Republican state senator lambasted for anti-Women's March posts
The Women's Marches that took place around the world on Saturday appear to have gotten under the skin of one Republican state senator in Mississippi, who devoted a good chunk of the last 48 hours to dwelling on, writing about, and stewing over the demonstrations attended by millions.
Chris McDaniel made his first post on Facebook Sunday, declaring that at the Washington, D.C., march, which had an estimated 500,000 women, men, and children in attendance, "a group of unhappy liberal women" participated. He went on to make what he must have thought was a sick burn, asking how demonstrators "can afford all those piercings, tattoos, body paintings, signs, and plane tickets, when they want us to pay for their birth control?" In the comments section, he had the support of some, but most people tried to explain to him what the march meant to them and how they didn't appreciate his generalizations.
McDaniel came back Monday afternoon with another post saying that "no amount of liberal hell raising" will change his opinion about "free abortions," and shared a picture that he implied was from Saturday but was actually taken years ago. Thousands of comments were made, with many pointing out the irony of McDaniel complaining about things being free when taxpayers were paying for him to troll on Facebook. Later, he returned with another diatribe about march supporters loving "free stuff," and added a comment saying "literally 99 percent of you are not from MS. Perfect. It's nice to know I'm in your heads."
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One user replied by letting him know that the troll was being trolled, saying, "Keeping you on Facebook stops you from doing more damage 'doing your job.' Thanks for taking the bait." Countless others railed against Mississippi, telling McDaniel he might want to stop insulting internet strangers and focus on matters closer to home, like the fact that in 2013, Mississippi had the highest rates of both chlamydia and gonorrhea in the U.S., and in 2016 the state was ranked last for academic achievement and 43.68 percent of state revenue came from federal funding. McDaniel responded by blaming everything on the man who held his seat three years ago.
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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
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