"Go straight to hell": Idaho Republican caught attacking constituent in profane tirade

But in the town of Moscow, Idaho, one constituent of Republican state Sen. Dan Foreman was faced with precisely the opposite problem.

Foreman is a retired police officer and first-term legislator, but he already has a stunning record. He calls the separation of church and state “a figment of somebody’s imagination.” He described climate change as a liberal “scam” and told a reporter, “I know credible scientists in the former Soviet Union who have concluded the Earth is actually cooling.” He also introduced a bill to charge women who have abortions with first-degree murder.

And he completely lost control when a man from his district criticized him at the Latah County Fair.

The Moscow-Pullman Daily News obtained footage of the incident from the body camera of a sheriff’s deputy who intervened:

CONSTITUENT: I’m just asking you—

FOREMAN: I’m tired of people like you walking up and putting out this nonsense! That’s what it is.

DEPUTY: What’s going on here, guys?

FOREMAN: This guy says I’m not doing my job and—

DEPUTY: OK.

FOREMAN: —he’s lecturing me on the Constitution. Why don’t you take a hike? Liberal nut-tard.

DEPUTY: Why don’t you go ahead and just — just move on.

FOREMAN: Yeah, go ahead, don’t vote for me, because you didn’t. Yeah, you’re a liberal nut! Go straight to hell, you son of a bitch.

This outburst is completely in character for Foreman, who, as it turns out, has been writing personal letters mocking and insulting his own constituents for months.

In one letter to a dissatisfied constituent, Foreman wrote, “I am a Christian, conservative Republican. I won my election, because the MAJORITY of voters in my district voted for me. I defeated your left-wing liberal candidate, because a majority of voters chose me and my clearly outlined political platform of conservative values. So, your side lost, and my side won. … You simply don’t like the fact that you are not getting YOUR way any longer.”

It seems odd that a self-proclaimed “Christian” would be in the business of telling people to go to hell. But Foreman is hardly the only Republican in the hot seat for not practicing what he preaches.

There is no excuse for an elected lawmaker treating the people he represents in this manner. Especially one who promised, on his campaign website, to “listen to the people of our great State of Idaho as a humble, but capable, public servant.”

Foreman’s actions silence the voice of his own people in state politics. Now that Republicans have so much power at the federal and state level, it is time they got serious about serving everybody, rather than simply people they like.