Life comes at you fast sometimes.

Just a week ago, erstwhile Sabattus Republican House candidate, Androscoggin County GOP treasurer, and longtime gadfly in central Maine political spaces Les Gibson was doing what he, along with the (now deleted, more on that later) Androscoggin County GOP Twitter handle in tandem have done best for years: Casually lobbing hate speech into the Maine politics Twittersphere with little concern or regard for their impact on civil discourse and even less for the targets of their vitriol.

But, in a karmic twist, Gibson’s digital fiefdom — and his candidacy — came crashing down in a span of days after Gibson set his sights on recent mass-shooting survivors and emergent national youth-movement leaders Emma González and David Hogg, referring to González, who is openly bisexual, as a “skinhead lesbian” and to Hogg as a “bald-faced liar.” Both González and Hogg are high school students and survivors of the Parkland, Florida massacre that occurred last month, and have since become the visible vanguard of one of the most robust student movements in American history.

A combination of the language, choice of targets, and timing caused the comments to go viral, rocketing Gibson into an international spotlight that ultimately cost the unopposed candidate Gibson both his assured seat in the State House (in the span of 48 hours he drew a Democratic challenger and a Republican primary opponent, causing Gibson to drop out of the race), and his platform (he deleted his social media accounts).

The incident also seems to have had a larger impact on the local GOP apparatus and state politics more broadly. Last week saw the demise of the Androscoggin GOP Twitter handle, which was unceremoniously deleted at some point during the week. Given that Gibson remains listed as the treasurer of the Androscoggin GOP, and the county committee has remained absolutely silent about the incident, it is hard to believe that the two events are unrelated. In addition, some local Republicans like Auburn Rep. Bruce Bickford and now-presumptive District 57 GOP nominee Thomas Martin (who will replace Gibson on the ballot) have finally publicly voiced their revulsion at language that has become intimately tied to the Republican brand in Androscoggin county.

Meanwhile, 28 year-old Democrat Eryn Gilchrist has jumped into what would have been an unopposed race in District 57 with the winds of positive national media exposure at her back, and the nearby Lewiston Democratic Committee raising an unprecedented $130,000 and counting from the coverage, which, if used effectively, could become the organizational seed-funding to rebuild struggling Democratic committees in less-resourced parts of the county, like Sabattus and Greene.

For those who have followed the politics of the area for any amount of time with growing unease about the devolution of the discourse and the mainstreaming of hateful rhetoric by the leaders and organs of the local GOP, this has been a meaningful week. That it took defaming high schoolers, and disgracing the name of our county and the reputation of struggling but resilient communities like Sabattus and Greene is shameful.

Whether the speeding whirlwind will truly reshape a county political organization defined by its bullying remains to be seen.

The preceding originally appeared on mainebeacon.com, a website and podcast created by progressive group the Maine People’s Alliance.