Senator Chuck Grassley’s office sent along some of the phone messages their female staffers have received by phone in the past few days:
“I hope you get raped so you can understand what that woman is going through.”
“You’re a disgusting excuse for a human being, and I don’t know how you can live with yourself. I hope you never have children because they’ll be just as worthless as you are.”
“You’re racist trash.”
“Senator Grassley doesn’t have a spine and neither do you, b****”
“I just wanted to call and tell you that you are a piece of s*** and Senator Grassley is a f****** piece of s*** and he can’t die from a heart attack soon enough.”
“I feel really sorry for women like you – outside of your office you’re probably disturbed by this but apparently you have a job to do.”
As mentioned a few days ago, threats are increasingly commonplace in the Internet era. The good news is exceptionally few of these awful people will ever act upon their menacing words, but that doesn’t mean they’re any easier to hear or read. No one on any part of the political spectrum deserves to hear things like that. The world has threatening left-wing nut-jobs and threatening right-wing nut-jobs and no doubt plenty of threatening nut-jobs who aren’t easily categorized.
If someone is really concerned that the message isn’t just some angry loser living in his parents’ basement raging impotently, they ought to notify and consult the appropriate law enforcement agencies. But beyond that, we can’t let the lunatics win. Everybody’s got to shake it off, get up in the morning, and go about their duties. No doubt the threats being sent to Christine Blasey Ford, the Kavanaughs, congressional staffers and any other figures involved in this controversy are horrific and frightening and outrageous. But if anyone alters their actions because of them, it means the bad guys making those threats win.