To the Editor:

As many of you may have noticeAs many of you may have noticed, the Lyon County Democratic-Farmer-Labor (DFL) Party has been hosting weekly pop-up offices on East College Drive in Marshall and other locations around the county for the past four months. We simply erect a tent and staff it for several hours in order to distribute campaign signs, meet voters, and answer questions.

What you may not have noticed is the harassment we received during these events and the number of insults hurled at us. We were not yelling anything, protesting, or impeding traffic. We were simply sitting under a tent, being Democrats. And for this we were repeatedly harassed, threatened, and insulted. Here is a small sampling of things that actually happened to us:

Three times, the act of “rolling coal” was directed at us from passing pickups, leaving us in a cloud of toxic exhaust fumes.

Another time a person pointed his fingers at us like a machine gun and made high-pitch machine-gun shooting noises at us.

On another occasion, a crude epithet directed at gay people was yelled at us from a passing car. They yelled it again when the car drove by a second time, in case we hadn’t heard it on the first pass.

Another person kept driving past us with the sign “F*** Stupid People” in his truck window.

There was a man who started humping his motorcycle as he drove by, in a crude and disgusting sexual gesture.

And I’ve simply lost count of the times people yelled “F*** Biden!” or gave us the middle finger as they drove by. If I had a dollar for every time an obscenity was shouted at us or we were flashed the middle finger, I’d be a rich woman.

Currently, we live in a toxic political environment where the traditional standards of decency and civility have been replaced by hate, disrespect, and indecent behavior. Clearly, it’s time for a change in leadership so we can return to a community and a nation of decency, empathy, respect, and civility. So we can return to a world where it isn’t acceptable to yell expletives and hurtful insults, or direct crude sexual gestures towards a woman, towards a Democrat, towards anyone. Let’s make America kind, decent, and respectful again.

Anita Gaul

Marshall

— Anita Gaul is the current Chairperson of the Lyon County DFL