State Representative Sarah Unsicker (D-Shrewsbury) has faced calls to resign from her fellow Democrats after an odd series of tweets this past week, including most notably a tweet boasting about sharing "basil lemonade" in Webster Groves with Charles Johnson.
Johnson has been condemned by the Anti-Defamation League as a Holocaust denier and has a history of using the n-word in tweets. (He's claimed he did so to study the site's algorithms.) Johnson also sued to have Michael Brown's juvenile records released and was banned from Twitter for asking for donations to "take out" activist DeRay Mckesson, although Twitter is now called X and Johnson is back on it.
On Monday, Unsicker boasted that she went "very public" with the fact that she's "friends with some of their boogeyman" — "their" meaning St. Louis Twitter/X. She also posted a photo with Johnson, writing, "I'm an adult and capable of choosing my friendships. (Unsicker has not responded to an email from the RFT asking if she is friends with Johnson.)
The outrage soon spread beyond the small group of people who avidly discuss politics on Twitter. Elad Gross, who like Unsicker is running in the Democratic primary for Missouri Attorney General, called on her to resign her seat and drop out of the race. Former congressional candidate Ray Reed, who previously endorsed Unsicker, echoed those calls.
"Like many in the last several days I have learned about the open connection of @SarahUnsicker with a person who’s public statement and expressed views, including racial slurs and antisemitism, are not acceptable," Reed wrote. "Use of hate speech, including anti-Semitism, and threats of intimidation are never acceptable. Due to this association, which was not known to me previously, I see no avenue to continue supporting Rep. Unsicker in her current primary, regardless of my respect for her prior work." He also repeatedly tweeted that she should resign.
Unsicker, oddly, defended herself last night by issuing a press release saying, in short, that her associates in the the basil lemonade summits are "known to be FBI informants." But hey, so was Whitey Bulger!
— Sarah Unsicker (@SarahUnsicker) December 8, 2023In short, what began with a weird series of tweets about cashew chicken has led to a big mess for a St. Louis County politician with statewide ambitions — and yet another indicator that anyone trying to achieve something in this world is best off never Tweeting or X-ing about anything — and especially about grabbing lemonade with alt-right trolls.
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