Lauren Pierce, president of the College Republicans at the University of Texas, tweeted Wednesday afternoon that the prospect of President Barack Obama being assassinated was “tempting.” The tweet came a few hours after an Idaho man was arrested for firing a bullet at the White House earlier this week.
ABC News reported that Pierce tweeted “Y’all as tempting as it may be, don’t shoot Obama. We need him to go down in history as the WORST president we’ve EVER had! #2012.”
The tweet was removed soon after and Pierce’s Twitter account was changed to private status, where her tweets could only be viewed by approved followers Wednesday night.
Later on, Pierce tweeted an apology for the earlier message, writing “I apologize for my previous tweet. It was in poor taste and and should never have been written.”
Another leader of the College Republicans at the university told ABC News that Pierce probably shouldn’t have written about the president’s assassination, but didn’t see anything wrong with the tweet.
Pierce had other supporters. @keder tweeted, “Dear leftists feigning outrage over @laurenepierce, please zip it. Y’all say worse things about conservatives on an hourly basis. #fail”
Others disagreed.
@AnonyOps, a Twitter account frequently used to announce actions by the hacker collective Anonymous, tweeted, “From this day forward, @laurenepierce will be known as the ‘assassination cheerleader.’”
Anonymous is famous for its tactic of trolling, or stirring up a reaction through outrageous actions or statements. But is it possible Anonymous was trolled?
A simple Twitter search, which turns up tweets Pierce made before she protected her account, reveals that she has made provocative tweets before. For example: “Okay liberal vegetarians, so you’re not okay with the killing of animals but the killing of unborn human beings is just fine?”
On Facebook, Pierce seems partial to lolcats as a means of political discourse.
Perhaps Pierce just trolled a bit too deeply this time.