Should (aspiring) politicians be held accountable for racist, homophobic, or other egregious comments they made on social media when they were teenagers?
But it didn’t fit.
Here is a link to an article about Ala Buzreba, the 21-year-old Liberal Party candidate in Canada’s upcoming federal election. The article notes that a number of her old Twitter posts have been exposed to sunlight. When she was 17 years old, she came up with gems like:
“Go blow your brains out you waste of sperm #racist#asshole#bigot”
“(I) look like a flipping lesbian” (after getting her hair cut short)
“Your mother should have used that coat hanger” (to a defender of Israel)
In response, her party leader, Justin Trudeau, has basically said, “Kids will be kids”. In fact, that’s pretty much what Ala herself said. “I apologize without reservation for the comments I made a long time ago, as a teenager, but that is no excuse.”
A long time ago? As a teenager? Four years isn’t all that long. And anyone who’s savvy enough to be chosen as the candidate for a major national political party, at age 21 no less, must be a pretty smart cookie. In other words, I am not inclined to forgive her just because she was 17 at the time. She may have been 17 years old, but she was not a stupid 17-year-old.
In fact, I think she displayed her true colours four years ago. I don’t believe she’s had anything close to the change of heart she claims to have had. As one of the commenters to the article said, “She apologized because she got caught”.
This type of situation will become more and more common as more and more ex-teenagers enter the political arena.
Four years seems like a long time to a 21 year old. She has apologized, you can accept that she’s matured or not. Time will tell. Being 21 years old is a negative for a candidate, those remarks in the recent past are another one, so it should be tough to vote for her anyway. But what other accounting is there? Maybe she did grow up.
I didn’t even bother getting into it, but a young woman running for office as a Liberal candidate in Alberta ain’t gonna happen even if she apprenticed with Mother Theresa as a teenager. It just’s the principle of the thing.
Bringing youthtul indiscretions up is always frought with danger because most people can relate to having said or done things when young which causes them to cringe when older.
Actually the political arena is almost exclusively filled with ex-teenagers already.
I believe in the human capacity to learn, so I would not necessarily rule out supporting a candidate even though they have made offensive statements in their formative years, if they have *convincingly *corrected themselves.
Having said that, I cannot tell how convincing the change of mind of the young politician you have mentioned really is. As you say four years is not all that long, so if that Ala Buzreba claims to have changed I am not suprised when many people take that with a grain of salt.
Most the current crop of politicians were fortunate enough to be Tena gers before the prevelence of the Internet in everyday life. The stupid crap they said as teenagers is far less likely to have been recorded and available in perpetuaty.
Things like this will become increasingly common. It’s doesn’t just impose limitations on political careers, private businesses find similar information in background checks and make hiring decisions based on it.
I think in time people will have to become less judgemental of stupid things said or done by someone in theirpast or there will be no viable candidates for anything.
I wouldn’t vote for anyone that young to begin with, when she’s in her thirties and has no recent history of such statements I’d be willing to give things she said in her teens a pass.
A very good point.
I suppose responsible parents should make it a point of warning their kids about the all too careless use of the social media early on. Because, fair or unfair, everything you write will be out there and you will have no control over how long it will be or whether someone will eventually dig it up.
You may be right about people becoming less judgemental about such things eventually - but I would not bet on that.
(BTW, when I said that this type of thing would become more common as ex-teenagers enter the political arena, obviously I meant ex-teen twitterers (or whatever the word is))
4 years is actually a long time when you’re 21. I did a lot of growing and changing from 17 to 21, and I am damn grateful I didn’t have social media to embarrass myself on - who knows what might have come up?
The world is a vastly different place now, with the advent of social media. Kids are just going to have to learn that everything they say now is recorded FOREVER.
If she were 41, that would be one thing. But it is not nearly as plausible for a 21 year old to say that she is now a different person from when she was 17.
I never heard of her before, and don’t know anything about her background or experience, or where she stands on the issues, so I expect I would weigh that against the fact that she said something stupid on Facebook.
Yeah. No chance. She agreed to run probably because every possible employer wouldn’t have her after looking her up online. She knew playing a Liberal-running-in-Alberta gig would last only a couple of months.
I wonder who the jobless idiot is who’s supposed to check backgrounds.
ALL 17 year olds are stupid 17 year olds. Every last one of them, even the smart ones. Bless their hearts. It’s not their fault, their frontal lobes just aren’t developed yet. Their ability to reason and to control their impulses is roughly that of a moderately drunk adult. While I would hold an adult responsible, the kid didn’t choose to have a partially functioning brain.
I would be much more interested in what she’s said and done lately relating to the issues I care about.
I suspect she’s still too young to have reached full brain development, but she’s on the cusp of becoming a fully functional thinking creature.
Yes, a politician should be held accountable for all of the stupid things they’ve said, even as a teenager. Just how accountable depends on how young they were at the time, how long it was ago, how stupid the things they said were, and how sincere they appear to be in their change of heart. In this particular case, the circumstances are such that I wouldn’t even consider voting for her. In other circumstances, I might.
Hell yes. I am SO glad the internet wasn’t a part of life in the same way when I was a teenager. Because I was an idiot.
If she were 30 and hadn’t said anything moronic since 17, then I would have no problem totally dissociating her from teenage idiocy. But with a 21-year-old, I’d have a hard time doing that. It’s only been a few years, and her brain still isn’t fully mature, so it’s much harder to tell how far she’s come from that seventeen-year-old and how much she’ll still change.
It’s something I would like to know about but it wouldn’t be my entire reason for not voting for the person. I’m not much when it comes to “single issue voting” and tend to look across the spectrum at the various candidates. Someone who is good on a majority of the topics I care about but was an idiot as a teen I could live with supporting.