Thread by @igorvolsky

1/ 🧵 I want to take a moment to talk about hate & abuse that's directed at those of us who work in progressive politics or policy....

2/ I'm struggling with how to frame this thread. I don't want to come off as just complaining about some nasty comments at a time when there are so many larger injustices that folks -- particularly women and people of color -- confront every single day

3/ But I also don't want to stay silent. I don't want to normalize coordinated online attacks against me for simply being who I am. I don't want to accept daily directed hate as part of the cost of speaking out in our democracy. I want to find a proactive way of combating it.

4/ Here's what I'm talking about... every so often a right wing influencer posts content "debunking" or addressing some argument I've made about gun violence. Often times, they insert slurs about me being gay, Jewish, or Russian. And then their fans take it from there...

5/ Their fans email you. They slide into your DMs. They even try to go after your loved ones on social media. Their message is clear: I don't deserve to participate in the free exchange of ideas because I'm gay or Jewish or whatever.

Take a look.

6/ To be clear, I'm happy to engage in a good-faith policy debate with almost anyone. But that's clearly not what these folks are after.

Their goal, it seems to me, is to attack you *for who you are* in an effort to wound you personally and run you off the stage entirely

7/ I've been working in progressive politics since 2008 & focused on many hot button issues -- health care, LGBTQ rights, immigration, guns.

I'm used to receiving this garbage & generally speaking it doesn't bother me.

But I would be lying if I said it has had no impact on me

8/ I would also be lying if I said this problem of coordinated online hate isn't getting worse. It is.

When I first started working on Obamacare, I often appeared on Fox News or CNBC to argue with conservatives about this or that provision of the law....

9/ Yes, I would get some hate mail in response, but nowhere near the kind of volume and vitriol I now receive on a pretty regular basis.

Certainly there were far fewer coordinated online swarms designed to dox you or get pretty close to it...

10/ It's far worse now and so many folks are impacted by it.

So, I want to shine a light on this kind of activity so that we can see it, so we can confront it, and ultimately figure out how to fight against it.

11/ Because ultimately these coordinated online smears are damaging to our democracy, to our values as a country, and of course to us as individuals.

Thanks for hearing me out on this. ❤️