This Is Not a Game

[Nevilledog]

Link to tweet

https://lyz.substack.com/p/this-is-not-a-game

Sometime in the spring of 2020, I emailed the head of the Iowa GOP, Jeff Kaufmann, to let him know I was getting death threats. I did not know if he was behind them. But they had ticked up since I began my job at the newspaper. The first time I’d met him, he’d screamed at me, calling me fake news. And he had posted on Facebook a collection of my tweets, calling me unprofessional. The Facebook post had removed my handle, but the signal was clear: this was war. Every time that happened, I got an uptick in emails and DMs from people calling me a cunt and so much worse. That summer, a reporter had been fired from the Des Moines Register because of a GOP-led social media backlash. And I was afraid of something worse.

I did not then, nor now believe in a vast conspiracy. I only knew that Iowa GOP operatives have sock puppet accounts that exist just to encourage online trolling. And I knew several of them had come after me and that GOP operatives were actively campaigning to get me fired. I was collateral damage in a war of words. And it was impacting my life. My ex husband’s life and my children’s lives. But this wasn’t about that; this was about seeing me as a human being. I am a human. I am a neighbor and a mother, and those words, so many of them flung about on the internet, had a direct effect on my life and put me and my children at risk. I didn’t want the disagreements to end, just the harassment.

He never replied.

Several months later, the social media attacks escalated. My face appeared in an attack ad against Joni Ernst’s challenger, Theresa Greenfield, and then I was fired.

It’s easy to believe this war of words is just a game. People log in and post dunks and insults and they get likes and shares. Some politicians’ entire personalities seem to exist online, quote-tweeting AOC or the president, reply-guying their way to fame. Life seems like a little video game, won and lost through words typed out on glowing screens.

*snip*

[msongs]

1. Iowa is running ads on msnbc trying to get tourists to visit their craphole state. no thanx nt

[rsdsharp]

2. I've lived in Iowa my entire life.

Aside from the waste of money, I found the tourism commercials rather amusing. Iowa really doesn’t have much in the way of tourist attractions.

That said, Iowa is a beautiful state, and without the corn, soybeans, hogs and cattle raised in this crap hole state, you’d likely be getting a little hungry by and by. But you keep painting with that broad brush.