Pennsylvania State Representative Brian Sims has come under fire after he posted two videos showing him attempt to score some points with his base by confronting pro-life protestors in front of a Planned Parenthood clinic. The problem, though, is that he made an absolute fool of himself, berating a quiet, older women in the first video and then three teenage girls and what appears to be a teenage boy, “Rich,” in the second.
He was out there looking for a fight. He wanted people to yell and scream at him and he probably would have loved if someone took a swing at him. But people either walked away, ignored him, and, in the case of Rich, calmly answered his questions with a smile. Even if someone wanted to claim that he holds the correct position on abortion (and whiteness, racism, “pseudo-Christianity,” etc.), no one would ever consider his aggressive behavior against the peaceful protestors who were simply gathered to pray as anything but unbelievably awful.
Many people were especially concerned that an elected official would demonstrate this behavior, which included offering $100 for someone to dox the teenage girls. Was this behavior truly unbecoming of an elected official or did Sims just overplay his hand and show us a much-exaggerated glimpse of how all politicians act?
With the current political and social climates, social justice warriors and other Progressive types are eager to virtue signal to social media how evil and terrible their opponents are (and the same applies the other way around). Knowing that these people and social media can be stirred up into a frenzy over something like, politicians take advantage of playing to the emotions of their bases. Sims wanted show anti-abortion protestors to be hateful, horrible people. Unfortunately for him, no one played ball and he ended up being the one who looked hateful and horrible.
More effective politicians are much subtler and more patient. They wait for something to develop and then take advantage. Rahm Emanuel put it perfectly, saying, “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste.” There are enough less-than-stable people out there on both sides of the main political spectrum to provide ample opportunities to beat your chest and claim moral high ground to rally your base. But Sims isn’t a prolific, national politician. He’s only a state representative, so he must have felt that he needed to give himself a boost in order to prey on emotion.
He knew what he was doing. It wasn’t like someone took video of him during a moment of passion when he wasn’t at his best. He took video of himself and then posted it twice. Sims miscalculated how eager even his biggest supporters would be willing to disregard basic human social norms to score political points.
Politics are always downstream of culture. The vast majority of politicians would not be willing to stick their necks out and go against the grain. It’s much too profitable to at least vocalize your support of whatever’s most popular among your constituents whether you actually follow through or not. And that’s precisely why Sims posted a video tepidly “apologizing” for his behavior, or at least saying that he can do better.
Is he actually sorry? Does he care that what he did was awful? Who knows? What’s, though, obvious is that he’s trying to paddle his raft back into the current of popular opinion, the home of politicians.