Ambler’s Real Problem Isn’t a Facebook Post – It’s Hypocrisy

“Let’s make some more martyrs.”

That single sentence, posted by Ambler’s tax collector Jennifer Stomsky, recently set off a firestorm on social media. The comment, which was shared on her personal Facebook page, led to Stomsky’s swift resignation from her local Democratic Party leadership role. It came just days after critical pieces were written and published on AroundAmbler.com by Kevin Tierney, owner of Around Ambler’s parent company, Burb Media. In one such piece, he called on all local Democratic leaders, including Mayor Jeanne Sorg, to publicly condemn Stomsky or resign themselves.

I want to be clear: Tierney is entitled to his wrong opinion. But he’s not entitled to position his posts as pieces of investigative journalism. They were clear op-eds, presented without proper identification as such.

Across the website, he also fails to clearly disclose his byline and provide details about his professional experience, political work, or otherwise. This is journalism 101 – regular practice for contributors and staff writers of reputable news outlets who are committed to transparency so readers can consume content with full context.

This lack of clarity on the part of Tierney seems calculated and not incidental. If he feels this is a misrepresentation of what’s occurred, it would behoove him to apologize for the oversight, and commit to accurately labeling content and providing robust byline information going forward to deliver fair reporting that’s in the best interest of the Ambler community.

What’s most disturbing about all of this, however, doesn’t have anything to do with the way he platformed his pieces or even what Stomsky said. It’s the hypocrisy at play when we zoom out and examine the issue of whose outrage warrants attention, and whose doesn’t.

Over the past several years, we’ve seen elected Republicans and right-wing media figures openly traffic in hate speech, conspiracy theories, and threats of violence. We’ve heard sitting members of Congress joke about fatal attacks on political opponents – does the assassination of Minnesota Speaker of the House Melissa Hortman, her husband, and their family dog ring any bells? I wouldn’t be surprised if you said “no” because D.C Dems allowed horrific commentary from the right to go unchecked and did little to stop the story from being buried in mainstream media.

We’ve heard the alt-right spread lies about stolen elections, and blame immigrants, LGBTQ folks, and other marginalized groups for every social ill. Rarely are those individuals forced to resign, even when real lives are lost. Rather, the outrage machine just rolls on. But when a local Democrat, frustrated in the aftermath of yet another act of gun violence, posts a sarcastic Facebook comment about a man who spent his career stoking division that did real-life harm, the pearl-clutching begins with dizzying speed.

The implication, of course, is that Democrats must always be better. That they must stay calm. Be respectful. Avoid controversy. Extend grace, even to those who have never extended it to them. And in the case of Charlie Kirk, they’ve now been compelled to mourn, unify, and celebrate his commitment to “healthy debate” and “free speech.”

Except that’s revisionist history – or to put it more simply, a bold-faced lie.

Charlie Kirk wasn’t a champion of civilized discourse and family values. He was a white Christian nationalist who weaponized speech to vilify marginalized people, mock gun violence victims, and create a political culture where hatred is normalized as “patriotism.” He called LGBTQ+ kids groomers and likened immigrants to an invasion, and then we saw mass shootings where the perpetrators were motivated by these very ideologies. He also spread vaccine conspiracies that cost lives and amplified the same “great replacement” theory that led to the Holocaust and inspired further mass shooters in the U.S.

His death is not tragic because he held controversial views – it’s tragic because establishment Democrats and Republicans alike have allowed these views to flourish. For Republicans, it’s easy to understand why – the current conservative strategy relies almost entirely on hate and fear as electoral motivators.

But for Democrats, the rationale is less obvious. They hold tightly to respectability politics and the same concept of American exceptionalism that drives MAGA’s “America First” rallying cry. That’s why over the past week, we’ve seen the Democratic elite clamor over who can lament the most over the death of a Nazi. And they feign shock all while parroting the same talking point: “political violence has no place in this country.”

As if political violence hasn’t been America’s modus operandi since its inception.

America is not a city upon a hill, and it is far from a shining beacon from which other countries should model themselves if they value freedom and democracy. Acting as if Kirk died for American ideals and rebranding his platform of hate as "a difference of opinion" negates every single principle we like to pretend America is built on.

The reality is that the American project apparently requires violence, oppression, widespread military intervention, and back-room billionaire deals to succeed. How can we say in good conscience then, that it’s a moral project worth continuing?

That brings me back to our local story.

It's clear to me and other reasonable folks like Stomsky that Charlie Kirk reaped what he sewed. So why are we all being asked to extend him a dignity he denied to so many others in his short but terrible time on Earth?
Yes, Stomsky’s Facebook post was flippant – incendiary even. And we can also recognize that public officials are held to impossible standards, especially women. Her comment wasn’t an official statement. It wasn’t a call to violence. It was an expression of what most of us feel right now that Oscar Wilde captured well when he said, “some men improve the world only by leaving it.”

To tone-police Stomsky in the wake of that reality, while ignoring the damage Kirk did while alive, is to participate in the same sanitized, respectability politics that has allowed extremism to fester. Democrats and left-leaning residents of Ambler and across the U.S. need to stop apologizing for telling the truth. You can be disturbed by yet another instance of preventable gun violence while also recognizing that not all lives lost warrant mourning, and some legacies don’t deserve whitewashing.

If democracy is what we claim to value, then we must have the courage to speak plainly about those who seek to undermine it.

That’s what our local media should be doing too.