Vulgar social media posts on women’s marches backfire
The moral of the story is, of course, “Don’t post stupidity if you are a public official.”
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A school board member in Hillary Clinton’s hometown resigned after making a derogatory reference on Twitter to the female anatomy in describing women marching against President Donald Trump. An Illinois teacher was pulled from the classroom for a tweet deemed sexist. And a freshman Indiana lawmaker was inundated with criticism over a Facebook post mocking “fat women.”
These are a handful of examples from across the U.S. of mostly male public officials who have been reprimanded, called out or disciplined over social media postings about the women’s marches around the globe last weekend.
The rash of incidents, which range from boorish to downright vulgar, highlight how nasty political discourse has become since the divisive presidential election. But in an era when Trump made lashing out against “political correctness” central to his appeal, the consequences these officials face for unfiltered use of social media once again demonstrate that what you say on the internet still can hurt you.
“Very few people in public life, even today, get away with what Trump was able to get away with,” said Michael Cornfield, a George Washington University professor who studies politics in the internet age. “I wonder what these gentlemen were thinking.”
I don’t. Because they weren’t.
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