Chuck Grassley

About

Chuck Grassley is a Republican United States Senator who has represented Iowa for over forty years. His presence on Twitter, and habit of tweeting with spelling errors about frequently unexpected topics, has attracted much attention. Born in 1933, he is the second-oldest member of the United States Senate as of 2023. As Senate pro tempore, Grassley is (as of June 2023) third in the line of presidential succession.

Career

Chuck Grassley began his career as a farmer and factory worker. He was elected to the Iowa House of Representatives in 1959, and served in that body until he was elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1975. In 1981, Grassley was elected to the United States Senate, where he has served eight terms and is the longest-serving Republican in Senate history.^[2]

Online History

Grassley started his Twitter account in November of 2007, joining the platform very early on in its existence.^[3] He also maintains a Facebook account and other social media channels, but his Twitter has brought the most attention and inspired the most discussion.

In 2017, Yahoo! News interviewed Grassley about his Twitter habit, and recorded the Senator's comments on the platform:^[7]

What really irritates me about people that have negative comments about mine, they say something like, ‘Why don’t you go to college and learn how to spell?’ or, “Why don’t you use punctuation?’” an impassioned Grassley said. “Well, I can’t believe that anybody who’s on Twitter isn’t smart enough to know that you got to use shorthand, or you can’t get it in 140 characters and I just think that those people are ignorant tweet users -- Twitter users.”

Grassley's Twitter presence has led many other publications to also write articles about his social media use.^[4] His Twitter account revolves around recurring themes both personal and political. The Senator appears to use the platform as a kind of journal.

"Assume Deer Dead"

On October 26th, 2023, Grassley reported to his followers that he and his friend Fred had struck a deer while driving at night and the Senator chose to "assume deer dead." This incident continued to figure prominently in Grassley's online presence, as he continued to reference it up until 2022, using the deer story as a metaphor for his views about President Biden's policies.^[4][5]

History Channel Beef

For years, Senator Grassley has taken to Twitter to complain about the History Channel's lack of historical-themed programming. When he sees something he likes on the History Channel, he alerts his followers, like in the January 11th, 2021 tweet seen below left. He also uses his platform to criticize the History Channel, like in the September 18th, 2021 tweet seen below right.^[8][9]

#CornWatch

For several years, Grassley has used Twitter to share news and updates about the progression of the corn season on his farm in Iowa. In 2021 (seen below left) and 2022 (seen below right) #cornwatch mostly involved Grassley sharing facts about corn and his own personal experiences as a corn farmer.

In 2023, however, #cornwatch documented an ongoing drought in the state of Iowa. Grassley, who has expressed doubt the existence of climate change^[10], has refused to address the likely connection between droughts and global warming in his #cornwatch content despite several users in his replies pointing out the possibility.^[6]

External References