“You’re nothing but a God hating. America hating, commie loving, evil woman” is just a banjo away from being a country music song.
I received this insightful Twitter critique of my last column exposing the lunacy of the Colorado Republican Party. I’d written about how the state GOP somehow managed to shed even more credibility by inviting failed Arizona gubernatorial candidate and avid conspiracy theorist Kari Lake to headline a fundraising dinner. A few days before that, Chairman Dave Williams promoted an interview he did with self-proclaimed white nationalist and islamophobe Laura Loomer. What columnist could pass that up?
Among the two dozen or so outraged Twitter responses to the column, there were the usual Nazi references, sexist mansplain, RINO blah, blah, blah. Few showed any creativity. One called me a Satanist, a first. Also, someone misspelled the word “imbecile.”
As I flew off to Ethiopia — stay tuned for more on that trip next week — I thought to myself, we need better trolls.
Musk could swap out the blue check for a minimum IQ requirement, but that will only clean up one venue. The problem of dull and hackneyed invective is widespread. It has infected all forms of public communication. People continue to overuse worn-out allusions to murderous 20th-century regimes. There’s no appreciation for nuances among totalitarian ideologies. Technically one cannot be a Nazi, a communist, and a fascist. Even generic terms like extremist and propagandist have lost their edge.
The trolls also struggle with time and place concepts, bringing their online rants to public forums to waste time, disrupt important work and attempt to make a statement that would be better heard in other venues.
While I was away, Colorado State Rep. Elisabeth Epps launched into a 45-minute tirade during the special session accusing Israel of committing genocide. The legislature was debating a bill to increase Electronic Benefit Transfer card benefits for school children. She proposed an amendment that would prevent card users from purchasing food products that originate in the occupied Palestinian territories. Apparently, hummus and dates exported from Gaza and the West Bank are the go-to snack among the under-12 set and the provision would have a meaningful impact on the current crisis.
Epps considers herself an expert on the Israel-Palestine conflict, having attended protests for Palestinian liberation. During her rant, Epps sniped at colleagues and yelled at the ceiling. When a Jewish colleague took the well to offer a response, Epps shouted him down from the House gallery.
To recap, at a special session, ostensibly called to address rising property taxes after the defeat of Prop HH but redirected to also increase public spending on food stamps, a lawmaker ranted about a conflict overseas. The suffering experienced by Israelis and Palestinians is worth discussing but by choosing the wrong time and wrong place to opine, Epps succeeded only in vexing her colleagues.
We need better trolls.
Pro-Palestinian demonstrators also shut down the Denver City Council over an event being hosted in Denver this week that had nothing to do with council business. One speaker likened the Global Conference for Israel to a fundraiser for Nazi Germany. They win the trifecta of pathetic discourse: wrong time, wrong place, wrong message with bonus points for the stupid Third Reich reference.
Meanwhile, actual white supremacists from across the country remotely joined the Wheat Ridge City Council meeting to anonymously spew racist and antisemitic remarks during public comment. So vile were the words that 9News refused to air even a snippet of what was said. Using labels like Nazi to smear those who aren’t, in fact, evil proponents of genocide but with whom we have policy disagreements cheapens the label when it’s applied to those who would log into a public meeting using the fake name “Sieg Heil.”
Finally, as I was flying back to this hemisphere, Ron Hanks, former state legislator, was emailing Republicans to urge county canvass board members not to certify the November 7 election results. After each election, county canvass boards made up of Republicans, Democrats, and county clerks and recorders certify that the number of votes and cast ballots is consistent.
Hanks, a zealous election conspiracy theorist, signed the “press release” as the chairman of the state party’s Ballot and Election Security Committee, whatever that is, urging patriots to take a stand against “systemic fraud,” “socialists,” “corrupted, power-hungry hostiles,” etc. He trots out the usual debunked misinformation about the state’s mail-in ballot system and voting machines. You’d think that the millions paid to Dominion Voting Systems to settle defamation suits might cause deniers to rethink their communications plan.
All these partisans, conspiracy theorists, screaming zealots, loser supremacists, and others trolling for attention need to know how their messages are being received. We’re not laughing with them; we’re laughing at them.
Krista L. Kafer is a weekly Denver Post columnist. Follow her on Twitter: @kristakafer
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