San Antonio-Austin U.S. Rep. calls Parkland shooting survivor ‘functionally illiterate’ in tweet
- Wikimedia Commons / Gage Skidmore
- U.S. Rep. Chip Roy
Freshman U.S. Rep. Chip Roy, R-San Antonio-Austin, may be striking a moderate tone in recent campaign ads, but the famously combative pol isn’t exactly showing similar restraint on Twitter.
On Friday, Roy went ballistic over a tweet by Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School shooting survivor David Hogg that criticized President Trump for claiming during the last debate that “coyotes,” not parents, were responsible for bringing separated migrant children across the border.
In his response, Roy called the 20-year-old gun control activist “functionally illiterate” about human trafficking and blasted him for his tweet “ignorantly” mocking Trump. The criticism was Hogg’s attempt to “(wrongly) virtue signal your ‘compassion,'” he added.
Imagine being so functionally illiterate about the tragedy of cartel-driven trafficking of human beings on our southern border that you ignorantly mock @realDonaldTrump for using the well-established term “coyote” in a leftist zeal to (wrongly) virtue signal your “compassion.” https://t.co/SFEBc6csci
— Chip Roy (@chiproytx) October 23, 2020
Of course, Roy is free to use his Twitter account however he pleases. And Hogg — while a minor when he first began speaking up about gun violence — is an adult fully capable of defending himself.
But the Twitter outburst doesn’t exactly line up with Roy’s attempt at rebranding himself as a bipartisan family man as heads into the home stretch in his race against Democrat Wendy Davis.
As one Twitter follower noted, the attack was “not a good look for a statesman.”
You know, Chip, attacking young activists is not a good look for a statesman. It is ok for citizens to loudly question their leaders. Leaders should be able to take the heat.
— Laurel Swift (@laurelswift) October 23, 2020
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