Sen. Willette isn’t actually sorry for bigoted Facebook posts

As I wrote in my Press Herald column over the weekend, Republican State Senator Michael Willette may have given a minimalist apology on the Senate floor last week for his long series of bigoted Facebook posts, targeting Muslims, President Obama and other black politicians, but his social media actions since then indicate that he wasn’t sincere.

I enjoy writing a column (the 750-word length definitely makes for more disciplined thinking) but it isn’t exactly the most visual medium, so I thought it might be useful to post some screenshots of the posts I quoted here.

In addition to writing, three days after his semi-apology, that the controversy was a “text book example of feigned outrage,” Willette also liked posts by others calling his detractors “sniveling monkeys” and “lowlife hypocrites” and asserting that some of those who had criticized him should “GO TO HELL.”

 

Interestingly, that post was also liked by our old friend Michael Pajak, who has his own history of deplorable online comments.

Willette’s Facebook friends who noticed these posts also report that the comments he semi-apologized for are still online and viewable by his friends, along with many other bigoted posts, including additional conspiracy theories against the president and race-based attacks. Here are a few that pretty much speak for themselves:

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Departing from his usual themes of Obama, tyranny, race and religion, Willette also posted at least one image with some troubling opinions on rape, theorizing that liberals “don’t care about women as much as conservatives, or conservative women are simply better looking.”

Screenshot 2015-03-19 21.14

 

 

Mike Tipping

About Mike Tipping

Mike is Maine's longest-writing political blogger and explores state politics and policy with a focus on analysis and explanation. He works at the Maine People's Alliance and Maine People's Resource Center.