Political rhetoric often breaches the extreme. But a meme Commissioner Carol McCall posted on her Facebook page on Friday demolished the line between what we should tolerate from our local officials.
A picture of three WWII generals, Dwight Eisenhower, George Patton, and Omar Bradley included the caption, “ANTIFA” and the introduction, “In case you were wondering what Antifa really looks like.”
I can only assume her reason for posting the meme was to call into question the seriousness of the riotous destroyers of property plaguing our cities today, imply these great Americans were similar to the current Marxist Antifa movement sworn to overthrow America, or assert her belief that the United States and the current president is in any way on par with Nazi Germany and Adolf Hitler. Each option is reprehensible, especially for an elected government official boasting how many times she’s sworn to uphold our Constitution.
When confronted with strenuous objections to the post, she doubled-down on her approval with an unintelligible explanation that came across as ludicrous. Instead of acknowledging any error, apologizing, or deleting the post, she blocked me and others from her page. Blocking me was immature; hypocritical, given her prior reaction to her former opponent doing the same thing; and illegal based upon legal precedent.
McCall is an intelligent, courteous, and respected public servant. Unfortunately, her hyper-partisanship and evident hatred of the current presidential administration gets the best of her.
I’m not calling for McCall’s resignation, but I am publicly calling her and other elected officials to turn down the level of demagoguery in their public statements. It only fosters further division, creates confusion, and distracts us from the most important problems facing Scotland County and our nation as a whole. We deserve better.
With her incendiary meme and prior comments on social media, McCall not only lost my respect, she lost my support. We should not forget her actions if and when she runs for local office again.
Scott Blue
Laurinburg