Local opinion: When elected officials and public figures resort to doxxing and intimidation, we all lose

When elected officials and public figures resort to doxxing and intimidation, we all lose.

As a combat veteran, I know firsthand the cost of war. I deployed to Afghanistan believing that our most fundamental rights — chief among them the First Amendment — were worth defending. I carried that conviction every day of my service. Today, as an anti-war veteran, I remain committed to peace and to the idea that every voice deserves protection. That is why what we are witnessing in Tucson — and across the country — cuts so deeply. When elected leaders target and endanger others for speaking their minds, it is not only a blow to democracy — it is a betrayal of every veteran who served to protect it.

This week, we watched a coordinated smear campaign unfold against Tucson City Council Member Lane Santa Cruz. What started as a simple Instagram post — without even naming Charlie Kirk — was twisted into a national spectacle. Scott Presler blasted it out, Elon Musk amplified it, and Lisa Kip began managing a “list” to keep the outrage going. And then, right here at home, former legislator Justine Wadsack piled on.

Let’s pause there.

Wadsack once admitted she stepped away from a lawsuit because of the harm and grief it brought her own family. Yet today, she is inflicting that same grief on someone else’s family by cheerleading an online mob. She reposted and endorsed calls that branded Santa Cruz “evil,” urged Tucsonans to “stand up” against them, and painted our city as a cesspool of “fentanyl zombies” and “illegals.” That’s not leadership. That’s reckless hate.

And make no mistake — this is not accountability. This is doxxing.

Lane Santa Cruz exercised their First Amendment right. Nothing more. Nothing less. To take that expression, strip it of context, and then broadcast it to millions with the intent to shame, harass, and endanger is not free speech — it is the weaponization of free speech. It undermines the very principles the radical right claims to defend.

As veterans, we are often told that our service safeguarded the freedoms Americans enjoy. But freedom loses its meaning if people fear for their safety when they use it. It is impossible to separate the right to speak from the right to live without fear of retaliation. Political violence does not always come in the form of a bullet or a bomb. It can come as harassment, intimidation, and threats spread by those who should know better.

This is why veterans across the country — many of us antiwar now because we’ve seen the devastation conflict brings — have a duty to speak out. We cannot allow the same kind of dehumanization that fuels wars abroad to be normalized in our politics at home.

Because once we accept that mobbing, targeting, and intimidation are legitimate tools of politics, no one is safe. Today it’s Lane Santa Cruz. Tomorrow, it could be any elected official, activist, or ordinary citizen who dares to speak out. We cannot allow this dangerous precedent to stand — not in Tucson, not in Arizona, not anywhere.

The hypocrisy is staggering. Wadsack and her allies cry “free speech” when it benefits them, yet they try to crush it when the words come from someone they disagree with. They cloak their campaigns in moral language — “spiritual war,” “protecting families” — while stoking division, fear, and hostility that puts real families at risk.

Tucson is better than this. Arizona is better than this. Our nation is better than this.

We are a city built on resilience, diversity, and dialogue. We don’t need more finger-pointing and character assassination; we need leadership that builds bridges and prioritizes peace. We must stand together—across parties, across ideologies — in rejecting doxxing, intimidation, and the politics of fear.

The choice is simple: do we want a democracy where all voices can be heard, or a culture where speaking your mind comes with threats to your safety?

I know where Tucson stands. We want peace. We want to end political violence — for all. And it starts by calling out those who fan the flames.