As Republicans (especially in red and purple states) take their victory lap regarding the overturning of Roe v. Wade in the U.S. Supreme Court, everyone’s coming back to pointing out the hypocrisy of only really being pro-birth while claiming to be pro-life. A new manifestation of this is the continuation of people dragging their own hateful families for filth on online. On TikTok, Maddie Block took this time to call out how her father—a recently failed New Mexico gubernatorial candidate and current Sandoval County Commissioner—Jay Block preaches pro-birth propaganda while refusing to speak with his own living kids.
We can’t see his tweets because his Twitter’s been locked up since Maddie’s TikTok went viral. However, there’s still evidence across the web of his public opinions.
As your Governor, and unlike the current Governor who supports abortion up to birth, I will never support murdering children right up to birth or those that survive botched abortions. Supporting this policy is evil in my mind and devalues life. Life begins at conception and every life is sacred. I will be a fighter every day for the rights of the unborn to have a chance at life.
In follow-up replies (on TikTok), Maddie notes that her father stopped talking to her and her siblings. The breaking point was his lack of pandemic safety and masking. (Block still actively campaigns against Covid-19 “tyranny.”) Maddie defended that she has nothing but good memories of her dad, but as an adult who’s learned more viewpoints and traveled abroad, she disagrees with her father on fundamental values.
In tweets from the first two years of the pandemic she openly talked about how he uses his children’s interracial identity to deflect criticism of racism , campaign staff to monitor her social media accounts, stole from her bank account, and infected elderly members of their family with Covid-19.
Family values, you say?
The fact that fact-checking required me to go back through three years of Facebook images (he posts a lot) to find anything related to his family tells it all. This proud, Christian, conservative man speaking up about the “right to life” and traditional families is very online and doesn’t post anything publicly with his adult kids? That’s 2–3 Christmasses, Easters, Father’s Days, and more over the years with … nothing. All his social media (that’s not locked) and even his campaign site deemphasize his family. He rarely mentions his spouse, but she does appear around him in some campaign videos.
For a politician to not highlight their family is a red flag. Like, if you don’t have kids, you have to promote a “very American” dog to show you are as relatable as possible to voters—especially those who haven’t questioned or openly embrace patriarchal structures. Republican Georgia candidate Hershel Walker is another one of these people, which is extra weird because his son is very pro-Trump and Republican grifter. Like Walker, Block has a number of terrible opinions, from LGBTQ and race issues to who won the 2020 election and Covid-19 precautions.
I can’t confirm whether Maddie’s siblings really don’t speak with him, but it looks bad considering they’re just as present as her in his official Facebook—a.k.a. not at all since 2019.
(via TikTok, image: screencaps from TikTok and Facebook)
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