JULY 2023 IGNOMINIOUS ABSURDITY OF THE MONTH: THE IGGY

1. Former U.N. Ambassador and South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley. Leave it to right wing media and fellow travelers to scream about what they see as a flaunting of American patriotism. This time they took issue when the U.S. women’s national soccer team stood silently when the national anthem was played at the World Cup in Auckland, New Zealand. They didn’t take a knee, they didn’t raise a fist in protest, they didn’t grimace, and they didn’t shout. They stood silently and what you might call respectfully, if you weren’t dedicated to being outraged. “The most shameful conduct.” “An insult to every American.” “An attack on our country, our flag, and those who fought and died for our nation.”

Nikki Haley, looking for traction in the Republican presidential primary, tweeted reproachfully about it. Many commentators took Haley’s approach, lecturing these women at the pinnacle of their sport, women who waged and won a years-long fight for equal pay, as if they were insufficiently grateful children.

But many who’ve served in the military noted that in that setting, they were taught to stand silently—just like the soccer players did. “I guess Marines are unpatriotic when we don’t sing the anthem,” Ron Filipkowski tweeted. Nobody calls out the marines.

The degree to which this outrage is completely fake cannot possibly be overemphasized. This is a lesson that the goalposts will always move if Fox News is determined to attack you. The mere presence of Megan Rapinoe on that team means there must be an offense to be found and yelled about, because Rapinoe did kneel, starting in 2016. Rapinoe wrote about that decision:

“I can understand if you think that I’m disrespecting the flag by kneeling, but it is because of my utmost respect for the flag and the promise it represents that I have chosen to demonstrate in this way. When I take a knee, I am facing the flag with my full body, staring straight into the heart of our country’s ultimate symbol of freedom — because I believe it is my responsibility, just as it is yours, to ensure that freedom is afforded to everyone in this country.”

That kind of nuance can never be allowed, and even years later, with Rapinoe standing during the anthem, right-wing media were determined to find something to be angry about. Because the right-wing media always needs something to be angry about.

It’s exhausting living in a country and a time when a huge sector of media and politicians and would-be influencers are always trying to build power and keep their base mobilized by pushing rage.

From Fox News to Donald Trump to Ted Cruz to Marjorie Taylor Greene to Ben Shapiro to Dinesh D’Souza, the business model is to find reasons for the Republican base to be angry and scared at all times. And we know how scary successful women are—especially when they’re LGBTQ+ and/or outspoken. So, the members of the USWNT should go about their business (winning soccer games), and ignore this so-called scandal completely. Because if it wasn’t this, it would have been something else.

2. American Conservative Columnist Ben Shapiro. The anti-woke right wing thought it would flex some post-Bud Light brouhaha muscles by taking down the “Barbie” movie. This did not come off looking like a show of strength for them, to say the least. Fox News and Newsmax segments attacking the movie before it hit theaters, and after the criticism on right-wing movie review sites. “Barbie” had the biggest opening of the year at the domestic box office, and the biggest opening weekend ever for a movie directed by a woman.

Ben Shapiro dedicated a 43-minute video to trashing the movie, calling it “one of the most woke movies I have ever seen” and urging his followers to downrate the movie if they were polled by market research firm CinemaScore. His urging obviously didn’t resonate with viewers” Barbie received an A rating.

Following widespread mockery of his video, Shapiro returned to claim, “The reaction to me burning a Barbie car with, like, a Barbie and Ken in it is like the reaction of the Islamic world when someone burns a Quran in Sweden.” No, Ben: People were making fun of you. There’s a difference.

It was a full far-right pile-on. Alt-right conspiracy theorist Jack Posobiec called it a “man-hating Woke propaganda fest” and “possibly the most anti-male film ever made.” Far-right social media site owner Elon Musk claimed that if “you take a shot every time Barbie says the word ‘patriarchy’, you will pass out before the movie ends.” They really, really wanted to show they could leave a mark on a major Hollywood movie centering on an iconic corporate product. But it turns out they have less sway over “Barbie” than Bud Light.

It’s important not to lose sight of what this is about: It’s part of an effort to enforce gender roles according to right-wing preferences, a backlash against the movie’s undermining of the ways Barbie has represented femininity for generations now.

Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk called the movie “trans propaganda that is in this hyper-feminine, ultra-pink propaganda thing, but it’s really been taken over by the trans mafia.”

“One of the Barbies is a trans Barbie,” Shapiro said. “And this is true! Totally normal, as if this is a female Barbie—with a voice deeper than my own.” Gosh, Ben, I don’t know, that might be as much your thing as it is her thing. But the “Totally normal, as if this is a female Barbie” part is telling, because yes and yes. Just take out the “as if” and you’ve nailed it.

Try as they have to take down “Barbie,” the far right, with its huge media infrastructure and high-profile influencers, have clearly failed. Holy crap, have they ever failed.

3. Congressman and Presidential Candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. It’s hard to keep up with RFK Jr’s many conspiracy theories. Just when you think you’ve heard it all, that the corona virus was diabolically engineered to spare Chinese and Ashkenazi Jewish people, or his revelation that ear buds deliver subconsciously perceptible government propaganda through our auditory canals, or the epiphany that French bulldogs cause global warming might run the gamut, he regurgitates more. It’s hard to keep up. Jr’s a crank who cranks out whoppers the way Taylor Swift disgorges perfect pop songs. But because he’s a Kennedy, people tend to hang on his words. Junior is where paranoia meets legacy admissions. Like Donald Trump, with whom he has much more in common than he probably cares to admit, he’s an elitist hawking anti-elitism, an insider somehow branding himself an outsider, a scion styled as a spoiler, a populist as paradox. Why do Americans keep falling for these arrogant oxymorons? Oh, I understand the appeal of the perspective that narcissists like Trump and Kennedy peddle: that sinister operators deploy nefarious tricks to shore up their own dominance and keep hard-working, well-intentioned, regular folks in their places. It’s an exaggeration of inequities and injustices that really do exist, and it simplifies a maddeningly complex world. Ranting about George Soros or Anthony Fauci feels a whole lot better than raging at the vicissitudes of fate. Let’s be clear: As Kennedy promotes the specter of microchips in vaccines, as he posits that H.I.V. may not be the sole cause of AIDS, as he says that Anne Frank had it better than Americans under Covid lockdown, as he claims that Covid vaccines are often deadlier than what they’re supposed to prevent, as he fingers the C.I.A. for his uncle’s assassination and Prozac for mass shootings, and as he claims that China and the U.S. both have been "developing ethnic bioweapons," and that "they're collecting Russian DNA, they're collecting Chinese DNA," he can portray a society in which the deck is stacked against all the little people because the deck has been stacked so heavily in his favor. His rapt audiences and his shimmering Kennedy-ness are inextricable. As you might imagine, the antisemitic far right is absolutely giddy with Kennedy's latest burps. Neo-Nazis, Holocaust deniers, and other anti-Semites praised it as 100% correct” and “perhaps the greatest thing he ever said.” He has complained of being “deplatformed” for his, um, unconventional thinking, but he has conventional platforms aplenty. He does interviews galore. If there’s a conspiracy afoot, it’s working to his advantage. His visage, voice and views are everywhere I turn. And they speak to what a strange and scary time this is. So many Americans are so angry and distrustful that they’ll look for answers in strange places. They’ll bow down and elevate the unlikeliest prophets. Trump and Kennedy are the self-proclaimed martyrs of the moment. There will be more where they came from. _______________________ And the July winner is: This is a no-brainer.  The July IGGY has to go to Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.  I'd like to think he's either a moron or insane (or both), but, like Trump, his proliferation of cabsurd claims reveal a deeply evil character.