Wasn’t planning on writing anything today. But this morning, I opened my Twitter feed to discover that Trump-supporting Georgia state representative Vernon Jones used his Twitter account to engage in behavior that should never be tolerated from an elected official.
You may recall that on Sunday morning, Trump effectively called a Code Red on Laurene Powell Jobs, Steve Jobs’ widow, over The Atlantic’s devastating piece detailing how Trump dissed servicemen and veterans.
Laurene holds controlling interest in The Atlantic through the Emerson Collective.
Trump’s tweet quoted a tweet from Charlie Kirk noting that Laurene was a Biden megadonor. This crosses too many lines to count. Calling for a boycott of someone’s business because of their donations or because it publishes something to which you object is perfectly acceptable. But calling for harassment of that person on those grounds is out of bounds. And the fact that the president of the United States did it is even more outrageous.
Now who would find such outrageous and undemocratic behavior acceptable? Jones, apparently.
It cannot be stated enough. An elected official is urging his followers to join in on harassing someone just because her magazine published an article he doesn’t like and because she donated to a candidate he opposes. This cannot stand, folks.
Jones, unless I read wrong, is not running for reelection. But after this, the Georgia state house Democratic caucus needs to seriously consider booting him out of the caucus. Endorsing a candidate from the opposing party is not and should not be grounds for throwing a lawmaker out of his caucus. But if calling for someone to be harassed on social media isn’t grounds to do so, what is?
However, there’s a way out for Jones. He should have the decency to resign. And he should resign right now.