One of the most inspirational moments of this relatively young year of 2018 has been how the survivors of a horrific mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida have seized the initiative to demand that our leaders do something to keep our schools safe. They are fed up with the National Rifle Association-imposed inertia on gun control, and have dived headlong into the effort to reverse it.
But it’s also led to one of the worst moments of this young year. These kids have been relentlessly bullied and harassed on Facebook and Twitter. Among other things, they have been smeared as “crisis actors”–people paid to pose as survivors in order to grease the wheels for gun control. For all intents and purposes, the bottom-feeders calling these kids “crisis actors” are effectively telling them to shut up–as if it’s not possible for teenagers to speak coherently and articulately about the world around them.
This bullying campaign recently received a very high-profile endorsement–First Son Donald Trump Jr. And one of the survivors is fed up with it. She begged First Lady Melania Trump to call off the dogs.
Earlier this week, Donald Jr. liked two tweets that clamed of the most outspoken Douglas survivors, senior David Hogg, was running interference for the FBI. David’s father is a retired FBI agent, and the deplorables have claimed that he is being used to keep the public from focusing on a tip about shooter Nikolas Cruz not being passed up the FBI chain. As a result, David and his family have been bombarded with death threats.
Well, David’s little sister, Lauren–a freshman at Douglas High–has had enough. Remembering that Melania is supposedly focused on combatting cyberbullying, Lauren decided to call the First Lady’s bluff.
Hey @FLOTUS you say that your mission as First Lady is to stop cyber bullying, well then, don’t you think it would have been smart to have a convo with your step-son @DonaldJTrumpJr before he liked a post about a false conspiracy theory which in turn put a target on my back
— Lauren Hogg (@lauren_hoggs) February 23, 2018
&created a safe space for people all over the world to call me and my family horrific things that constantly re-victimizes us and our community. I’m 14 I should never have had to deal with any of this and even though I thought it couldn’t get worse it has because of your family.
— Lauren Hogg (@lauren_hoggs) February 23, 2018
With 2.6 million followers on Twitter and his status as the president’s son, a “like” from Donald Jr. is tantamount to an endorsement.
Lauren subsequently told HuffPost that after several days of getting “horrible messages from Nazis and white supremacists,” she figured that if Melania is serious about fighting cyberbullying, “she could do something” about her stepson. She went further in an interview with TMZ, saying that when Donald Jr. hit the like button, he “in a way kicked a wound that hasn’t healed yet.”
For her part, Lauren isn’t backing down one inch. While speaking with TMZ, she delivered a warning to our leaders–lead, or else. Watch here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zb95esbqnBs&t=12s
Lauren said that the government risks having “a monumental problem on their hands” if they don’t do something about the gun problem. She added that kids like her have had their fill of shootings and tragedies, and “are ready not to be another number.” She thinks it’s rather weird that “we’re the ones taking care of the adults.” That’s understandable. In this case, it seems that Lauren, David, and her friends are more adult than the actual adults.
Can you imagine if conservative teens like C. J. Pearson and Millie March were being trolled and harassed like this? Donald Jr. would be among those demanding that the trolls be busted. He also loudly blasted those who attacked his half-brother, Barron, last summer. It would be wrong to troll conservative teens for merely speaking out, or just because of their names, and it’s wrong here. You can’t have it both ways, Donald Jr.
(featured image courtesy Max Goldberg, available under a Creative Commons-BY license)
