Wednesday, September 7, 2016

Extreme Vulgar Temper Tantrums On Facebook Won't Get You Elected To Office

Weirdo former GOP candidate Michael Krawitz
and his hate messages to a reporter.  
Breaking news out of New Jersey: Republican Michael Krawitz is no longer a candidate for the West Deptford Township Committee.

OK, this isn't earthshattering news.  With all due respect to the fine citizens of West Deptford, we normally wouldn't care about this bit of election news.

Except for the reason why Krawitz has withdrawn his candidacy. He's a big Donald Trump fan, and wasn't happy at all that Daily Beast reporter Olivia Nuzzi posted on her Facebook page a critical article about Trump written by a colleague.

So Krawitz took to Facebook to criticize Nuzzi. So far, we're OK. You can criticize a reporter's work. Journalists tend to have thick skin.

But the problem is Krawitz's, um, way with words.   

He wrote to Nuzzi: "Fuck.You. Olivia. I. Hope. Somebody.Rapes.You.Today. :)

Nuzzi responded by writing: "This man who wants me to be raped today was a Republican candidate for office in NJ."

To which Krawitz responded. "Hope.You. Get. Raped. By. A. Syrian. Refugee. :)

You can see the obvious problem here.   Not a nice guy.  Not somebody who would get a lot of votes for the West Deptford Township Committee. Or any other office.

I'm also curious about his style. Every word is followed by a period. And he ends his hate sentences with a smile emoticon. Like the little smile makes the nastiness go away or something?

Definitely some issues here.

Krawitz apparently said his Facebook account got hacked the day his messages appeared so it wasn't him. With that, Nuzzi produced another Facebook love note she received from Krawitz back on August 10:

"Hows. The. Gun. Crime. In. Democrat. Chicago. Olivia. You. Ugly. Stupid. Cunt. :)

Again with the periods after every word and the smiley emoticon!

Nuzzi said she's been harassed by Krawitz since 2014. And as a female reporter, she always gets totally misogynistic comments from guys - mostly on the far right of the political spectrum, who don't like her work.

I guess they can't criticize the quality and accuracy of Nuzzi's reporting because it's solid, so their onl recourse is to call her every horrible name in the book. That accomplishes a lot!

In a statement before Krawitz withdrew his candidacy, Nuzzi said she trusted the voters of West Deptford Township to make the right election decision.

And Nuzzi said this:

"As a reporter, bullying of this kind from would-be politicians makes you fear for your First Amendment rights. As an American and a woman, it makes you fear for the state of our country and the safety of half the population that inhabits it."

She's got a great point: We can laugh at the stupidity and awfulness of Krawitz. But the legions of Internet trolls and such out there like Krawitz really do degrade this nation.

Krawitz is no longer running for office and has crawled back under his rock.  So that's good. I just wish the rest of the trolls out there would crawl under rocks and go away, too. But there's so many trolls, I don't think there's enough rocks out there for them.

No comments:

Post a Comment