In case you haven’t noticed, it seems as if some of the craziest among the nation’s prominent right-wing provocateurs are currently having a day. Or two. Or three.
And this directly follows the midterm elections, which saw, for the most part anyway, the wholesale rejection of election deniers, Donald Trump acolytes and, of course, any would-be senator caught up in the centuries-old werewolf vs. vampire debate. (By the way, like Herschel Walker and, of course, like the late, great Warren Zevon, I’m definitely in the werewolf camp.)
But that doesn’t stop, say, Ye, the Hitler-loving, antisemitic musical “genius” formerly known as Kanye West, from dining with an antisemitic “stable genius” and former president while bringing along white nationalist Nick Fuentes — no word on his IQ — in case there might be any embarrassing pauses in the dinnertime hatefest at Mar-a-Lago.
I’m trying to imagine the conversation and whether Trump ever got confused over Kanye’s new name. Yes, he might have called him Ye. But he also might well have called him Yo.
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And at least as big as Ye is Elon Musk, the richest man in the world who apparently spent something like $44 billion to buy Twitter in order to become, it seems, the greatest Twitter troll of all time. Yes, now that Trump has given up on Twitter, Musk is the clear Twitter GOAT, who — when he’s not trolling both Anthony Fauci and the LBGTQ community and when he’s not firing half his employees and when he’s not bringing back the nasty to Twitter hate speech — seems intent on destroying the product, his brand and very possibly much of the lefty, progressive market for his Teslas.
Musk used to be a Democrat, we’re told, but now he seems to be a cautionary tale for what can happen if you spend too much time on Twitter.
And then there’s a mainstay provocateur in Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who “joked” — yes, she said it was a joke — that if she and Steve Bannon had, in fact, been running the Jan. 6th insurrection at the Capitol, that “we would have won. Not to mention, we would’ve been armed.”
Maybe it was a joke, if you don’t think too hard about who the “we” might be and imagine Greene passing out AR-15s to her Oath Keepers and Proud Boys buddies. In any case, many in the New York Young Republican Club audience apparently did laugh.
But just think, if it had been an armed insurrection — and presumably there were some guns there — they wouldn’t have needed to go to all the trouble of erecting gallows for Mike Pence. Get the joke? That’s what I thought. To put this in perspective, Greene also said it was a joke when she tweeted a comparison of Biden and Hitler. And as, uh, jokes go, you know she’ll never top the whole Jewish-space-laser-causing-wildfires controversy.
But if you look closely, there’s someone missing here, and I’m guessing it must be making her nuts. Everyone’s having their day, except Colorado’s own Lauren Boebert, who, by her decibel standards, has been exceedingly quiet.
OK, not completely quiet. Just as one example, even though the Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee deleted their “Kanye. Elon. Trump.” tweet after Ye’s praise of Hitler, Boebert’s pre-Hitler tweeted praise of Ye is still up for your viewing pleasure.
And after all the heat she has taken in the wake of the Club Q killings for her anti-LGBTQ commentary, she went on Ross Kaminsky’s KOA radio show to defend herself, saying the criticism was “disgusting.” She might have been referring to one criticism in particular — Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s response to a Boebert “thoughts and prayers” tweet.
Tweeting directly to Boebert, AOC wrote “you have played a major role in elevating anti-LGBT+ hate rhetoric and anti-trans lies while spending your time in Congress blocking even the most common sense gun safety laws. You don’t get to ‘thoughts and prayers’ your way out of this. Look inward and change.”
If you’re a Democrat in Colorado — and, looking back at recent election results, there seems to be a good chance you are — I’m guessing your favorite result from the midterms was not any of the many Democratic victories, but rather one stunning Republican victory. That would be, of course, the heavily favored Boebert’s narrow win in her 3rd Congressional District against Adam Frisch.
The automatic recount is now over — with only a few votes moving from one side to the other — and yet, surprise, no one said the election was rigged. That may have been because Boebert was declared the winner, but let’s remember that didn’t stop Trump from saying he was cheated in 2016.
Or maybe it was because she recognized the grace with which her opponent conceded the election even before the recount. OK, just kidding.
As you may have heard, Boebert blamed her tough reelection battle on a weak showing from the top of the GOP ticket. But if she had read the Sun’s analysis of the 3rd CD, she would have seen that the only statewide Republican who didn’t fare better than Boebert in her district was Heidi Ganahl, the furry candidate for governor. If Boebert didn’t read it, I’m sure someone must have mentioned it to her.
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It could be, though, that Boebert has heard all the talk in Colorado political circles that if she wants to keep her phony-baloney job after the 2024 election, she has to tone down the rhetoric.
Of course, there’s a problem here. If Lauren Boebert is toned down, she’s no longer Lauren Boebert. If she isn’t calling for Joe Biden’s impeachment, she’s not Lauren Boebert. If she’s not heckling Biden’s State of the Union speech, she’s not Lauren Boebert. If she’s not talking about drag queens “grooming” kids, she’s not Lauren Boebert. If she’s not tweeting about separation-of-church-and-state “junk,” she’s not Lauren Boebert. If she’s not on an elevator calling a Muslim congresswoman a terrorist, she’s not Lauren Boebert. If she’s not calling those who encouraged people to get vaccinated against COVID “needle Nazis,” she’s not Lauren Boebert.
On the other hand, in the 3rd Congressional District, despite its 9-point Republican lean, voters seemed to know exactly who Boebert is, which is why they came within 550 votes of defeating her. And, you shouldn’t worry, I promise she will be just as unrestrained and very much still Lauren Boebert by the time she’s up for reelection again in 2024.
Mike Littwin has been a columnist for too many years to count. He has covered Dr. J, four presidential inaugurations, six national conventions and countless brain-numbing speeches in the New Hampshire and Iowa snow. Sign up for Mike’s newsletter.
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