A Democratic candidate for Utah's newly-drawn Salt Lake City congressional district has been revealed to have a history of extremely controversial internet message board posts, Punchbowl News' Ally Mutnick reported on Wednesday.
The posts from state Sen. Nate Blouin include bizarre, sexually-charged comments and attacks on the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, which dominates state politics.
Among much else, Mutnick reported, Blouin used the C-word and R-word, threatened to "skull [expletive]" a fellow Reddit user, and suggested buying a GoPro “for filming porn with your underage sister.”
Mutnick also took several swipes at the Mormon Church, claiming it was “a bunch of bigoted assholes” with an “ideology fostering ignorance and intolerance,” and said the whole institution was "DEFINITELY just a front for the largest US drug cartel." He also bragged that he defecated in an LDS church parking lot.
In response to the revelations, Blouin, 36, said he disavowed all of what he had written in his "early twenties."
“There’s no excuse for these posts — they’re vulgar, stupid, and reflect a version of me in my early twenties that I’m ashamed of and have thankfully evolved past," he said in a statement. "I won’t minimize what I wrote, and I believe every candidate forced to look at their old online activity should take full accountability for the person they once were behind their computer screen. To the people I hurt with my words, I sincerely apologize.”
Utah's Salt Lake City district is expected to be a gain for the Democratic Party, as the state's congressional map was forcibly redrawn after Republicans passed a draconian partisan gerrymander in violation of state law approved by voters in 2018. The Utah GOP responded with a ballot petition campaign to repeal the law, but came up short in signature count.
