I recently completed a campaign for Orange County Supervisor here in Orange County, California. Through the course of the campaign I came across many different types of people. I interacted with all types of personalities. I was accepted and liked by the majority of people I met. At the same time, I discovered some really nasty people exist and one in particular stands out.

As some backstory for you to know where I am coming from, during the 2016 election I was a proponent for a local ballot measure. My support of this measure caused the admins of a local Facebook group to oppose me vehemently. The dynamics are crazy because political discussions were not allowed in that local Facebook group, so all conversations took place in a group not managed by these two admins.

Anything said in the new forum would potentially get you removed from the local group. The main admin, who used to private message me just to chat, got more and more combative with me. She and her family would purposely target me on Facebook, frequently hanging up on me. It all came to a head when they removed someone from their group for failing to have a profile picture (apparently required by their rules). I happened to notice the person had a cartoon version of themselves as a profile picture, so I pointed out that the person did, indeed, have a profile picture. The second admin told me I must be quiet or be removed. I responded that he should do wha he feels is best. He unceremoniously removed me from the group.

The approach used by these admins was akin to how fascists act when in positions of power. I have a problem with this approach. I private messaged the admin who had removed me and let him know that his actions proved his fascist dictator approach to managing the group. My message was accompanied by a swastika, the universal symbol of fascism. This admin went ballistic.

On a public forum, he blasted me for calling him Hitler. He made the claim that I had threatened him and even stated he had gone to the police to report said threat. When another community member asked to see the evidence against me, the admin avoided responding. After asking permission, I posted screenshots of every private message between that admin and me. The result was the community agreed: (a) I called him a fascist dictator; and (b) I never threatened him.

Fast forward two years. This family is still obsessed with me. They continued harassing me. They mocked my campaign saying I wouldn’t even get 100 votes (I received almost 15,000). During the previous two years we created our own community group and they would spy on that group. Their obsession is confusing as they claim the have no interest in things I say. Clearly that isn’t the truth as we caught a member of our group sharing conversation threads with the admins of the other group and she was removed from our group. This started the worst case of libel and harassment I’ve ever experienced.

Upon notifying the woman she had been removed, she and her husband berated me via private message for one solid hour. They made many accusations as follows:

• Removing the woman from the group indicates I am not transparent.
• Removing her meant I violated her First Amendment rights.
• I would fail as a political candidate as “nobody” supported me.
• I am a moron who doesn’t understand how Facebook works.

The insults continued for an hour. I finally blocked the woman and her husband.

A few days later I began receiving messages telling me to check the other forum. Sure enough, the woman I had removed from my group had posted a long tirade about me that was full of lies. She had been fed information from the aforementioned family and decided that editing things to make me look bad was a good idea. This woman justified her actions by stating that being a candidate for office, I have to accept that treatment.

People who think this way are a detriment to society. As a candidate for office, I fully expected to be called out for my opinions or my positions on the issues. I was perfectly OK with that happening. It is part of the process. I was not prepared to have someone completely lie about me. The worst part of the lies is how condescending the woman became. The truth is she isn’t the brightest person. She is one of those people who thinks they have all the answers and know everything. She actually made fun of a letter I sent her because two words ran together without a space. Meanwhile, her own response was full of misspelled words.

To me, this type of person is dangerous. They are a big reason why people don’t run for public office. Most don’t know how to deal with these things. Opposing someone is acceptable, lying about someone is unacceptable. Engaging in dialogue is fine, berating someone is not. Challenging positions is great, making up facts is wrong.

More people need to take a stand against people like this. As for me, I won’t be bullied. I am pursuing legal actions against this woman. I plan to make an example of her actions so others will think twice in the future. I will not let one obnoxious person or an obnoxious family continue to harass me.