Local Republicans faced harassment after publicly supporting Kamala Harris. Is that 'just how it's going to be'?
Kristina Lange was sitting in her car outside Sugartown Strawberries Farm Stand & Country Store on Wednesday, trying to delete the latest round of hateful comments from the farm’s Facebook page while her husband Bob handled an influx of customers.
The Langes, both lifelong Republicans, were featured in a Kamala Harris ad in late September, picking corn on their idyllic Malvern farm and saying they refused to vote for Trump again. Since then, the fallout has been nearly nonstop.
First came the viral posts falsely claiming the Langes were paid actors and lifelong Democrats. (In fact Bob Lange has been an elected Republican town official since 1997.) Then came the vicious phone calls, the flood of negative reviews on Google and Yelp, the unsupported accusations of pedophilia, the doctored images of Donald Trump peeing on the Langes’ wedding photos. Some callers just screamed obscenities into the phone and hung up.
“Every day I have a feeling of heaviness,” said Kristina Lange. “Because I didn’t realize that the hate was so deep-seated.”
After a round of media attention, the Langes then became the subject of overwhelming positive support, aimed at them like a maximum capacity fire hose. A hundred customers a day showed up at the farm stand, Bob Lange said, eager to buy whatever they could. They got calls from Sweden and Australia and all over the United States, thanking them, encouraging them, placing orders for their beach plum jelly and pumpkin butter. They could barely keep up.
https://www.inquirer.com/politics/bob-kristina-lange-harris-trump-republicans-20241006.html
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There are many Repukes out there who are refusing to vote for Chump again. They don't want him back in the White House and they know Chump is bad for the country, but most of them are afraid to say it out loud. This couple - the Langes - not only said it out loud but they announced it on a TV ad that's shown in their area. It took a lot of guts to do that!
Most people in red counties don't have that kind of courage. The Langes were getting hateful and nasty messages on social media and anonymous phone calls. But those could have come from anywhere. Even from Russia, or Russian bots.
When nice people started coming into their farm store, thanking them and buying their products - those weren't anonymous bots. They were friends, neighbors and people who live close by. It's a great thing that they are supporting the Langes, and perhaps it's going to snowball into more people deciding to vote for Harris & Walz.
