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Inspired By The Maxine Waters Boycott, Army Vet Gets Ticket To State Of The Union

By Robert Jonathan
Published on: 03:36 PST, Jan 24, 2018

Maxine Waters, an impeachment-minded congresswoman, is one of five (so far) Democratic lawmakers in the U.S. House who has announced a boycott of President Trump’s State of the Union address scheduled for Tuesday evening, January 30. Waters has accused Trump of being a “liar” and unworthy of her attention at the SOTU. Representing a Los Anegles-area district since 1991, Waters also skipped Trump’s inauguration last January.

Against that backdrop, 10-year U.S. Army veteran Ricky Taylor, who served two tours in Afghanistan, tweeted out an offer to take Maxine Waters’ unused seats and asked his 17,000 followers to retweet the request, the Washington Times reported. As a Trump supporter, Taylor said he would gladly attend the event in her place.

Taylor’s twitter handle is “Deplorable Vet,” which is callback to the 2016 presidential campaign when Hillary Clinton derided Trump fans as deplorables. Under the U.S. House rules, Taylor or any outsider would not be permitted to sit in Waters’ empty seat itself next to other elected officials, but her guest ticket is another matter entirely.

U.S. Rep. Sean Duffy, a Wisconsin Republican, became aware of Taylor’s request that went viral and decided give Ricky his SOTU guest ticket that is typically used by his wife Rachel Campos-Duffy, who is a Fox News commentator.

A member of Congress since 2011, he and Campos were cast members on MTV’s The Real World back in the day where they met. Duffy is taking Taylor out to dinner before the prime-time event.

On Fox News, Taylor said he’s never heard back from Waters’ office following the much-shared tweet. He described himself as a black-Latino veteran who doesn’t fit Waters’ narrative about the president’s typical supporters. There are many Trump backers who are members of minority groups, he added, for whom Maxine Waters doesn’t speak. He also insisted that Waters was engaging in a disrespectful publicity stunt (regardless of who the president is) by staying home instead of attending the SOTU.

In another boycott-related matter, Ricky Taylor is calling for a boycott of the Super Bowl after the NFL rejected an ad from a veterans’ group that encouraged players to stand during the national anthem. The one-page ad was set to be included in the printed Super Bowl program. The AMVETS organization has accused the NFL of corporate censorship, Sports Illustrated reported.

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