’s got are coming from… there is a quite plain answer. Daniel Webster has close ties to Bill Gothard and Gothard’s ministry, the Institute of Basic Life Principles, repeatedly collaborating with the disgraced church leader who was revealed to have covered up scores of abuse claims from his flock, and has a disturbing habit of counseling female rape and sexual abuse victims to make them feel as though they’re to blame for what their attackers have done to them in an overall patriarchal agenda where women must submit to their husbands. One of the first legislative acts in Florida that Webster pushed for back in 1985 was to legalize homeschooling (which Gothard and his flock are big proponents of).
The amount of degrees of separation between Daniel Webster and the disgraced Duggar family are also shockingly few, but is Rep. Webster a total fanatic, though? Well, according to some, he’s spoken before Bill Gothard’s flock in a way that seems to indicate he views the gerrymandering of his district as “God being on his side and opposing his opponents”.
And that’s pretty nuts. As is the rest of his voting record:
Daniel Webster won a sixth term in office in 2020, getting 67% of the vote,mostly because of the big partisan disadvantage in Florida’s 11th, sitting at a +15 Republican lean and Webster’s evangelical support base also prop him up with donations. Webster has been mostly quiet since January 6th, putting out a press release on Trump’s second impeachment vote that he wouldn’t be attending due to a “family medical obligation”, that might be that his family were asking him to get treatment for his rectal-cranial inversion problem, remove his head from his arse, and impeach the motherf***er like he deserved to be.
And while you might think we would be rooting for a primary challenger to Daniel Webster to get him out of office ASAP… this has clearly been a “careful what you wish for” scenario thus far. In 2022, bats*** conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer was running to his right, and was too much of an idiot to not have realized attacking Webster for his age when his district contains “The Villages”, the largest retirement community on the eastern seaboard, if not the country. In 2024, Webster has a primary challenger again, and this time it’s Anthony Sabatini, who we’ve profiled a couple times over the years for being a fan of blackface and white nationalism.
So while we are not pretending Daniel Webster isn’t an extremist, somehow, in one of the most conservative districts in all of Florida, he’s still the lesser of conservative evils. Don’t ask us how.
One Year Ago, August 15th, 2022: Daniel Webster (FL)… 2022 Update
Two Years Ago, August 15th, 2021: Daniel Webster (FL)… 2021 Update
Three Years Ago, August 15th, 2020: Daniel Webster (FL)… 2020 Update
Four Years Ago, August 15th, 2019: Daniel Webster (FL)… 2019 Update
Five Years Ago, August 15th, 2018: Daniel Webster (FL)… 2018 Update
Six Years Ago, August 15th, 2017: Daniel Webster (FL)… 2017 Update
Seven Years Ago, August 15th, 2016: Daniel Webster (FL)… Original Profile
Eight Years Ago, August 15th, 2015: Craig James (TX)
Nine Years Ago, August 15th, 2014: Tom Tancredo (CO)
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https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/8/16/2187599/-Fanatical-Republican-Extremist-of-the-Day-Daniel-Webster-2023-Update
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