Electile dysfunction

Like many Americans, the end of this election cycle cannot come too soon for me. Even though I know that, no matter the electoral outcome, the vileness and viciousness will continue apace for some time to come. This may not be the most disgusting campaign in US history, but it is the foulest that has had mass and social media to smear the fecal matter around.

By way of example, Imma give you two tweets that came by just this week.

Yesterday the New York Times posted a link to a story on how “white anxiety” has shaped the political landscape in the Anglo-American arena, citing Brexit and the Chaos Monkey as examples. Frankly, anyone who can’t see white “anxiety” under both of these campaigns needs to visit an optometrist. From Nigel Farage to the people at Republican rallies screaming “Jew-S-A” and roaring approval of the building of that xenophobic’s fantasy of a wall against Mexico, it’s all about fearing and hating The Other.

But, at least in this country, The Other also includes those with the XX chromosome configuration. Whatever else Hillary Clinton has going against her, one of her biggest transgressions in this lot's perception is being female and having the unmitigated temerity to be a serious contender for the one office that should be male-only. (Eight years ago, that office would have been marked Whites-Only, and breaking that barrier has just triggered more of this white male mouth foaming.)

Anyhow, it’s not even the NYT story that interests me, since that's pretty well only stating the bloody obvious. No, it was the stream of, well, white anxiety tweets that followed it, including this cherce juxtaposition:

I really got a kick out of the tweeter essentially proving the NYT’s point in a single, illiterate tweet. (Well, s/he’s only been on Twitter since March, and perhaps a continuous spittle of 2900 tweets since then against Clinton, Obama and anyone else not a Chaos Monkey doesn’t give you much of a chance to develop communication skills. Or cognitive ones.)

In particular, it’s the claim that recalcitrant illegal “immigrates” “disrespect women” that set me off. Yes, I know, the Chaos Monkey actually has assured us that “No one respects women more than me.” And he even ignored the wave of laughter in the studio that that statement prompted.

But this tweet came less than 24 hours after one of the Chaos Monkey’s Texas surrogates, Agricultural Commissioner Sid Miller, sent out this (here in a screen shot in a tweet by Montel Williams):

Miller’s office first claimed that the commissioner’s Twitter account had been hacked. Because it would be hard to convince anyone that his dog had got to his Blackberry. Then their story changed: it was the work of a staffer retweeting something and, “They didn’t notice it had a derogatory term in it.”

Oh, right.

It’s interesting that Miller, who’s had a Twitter account for three years, with 7800 tweets to his name (not counting that one, which was deleted apparently in the unrealized hope that no one had taken a screen shot), doesn’t appear to know the difference between “retweeting”—which, you know, shows the original tweet—and copying something you found and posting it as your very own, AKA "plagiarizing". It’s also, frankly, hard to believe that anyone in Miller’s office doesn’t recognize that word instantaneously as one you would not utter in the presence of any woman of your acquaintance without expecting to get your ass kicked. Hard.

Moreover, only last week Miller (or a hacker; or possibly a staffer) scoffed at Clinton’s caution in communications by tweeting that he don’t need no stinkin’ tweet checkers, because he’s “healthy as a bull”. And “All thoughts are my own.”

Unless, clearly, you tweet something you’re actually thinking, but it turns out to be just a week too soon to be publicly shared, and you have to blame it on hackers; or an aide; or muggers; or strolling mariachis.

And herein we find the entire Republican ethos, encapsulated in just three tweets. So, NYT, I’ll see your white anxiety and raise you frantic fear of feminism. It’s a witches brew for sure.

Oh, shoot: one more tweet from yesterday. Because redneck douchebaggery.

Lord, but I need alcohol.