A candidate for the Marlboro Board of Education in New Jersey has dropped out of the race, but the decision was not prompted by personal emergencies or a change in priorities. It was prompted by his involvement in a vicious campaign of slander and death threats targeting a conservative mother.

Scott Semaya, the candidate in question, was exposed for participating in a deeply disturbing group chat focused on Danielle Bellomo, a current board member and mother of three. The chat, chillingly titled “This B**** Needs to Die,” included several individuals with ties to the Board of Education (BOE): Chad Hyett (current BOE Vice President), Mitesh Gandhi (spouse of current BOE member Aditi Gandhi), Nirav Kadakia (an unsuccessful 2024 BOE candidate), and Lenny Thor (a former special education teacher in the district and husband of Alicia Thor, the current Treasurer of the Marlboro Educational Foundation, as listed on the MEF website).

Images of Semaya’s phone, captured during a July board meeting, have spread rapidly online, triggering widespread outrage. The photos clearly show the group chat’s menacing title and reveal what have been described as “vile texts” about Bellomo — messages that are both sexually explicit and threatening, as underscored by the group’s name.

Bellomo reacted, sharing with the New York Post, “It was absolutely terrifying. When I found out about the messages I was absolutely shocked, especially with the climate of our country. It sent chills down my spine.” She further explained, “My whole family has been affected by it,” noting that her oldest son, who is 12, could stumble across the text messages online. However, Bellomo said she’s been receiving online threats for months. Despite that, she added, “I’m a proud and unapologetic advocate for parental rights, for my children, for our town and our state and for that they have this hate for me.”

This incident is not isolated. Earlier this month, Virginia’s Democratic nominee for attorney general, Jay Jones, was exposed for text messages fantasizing about the death of Republicans and their families. Despite fierce demands to suspend his campaign, the Democratic Attorneys General Association (DAGA) and some of Jones’s major donors have not condemned his remarks. However, whether concerning Jones or the more recent case of Semaya in New Jersey, it’s evident that they come in a time of heightened tensions and violence across the board.

Last week, conservative commentator Benny Johnson revealed, “An individual has been arrested for threatening to kill my wife, my four children, and me. He sent a letter to my home saying he hated our views and wanted us dead.” In recent days there have been several chaotic anti-ICE protests and targeted shootings in major U.S. cities. Just over a month ago, prominent Christian and conservative commentator Charlie Kirk was brutally assassinated while speaking at Utah Valley University, leaving behind a wife and two children — a tragedy that some on the Left openly celebrated. Even statistically, there’s been an uptick, driven by Democrats, of people who support inciting violence against those with whom they disagree, as well as an uptick in those who fear the Left’s tendency toward violence.

“Violence and intimidation are wrong no matter who does them,” argued Family Research Council’s David Closson in a comment to The Washington Stand. Even so, he continued, there are trends that “help explain the recent rise in threatening speech and, at times, unlawful behavior” coming from the Left. First, “Politics is often treated like a moral crusade where opponents are labeled ‘fascists’ or ‘genocide enablers.’ If the fight is framed as do-or-die, extreme tactics can start to feel justified.”

Another trend, he continued, is that “popular ideas that divide society into ‘oppressors’ and ‘oppressed’ turn normal policy disagreements into battles against supposed systemic evil; in that story, disruption, doxing, and ‘by any means necessary’ activism can look like virtue rather than vice.” It’s also common, Closson argued, to see “expressive individualism and grievance politics redefine disagreement as ‘harm,’ so harsh speech — or even force — gets rationalized as ‘self-defense.’”

Closson also pointed to a societal shift: “The decline of mediating institutions (churches, intact families, civic groups) means fewer places where people learn self-control, respect for neighbors, and civic responsibility.” While not excusing wrongdoing, this trend helps explain the surge in aggressive anti-ICE actions, disruptive pro-Palestinian protests that veer into intimidation, and hostility toward orthodox Christian teachings. Yet, Closson cautioned, “The answer is not to match hostility with hostility.”

Rather, spearheaded by Christians and conservatives, Closson implored for “equal enforcement of the law, moral clarity from leaders, and a return to first principles: every person bears God’s image, coercion is not persuasion, and good ends never justify sinful means.” Ultimately, “If there’s no higher moral law that both rulers and citizens must answer to, politics can become ultimate, and opponents start to look like obstacles to ‘liberation’ rather than neighbors to persuade.”

Many modern left-wing ideas can add fuel to the flame by labeling people as “oppressed” and “oppressors,” as Closson noted, which often turn “normal policy debates into moral emergencies.” But as he further clarified, “This doesn’t mean conservatives are immune to sinful anger or dehumanizing talk. Scripture is clear about the brokenness of every human heart.” And yet, he continued, “where biblical convictions shape public life, they put brakes on these impulses.”

He went on to lay out key convictions he believes Christian’s ought to subscribe to. “The doctrine that every person bears God’s image gives dignity to opponents. The lordship of Christ keeps politics in its proper place. Jesus’s command to love enemies and bless persecutors rules out coercive shortcuts. And the reality of objective moral law requires persuasion, not compulsion.” As he put it, “The further a movement drifts from these anchors, the more likely it is to trade virtue for zeal, pressure for argument, and hostility for patient persuasion.”

Closson concluded, “The Christian response is not counter-hostility but moral clarity, equal justice under law, and a renewed commitment to the slow work of persuasion grounded in truth and charity.”