One of Democrat Florida gubernatorial nominee Andrew Gillum’s staffers has been terminated for shocking content he had posted to social media as recently as last summer.
“@realDonaldTrump you need to be executed,” Gillum’s former youth outreach staffer, 24-year-old Manny Orozco-Ballestas, had tweeted five years ago to current President Donald Trump.
As offensive as this tweet may seem, it pales in comparison to some of the other highly disturbing content, including a photo he had posted in 2012 that suggested that women are trained to perform oral sex from the time they’re born:
Yet neither of these photos ultimately cost Gillum his job. Rather it was a photo he shared on Instagram last summer that demonized the U.S. states that had voted for President Donald Trump as being part of a fictional nation referred to as “Dumbf–kistan.”
“The type of language this young man used on social media before his employment with our campaign is unacceptable and he will no longer be working with the campaign,” Gillum’s campaign spokesperson, Joshua Karp, in a statement Saturday to the Tampa Bay Times.
Orozco-Ballestas has for his part apologized, though only to Gillum and his supporters, not to the 60+ million Americans whom he had insulted.
“I took social media for granted when I was younger and I am now facing the consequences,” he said. “I’m so sorry to all those I let down, especially Mayor Gillum and my team. What I tweeted as an immature student many years ago is not a reflection of the man I am today.”
Many have noted the irony, since the gubernatorial nominee had enthusiastically joined the media’s attacks against his challenger, Florida Rep. Ron DeSantis for having to distance himself from Republican donors with less than stellar track records on social media. DeSantis was also falsely smeared by supporters of his opponent as a racist for using the innocuous term “monkey this up.”
Also ironic is that as of Sunday morning, neither ABC, MSNBC, NBC, CNN, The New York Times, The Washington Post or any other mainstream media outlet had picked up the story. It’s telling given that every single one of these outlets acted differently in regard to DeSantis.
Just hours after winning GOP nomination for Florida governor, Ron DeSantis said the last thing Floridians should do is “monkey this up” by electing his African-American opponent Andrew Gillum. https://t.co/gXvw4AnlJo pic.twitter.com/Ia4QZbT4qO
— ABC News (@ABC) August 29, 2018
WATCH: New GOP nominee for Florida governor Ron DeSantis tells Fox News that “the last thing we need to do is to monkey this up by trying to embrace a socialist agenda” by electing “articulate” and “charismatic” Democratic nominee Andrew Gillum.
More: https://t.co/EkaMQ1s6dY pic.twitter.com/FupHtLcOVw
— MSNBC (@MSNBC) August 29, 2018
Back in August, DeSantis used the phrase “monkey this up” while speaking about building on the economic success of the current governor, Rick Scott, who’s currently running for the U.S. Senate.
“We have to work hard to make sure we continue Florida going in a good direction,” DeSantis said. “Let’s build off the success of Governor Scott. The last thing we need to do is to monkey this up by trying to embrace a socialist agenda with huge tax increases and bankrupting the state. That is not going to work, that’s not going to be good for Florida.”
The congressman had clearly used the phrase “monkey this up” as an idiom. Nothing more. Nothing less. But instead of being honest, the media chose to weave a patently false narrative accusing DeSantis of being a racist.
Gillum bought into this rhetoric hook, line and sinker, using it to also paint DeSantis as a racist and thus drum up more support for his own scandal. But now that he’s the one involved in an actual scandal, he and his media allies have no bold statements to make. How convenient.
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