David Hogg shrugs off St. Louis broadcaster’s vulgar tweet

Stoneman Douglas student activist David Hogg’s response to a vulgar, sexually violent threat on Twitter from a St. Louis broadcaster? Indifference. “It doesn’t really matter what people say,” Hogg said in a brief telephone interview Tuesday. “I’d rather not respond, because I don’t want the focus to be on me. I want the focus to be on the kids who are dying from gun violence every day.”

Conservative radio and TV host Jamie Allman tweeted on March 26 that he was “getting ready to ram a hot poker up David Hogg’s ass.” The tweet gained media attention in St. Louis and nationwide in recent days, leading to the cancellation of Allman’s nightly show on an ABC affiliate owned by Sinclair Broadcasting. Some sponsors have withdrawn ads from his FM radio show, and Allman’s status with the station is unclear. “Jamie is taking a couple of days off,” a substitute host said on the air Tuesday. “He’ll be back here real soon.”

Was Hogg surprised to hear Allman’s comments, given that they came from a professional broadcaster and not an anonymous troll? “Not really,” Hogg said. “Regardless of where someone works, it doesn’t define their morals. People say what they want.”

“Smart man to resign,” Hogg’s mother, Rebecca Boldrick, wrote on a Facebook forum in response to a Washington Post report that Allman resigned from his TV show. “So proud [of my son], but it’s getting exhausting dealing with all these haters.”

Some students and shooting survivors, including Hogg, have used humor to deflect online trolls and provocateurs since the Feb. 14 massacre that killed 14 students and three educators.

Hogg took a harder-edged approach in a recent Twitter confrontation with Fox News host Laura Ingraham, who mocked Hogg and criticized him for “whining” after the high school senior shared news that he was rejected by several colleges. Hogg urged an advertiser boycott in response. Ingraham apologized to Hogg and returned from a week off Monday, saying her focus would be on “bullies on the left aiming to silence conservatives.”

Hogg, whose family has guns in the home, has said the aim of the March for Our Lives movement (now morphing into the Vote for Our Lives movement) is not to abolish the Second Amendment and the right to bear arms but to bring common sense to gun policy and gun laws, including universal background checks and the banning of rapid-fire military-style weapons and high-capacity magazines.

Hogg, who has been accepted to the University of California at Irvine, also said that he was “90 percent sure” that he would delay enrolling in college until fall 2019 and use the gap year to focus on this year’s midterm elections.

He said his activist group will not endorse candidates, but focus on changing gun policy and curbing gun deaths. “We want to make this a voting issue,” Hogg said. “That’s my focus now.”

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