September 20, 2017 02:24 PM UTC

At Least She's Not Your Legislator (All Lives Splatter Edition)

• 4 Comments
• by: Colorado Pols

USA TODAY connects us to the story of GOP Rep. Lynne DiSanto of South Dakota, who employed a most unfortunate visual to spell out her apparently visceral dislike for left-wing protesters:

A Republican state lawmaker in South Dakota faced calls to apologize Tuesday after she shared an image on Facebook depicting protesters being hit by a vehicle under the caption, “All Lives Splatter.”

Rep. Lynne DiSanto shared the image Sept. 7, less than one month after a driver plowed through counter protesters at a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Va., killing a 32-year-old woman and injuring 19 others.

The Box Elder Republican deleted the post Tuesday after it was circulated by members of progressive groups, who called on the lawmaker to apologize.

“To put up a meme that pretty much encourages violence and possibly murder, that’s inappropriate. She’s a community leader and an elected official,” said Lori Miller, a spokeswoman for the group Indivisible Rapid City. “Not only is she inciting violence, she is targeting a certain race of people.”

Here’s what she posted:

Lynne Hix-DiSanto, the Republican House Representative of South Dakota representing District 35, thought this would be funny to post. pic.twitter.com/oV6ZC9OrhE

— Tony Posnanski (@tonyposnanski) September 20, 2017

After the attack in Charlottesville, Virginia in August involving a vehicle driven at high speed into a crowd of counterprotesters against a white supremacist rally…for God’s sake, do we have to explain why this is a problem for a sitting Republican lawmaker to post something like this? Really? A short while later came this sort-of-but-not-really apology:

“I am sorry if people took offense to it and perceived my message in any way insinuating support or condoning people being hit by cars,” DiSanto said. “I perceived it differently. I perceived it as encouraging people to stay out of the street.”

Apparently we do have to spell it out, gentle readers. Apparently we do.