Politics & Other Mistakes: The price of stupid

6 mins read
Al Diamon

There’s a subtle difference between free speech and stupid speech.

Free speech is the one guaranteed by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. It says the government can’t stop you from saying pretty much anything you’d like. What it doesn’t say is that there can still be all sorts of negative consequences from a variety of non-governmental entities. Your employer can fire you. Your neighbors can shun you. The media can hang you out to dry.

Free can be costly.

Which brings us to stupid speech, where there are also negative consequences. If you’re a comedian who decides to pose with what appears to be the severed head of Donald Trump, you should have been smart enough to expect some career-wrecking blowback. If you’re a Maine would-be politician who calls a student who survived a school shooting a “skinhead lesbian,” you shouldn’t be surprised if the public reaction is swift and ugly. If your speech to the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner includes insulting references to Trump’s press secretary’s appearance, get ready to get slammed.

There’s a price to be paid for stupid.

Consider, for example, the case of Waterville Mayor Nick Isgro. Isgro was a rising star in the Republican Party. He appeared to be a reasonable conservative, more concerned with addressing municipal problems than scoring political points. He won the endorsement of his predecessor, Karen Heck, a liberal independent. He seemed to represent a repudiation of the politics of another former Waterville mayor, Paul LePage, and a return to the GOP’s moderate heritage that gave us Bill Cohen and Olympia Snowe. He disappointed a lot of middle-of-the-road voters when he decided not to enter the race for the Blaine House.

Instead, Isgro decided to focus his efforts on stupid.

Actually, Isgro had been doing stupid for some time. But it was mostly below-the-radar stupid. More than a year ago, he wrote a column demanding that immigrants “learn to assimilate into our national culture and adopt our shared values.” That statement didn’t elicit much outrage, other than a column by moderate Republican operative Lance Dutson in the Bangor Daily News pointing out that our “national culture” and “shared values” are imaginary concepts. Dutson also noted that Waterville has a long history of vibrant immigrant communities that were slow to assimilate, including French Canadians and Lebanese.

Isgro was undeterred. He continued to post material on his social media accounts that could be construed as disparaging to immigrants in general and Muslims in particular (“third-world hordes”). He attacked the pope, public education and anti-sexual harassment education, sometimes using vulgar expressions usually associated with alt-right internet trolls. He spread false conspiracy theories and called GOP U.S. Sen. Susan Collins a “hack liberal.”

Then, he went all-out stupid.

After Parkland, Florida school-shooting survivor David Hogg got into a dispute with Fox News host Laura Ingraham, Isgro tweeted, “Eat it, Hogg.”

That was far from the most offensive thing he’d ever posted. As invective, you’d hear worse at the average LePage press conference. But it was insensitive, unnecessary and ill-considered. Not exactly qualities befitting a mayor. Well, maybe Portland Mayor Ethan Strimling. But not most mayors.

Isgro’s opponents, led by his former ally Heck, initiated a successful recall petition drive that will force a vote on removing him from office. The mayor claimed he was under attack by “dark money funded outsiders,” who were attempting to seize an Infinity Stone hidden deep under Waterville City Hall. Or maybe that’s just in the movie version.

In the midst of all this, Isgro lost his job as a senior official at Skowhegan Savings Bank (where, in the interest of full disclosure, I have a couple of accounts). It’s not clear if he was fired, asked to resign, quit or was ousted by Thanos.

So, it’s tough being Nick Isgro these days. His sympathizers claim he’s being crucified for exercising his First Amendment rights. As his wife, Amanda Isgro, put it in an op-ed in the Morning Sentinel, “Trying to destroy a person is not an appropriate response to political disagreement.”

But that’s not exactly what this case is about. Nobody is saying the mayor doesn’t have the right to free speech. What they’re arguing is that, as mayor, Isgro has a responsibility to avoid stupid speech. And he’s neglected that responsibility in a major way.

Oh, and it might have been nice if he’d apologized. It would have made him look less stupid.

Comments, preferably free rather than stupid, may be emailed to aldiamon@herniahill.net.

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14 Comments

  1. Some members of the GOP seem to think that it’s a wise political move to emulate the speech patterns of their party leader.Evidence Larry Lockman’s twitter page. A fish gets stupid from the head.

  2. Apologize? For what? Speaking his mind? Saying something somebody didn’t like? David Hogg obviously didn’t care or knows nothing about what the mayor said, that would imply that somebody else didn’t like what the mayor said, in which case, is nobody else’s concern. Besides, David Hogg has been running around for weeks insulting everybody from Trump to gun owners to the NRA to republicans in general. Just because he was in a school where something bad happened, it doesn’t give him a pass to be a jerk either, if he is as grown up as people think he is, he should choose his words more carefully. Were Hogg on the right, the progressives would be calling for his head on a pike for saying to them, things not even half as bad as what Hogg has said about the right. Hogg is not the world’s foremost expert on guns, the constitution, national policy, or what is good for our country.

  3. Some things are better left unsaid!! A thought never hurts anybody……Speaking your mind does, sometimes!!

  4. The following wise-crack was written by Confucius—unless I’m confusing him with somebody else:
    “It is better to keep one’s mouth shut and be thought a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.”

  5. Al….. If Miz Heck is one of your people to look up to…… you should turn you head the other way.. and look down…

  6. A politician makes a career of representing the voice of their constituents- all of them, not just some of them. This suggests that they should choose their public statement very, very carefully. Most are lousy at that job, but at the very least they should learn to keep their social media accounts set to private.

  7. Al, Good job. We may be in agreement with what was said but not necessarily with how it was said. Comedians hide behind comedy and free speech and they do pay the price, Alienating 50% of your potential followers with stupid and baseless political comments is baffling to me. Politicians on the other hand need to choose their words carefully. They’re in the public eye as a public servant and there is no place for slanderous comments. Having said that I do believe the left is out of control with political correctness. I guess the use of “hack” in “hack liberal” was the offensive part? Collins is a liberal, It’s not just the left.

  8. Al, I think you’re doing the same thing to Mayor Isgro as you’re complaining about him doing to others. You call him stupid, so where does that put you? You defecate on anyone with whom you disagree here in “Opinion” and elsewhere. And why did you have to bring up, “In the midst of all this, Isgro lost his job…”, you have no idea if he lost it or resigned or what happened, you said that yourself. Sounds like “your” type of stupid.

    I agree with Mayor Isgro on all the things you have defecated on him about here. The man speaks his mind and his opinion and it seems that because you disagree you must again defecate. I enjoy transparency in a politician, a person that tells you what he or she truly thinks, not what they believe will score well.

  9. Column is probably true, on all accounts, altho it does leave out all the stupid things that Democrats do…such as lead 1/2 the nation in a super-divisive “Resist!” movement, causing such a rift that it will never be repaired, among many, many other things. Words can be dangerous, especially at the highest levels of government.

    That’s ok, just worry about a small-time Waterville mayor. Maybe call him a ****holster or something.

  10. “… column by moderate Republican operative Lance Dutson in the Bangor Daily News pointing out that our “national culture” and “shared values” are imaginary concepts. Dutson also noted that Waterville has a long history of vibrant immigrant communities that were slow to assimilate, including French Canadians and Lebanese.” Just how stupid is that? Those French Canadians and Lebanese assimilated into a national culture” and “shared values” which doesn’t actually exist? How did they do that?

    I’ve read an article in the New Republic by a Canadian Muslim who discovered he was a gay at about the same time he discovered all his fellow Muslims despised gays. Jews have been made unwelcome in every Muslim country. Suddenly French and German Jews are being warned not advertise their identity in certain areas. Women in some European cities now find it advisable to dress more “modestly.” But Nick Isgro is condemned as stupid for urging assimilation?

  11. Well, the thing about the First Amendment is that it DOES cover stupid regardless of whether you’re a politician or a lowly peon. Be glad you still have your basic human right to say whatever stupid thing you have to say and enjoy it while it lasts before the insidious erosion of rights that’s been crawling across the country (usually originating in California) takes it away.

    Cheers,
    Shamus

  12. Many are encouraged to “speak their own mind” even though what they’re saying is hateful, mean-spirited, bullying, bigoted, and divisive.

    Never miss a good chance to shut up.” – Will Rogers

    Just Saying and Bobby Wing – DITTO!

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