Rep Lauren Boebert of Colorado was roundly mocked on Wednesday night after sharing a meme on Twitter of a map of the United States without Alaska, Hawaii, and a US territories like Puerto Rico, Guam, and the US Virgin Islands included.
The meme Ms Boebert shared depicts an image of the Earth with all of the land masses gone except for the continental US.
“Map showing the only place my taxes should go to,” the meme’s caption reads.
She decided to add her own text in addition to the meme’s caption — tweeting, “Sometimes a meme says it best.”
The right-wing representative, who was nearly upset in her bid for re-election in November, has opposed the US sending military aid to Ukraine and advocated for a mainly isolationist foreign policy during her time in Congress. She has made an exception for Israel.
Whatever the point Ms Boebert was trying to make, a number of observers were not impressed with her meme choice.
“Where’s Alaska and Hawaii? Stop trying to learn things from Memes,” a user named Leroy Patterson wrote. “Stop embarrassing the country.”
The meme’s failure to include two US states and all US territories was a common point of contention. Some responses, including journalist Tony Posnanski’s, were more personal in their criticism of Ms Boebert’s intellect and intentions.
“I know you failed your GED four times before having someone else take it for you, but in 1959, Alaska and Hawaii became US States,” Posnanski wrote. “I don’t want to get into Puerto Rico or other territories of the US as it might be a touch advanced for you.”
Another respondent to the tweet, comic John Heffron, noted that something else was missing from the map of the US presented in the meme.
Ms Boebert, in an appearance on The Benny Show, admitted the map was flawed. “I did miss Alaska and Hawaii,” she said.
But the initial oversight of Alaska and Hawaii and the ongoing oversight of places like Puerto Rico, speaks to the erasure that many people in those places — particularly people in US territories who have not been offered the opportunity to be granted statehood or independence — have long felt.
Ms Boebert herself opposes Puerto Rican statehood, as well as statehood for other US territories and for Washington, DC.
