…went down on Hill, while serial rapist Brett Kavanaugh wheedled and needled and frolicked his way right onto the Supreme Court. But across the aisle on Contrary Lane, the rules quizzically differ. Rep. Katie Hill (D-CA) was thusly forced to resign from Congress after engaging in nothing more than what transpires copiously in every frat house across America; the hijinks constituted such favorites as bong ripping, snatch licking, and riding pogo on her finance director’s Anthony Weiner. Though pundits argue whether her ouster was more redolent of Beltway sexism or of the Democrats’ self-immolating political correctness, the larger irony is that videoing such activities was unequivocally accretive to the multimillion-dollar “careers” of Paris Hilton and Kim Kardashian. Hill’s undoing, by way of contrast, was so abrupt that we didn’t even have time to learn her pronouns, though the portmanteau “throuple” has left us indelibly stained.
With Trump’s bribery hearings in full swing, it is a fait accompli that he will be impeached by the House and an equal certainty that Mitch McConnell (R-KY) will obtain an acquittal in the Senate. Nonetheless, fantasists on the left – when not spinning Clinton or Blooomberg-to-the-rescue fairy tales – treat each witness as an Advent Calendar door, counting down the days to the Republican establishment’s inevitable abandonment of the President and thus his dethronement. Despite every mention of disapproval by either a retiring Republican or Mitt Romney getting comically inflated to the point of significance, there are no visible cracks in Trump’s wall of support. There are, however, fractures in the foundation of his base.
The conservative group Young America’s Foundation recently fired columnist and provocateur Michelle Malkin because of her support for Neo-Nazi Internet troll Nick Fuentes. The schism along the right-wing continuum has been marked by the alt-right sending “gropyers” to college campuses to harangue paleo-conservative speakers and to publicly ask them leading questions about Israel and civil rights in order to expose their lack of credentials as true White Nationalists. (It is for this reason that Donald Trump, Jr. took no questions during a book tour stump in Los Angeles last week.) Meanwhile, leaked emails between White House advisor Stephen Miller and Breitbart News not only exposed him as a Eugenicist, but have ironically forced White Nationalists to come to the defense of “an unctuous, conniving Jew.” Curious how this played amongst the faithful, I asked Proud Jungvolk and former Indiana Klansman Gert Weemer about Malkin, Miller and gay far-right polemicist Milo Yiannopolous.
Gert dismissed Miller out of hand as a stooge and enabler who will keep breathing only “as long as he is of use.” As for Malkin: “She is a brown-skinned, slanty-eyed gook whose parents were filthy immigrants. Can’t we find someone more our kind to spread our message? I do like what Nick Fuentes has to say, but isn’t Fuentes a beaner name? Christ, give a wetback a suit and a haircut and he thinks he’s white.” I brought up the marginalized Yiannopolous in light of the now infamous groyper query sprung during a conservative commentator Charlie Kirk Q & A session: “You have multiple times advocated on behalf of accepting homosexuality, accepting homosexual acts in the conservative movement. How does anal sex help us win the culture war?” Weemer bristled, “Milo… I can’t wait for the day that the HPV viruses jetted into his ass by some pervert recruit enough squamous cells to form a full-blown malignancy.” Kumbaya, anyone?
Outsized extremism on both ends of political spectrum (the pretzel logic of political correctness on the left and the out-posturing of white nationalism on the right) leaves precious little room for the rest of us – college students in particular – to maneuver. Recent events at Syracuse University (some of which actually took place) serve as the classic exemplar of this tectonic collision.
Though the presidential candidates blathering about the debate stage are no more inspiring than your Tinder date’s genital rash, optimists in the Democratic camp are trying their best to poke a few holes in this shroud of doom in order to let in the odd glimmer of hope. To wit: they point to Rep. Mike Turner (R-OH), who went from NRA lackey (93% approval rating) to assault-weapons-ban advocate after his daughter narrowly missed being killed during the mass shooting in Dayton. Only months after voting down legislation that would have expanded background checks, Turner tweeted, “Today, I announced my support for restricting military style weapon sales, magazine limits, and red flag legislation.” They believe that he, along with others like Rep. Brian Mast (R-FL), can be coaxed from the conservative mind set. Sadly, they couldn’t be further from the truth. Turner’s change of heart was the result of a singular threat to a family member, which means he didn’t give a fuck about the 20 students killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School or the 12 Navy personnel at the Washington Shipyard, or the 26 parishioners at the Sutherland First Baptist Church. Or the hundreds of other victims. Or you. He is a callous, self-serving hypocrite, which by definition means he remains nothing but a prototypical Republican.
Before you reach for the Drāno, do notice the faint gleaming leaking through the soiled fabric of this administration; two southern governor’s races went to Democrats this month, despite The Donald holding rallies in both Louisiana and Kentucky. The Democrats also took complete control of the Virginia legislature for the first time in a generation. And Trump hatchet man Roger Stone was just convicted on obstruction of justice charges and awaits sentencing. So as Iowa frontrunner Pete Buttigieg shows, it really doesn’t matter where you poke holes as long as you do it with a glint in your eye.
