Tom Reed's campaign and his supporters are making a big stink about some very ill-considered remarks posted by one of Tracy Mitrano's staffers on her Instagram account. Reed has posted this photo from the Instagram post, along with the caption "WARNING: Explicit Language – Extreme Ithaca Liberal Post" on his Extreme Ithaca Liberal site.
Matthew McGowen’s October 9 article in the Cornell Daily Sun about Congressman Tom Reed’s visit to campus emphasized Republican students’ fears about being subjected to social backlash if they wore their MAGA hats on campus. Senator Rand Paul recently said that political divisiveness will lead to “an assassination” and that “someone is going to be killed and that those who are ratcheting up the conversation ... they have to realize that they bear some responsibility if this elevates to violence.” Tom Reed’s website claims that his staff members have been threatened by his opponent, Tracy Mitrano’s, supporters and blamed Representative Maxine Waters for encouraging harassment of public servants. And Republicans are quick to point out the attempted assassination of GOP Representative Steve Scalise in June 2016.
It is time to put Republican claims of perpetual victimhood in context.
Tom Reed devoted a page of his website to claims that his campaign staff was
threatened, harassed and insulted following this weekend’s Tracy Mitrano Rally in Olean which was hosted by a coalition of liberal activist groups including Citizens for a Better Southern Tier, the group whose leader was recently arrested for stealing Tom Reed campaign signs.
Reed tried to tie the harassment to Congresswoman Maxine Waters who he claimed encouraged harassment of "public servants" by telling a crowd of her supporters
Let’s make sure we show up wherever we have to show up. And if you see anybody from [President Trump’s] Cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd. And you push back on them. And you tell them they’re not welcome anymore, anywhere.
Reed neglected to mention that Waters clarified her comments the next day when she told Chris Hayes,
I did not call for harm for anybody . . .As a matter of fact I believe in peaceful protest. . . . I believe that protest is at the centerpiece of our democracy. I believe that the constitution guarantees us freedom of speech. And I think that protest is civil.
