A Georgia state lawmaker resigned on Monday night after he was featured screaming the n-word, using a racist fake Asian accent, and exposing himself on the latest episode of Sacha Baron Cohen’s show Who Is America?
State Representative Jason Spencer, a Republican, officially resigned around 11 p.m. last night, ABC News reported. His resignation will be effective July 31. Although he’d lost a primary race, he could have stayed in office through the November election had he not shouted racial epithets like “sand nigger” while Cohen, who was posing as an Israeli military officer, convinced him he was learning counterterrorism strategies.
And yeah, it got pretty uncomfortable to watch the lengths Spencer was willing to go to in the set-up, including pulling down his pants and chasing Cohen around as a tactic to intimidate potential terrorists with “being seen as gay.”
Lest you allow even a modicum of sympathy to boil up, it’s worth a reminder that Spencer is a really bad guy. During the state debate over removing Confederate statues, he threatened a black female colleague that she could “go missing” for her advocacy on the issue, and sponsored an anti-burka bill he spun as an “anti-masking statute” on the Showtime show.
While the worried debate about the ethical implications of the show drag on, there is something gratifying about seeing the absolute worst players in politics lose for once.