If you’re looking for inspiration to wear your finest political manners for the holiday, here’s former Colorado lawmaker Lois Landgraf, a Republican, who says she removed an “offensive” Facebook post about Biden and then apologized.
Landgraf wrote on Facebook that she thought her post was “funny” but later realized it was “offensive.” Then she apologized.
Asked what she shared about Biden, she told the Colorado Times Recorder she’d rather not say because that “just keeps it going.”
“All I can do is apologize for forwarding a post that 1) I didn’t understand and 2) was offensive,” Landgraf later wrote on Facebook. “…I am truly sorry.”
“You were right to expect better of me,” she concluded.
“When I found out what it meant I was mortified that I was clueless about it and would never have posted if I’d known what certain things meant,” she said. “I knew it was about Biden.”
Asked if she had any advice for those of us who expect political skirmishes with family members over the holiday, Landgraf paused for a bit.
“Just keep in mind, it’s just better to try be nice, would be my advice, which is not to say when you see something going on that’s wrong that you shouldn’t speak up for what’s right,” she said.
She says she received no negative feedback for the apology.
After posting the anti-Biden meme, she initially disregarded some of the criticism that was posted in response to it. But after learning more, she realized her mistake.
In the future, she’ll post “pictures of my dogs and my grandkids” for a while, but she says, she’ll continue to speak up “appropriately.”
Landgraf isn’t the only Colorado lawmaker who’s removed misinformation or offensive posts on Facebook over the years, but her apology appears to be among the most heartfelt.
Landgraf posted the offensive content on the Facebook page that she used when she was a state legislator. She’d now deleted the entire page. She apologized on her personal Facebook page.
“I think I have finally managed to remove the entire site,” she wrote on her personal Facebook page. “I realize this post, here, is probably confusing to those who didn’t see the post on my other site. That’s ok. To those who did, I truly apologize.”
Landgraf isn’t in public office after being term-limited out of her House seat last year, but she’s still quite active in politics. Through her group Friends of the Future, which focuses on recruiting and promoting moderate Republicans for statehouse races, she’s running a candidate training program called Accelerate.
Here’s hoping the curriculum includes Landgraf’s admirable philosophy on the right way to handle social media posts.
