Why Is This Republican *Announcing* Death Threats Against Him?

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On Thursday, Rep Drunken Van Orden told WSAW-TV that the FBI told him that they were investigating “credible death threats” against him and his family. DVO also received a “credible death threat” last month, just as he was about to do a townhall meeting with his constituents, who are pretty damned pissed off at him. Naturally, he had to cancel the meeting. Talk about rotten luck.

This month’s credible death threat came just as he was receiving a lot of backlash over obnoxious tweets he made about Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and fellow Wisconsin Congressman Mark Pocan, even as people were in shock and mourning over the assassination of a Minnesota lawmaker. Another amazing coinkydink!

To his credit, DVO did condemn the death threats made against Pocan and Senator Tammy Baldwin.

But then DVO made a odd comment:

NewsChannel 7 asked Van Orden, who has posted “brassy” comments on his non-congressional social media accounts, about certain tones used when posting on social media.

“This is why: people have been enabled,” he said. “So if you keep saying things over and over and over again, and no one tells you to knock it off, you’re just going to keep it up. You don’t go from zero to assassinating somebody overnight. That’s a long, iterative, terrible process.”

I find DVO’s comments to be more assy than brassy, but that is neither here nor there. What I am curious about is the fact that he was making those “brassy comments” towards Walz and Pocan, as well as his opponent, Rebecca Cooke. Does he fear they are all going to try to assassinate him so he makes an ass out of himself in self-defense?

And what about the senate pages and library aides he has screamed at and threatened. Was that more self-defense?

There’s a reason most people report death threats to the authorities and not the media. Political violence is always wrong, and bad actors thrive on attention.

I don’t know, but the same behavior across different settings and all unprovoked makes it seem like he just might want to look at his own behavior first.