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Notes -
Keep. Reading.
You don't get to read the first thing he says, go "Sounds benign to me", and then ignore the rest of the truly horrific and sober thoughts he put down.
In an effort to be a good mottizen, I gave it a re-read because I had skimmed just his side of the conversation when I first looked.
It does seem like he agrees with the other person saying "you were talking about hoping Jennifer Gilbert's children would die" but I would imagine if he said that in text, it would have been part of the leak? That would be so much more damning and would totally fuck him (because fuck him for saying that), but it's absence from these screenshots is weird if he did in fact say that.
I don't know who this guy is but I really don't like him. And given I hold elected officials to high standards, I would never vote for him, but I also can't take the "3 people 2 bullets" joke all that seriously given its historical precedent as a common joke.
If he was actually wishing harm on his political enemy's kids though, that's extremely concerning.
Why do you think that would fuck him?
If there is a threshold that causes a party to lose political interest over words then the words have different targets-- or, the act of withdrawal has lesser consequences. I can only speculate where the threshold is, but it requires certain political conditions to be lowered. All else being equal, if this was a three year old text of the candidate writing, 'March the whole family against a wall and shoot them all, yes including the evil fascist breeding babies,' then this receives roughly the same response. This is not so different as to what was was provided. Obviously he's not serious, context, Trump and whatabout, says NarwhalRedditor along with the state party apparatchik having a bad day.
There's little this guy could have written of his enemy that would disqualify him via October Surprise. If we found a much older text from 10 years ago where he referred to his constituents/neighbors as 'greedy kikes' and 'dumb niggers' that might not be recoverable. He becomes a much greater liability then, but a text the opposition sat on about them? Fat chance. If evidence arose he was soliciting prostitutes and severely beat one of them this past Summer that might disqualify him, but then we're beyond the realm of words. If there were other opportunities or further damage to party interests these could be considered. Here, where withdrawal is simply losing, much can be justified.*
I forget who, but in one of the past couple threads someone wrote about war footing language. Groups of people speaking themselves into a position where they should and must prepare for war. Politics found this neat little hack with most important election ever, End of Democracy, and many internalized it. I don't know why we should be surprised that people would be willing to forgive their allies who merely say they want to to punish their enemy with their fascist bred babies.
Everyone in this thread is acting like that is indeed what he said.
You, personally, have an assuredly principled line in the sand -- or a consideration of factors -- that allows you to move abacus beads on the appropriate exchange-pogrom language scale. I agree that this is not pogrom language. I don't think the gap is as wide on this reportedly accidental, unprompted exchanged, but my point was the accurate placement on the pogrom scale is not so important to the politics.
We The People transcended opprobrium. The Motte is not supposed to partake in the enlightenment, so in that regard you deserve kudos for working on the details. There is a lot of grievance bleeding in. Voters, not party, will get the chance to decide how much such things matter anyway. That's probably for the best or worst.
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To 'steelman', it's 'just' wishing that his opponent would feel the pain of a horrific loss to change their political positions, rather than an explicit threat.
I don't think that's any better, but I'm also aware that it's been a thing for over a decade now.
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"Coyner’s alarm at her former colleague’s violent rhetoric toward Gilbert prompted Jones to call her and explain his reasoning over the phone, a source familiar with the exchange told NR.
According to the source, the Democratic former legislator doubled down on the call, saying the only way public policy changes is when policymakers feel pain themselves, like the pain that parents feel when they watch their children die from gun violence. He asked her to provide counterexamples to disprove his claim.
Then at one point, the source said, he suggested he wished Gilbert’s wife could watch her own child die in her arms so that Gilbert might reconsider his political views, prompting Coyner to hang up the phone in disgust."
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