Let Them Fight: Liberals and Conservatives are saving America's body and soul through COVID
The Matt Gaetz story gets weirder...
I believe that things like “why get the vaccine when I will just survive COVID?” are stupid.
I believe that when we give up freedoms they rarely come back easily.
And so, I have learned to stop worrying and love the current COVID culture wars.
I would invite you all to join me. We can all end the fight when both sides realize they are fighting two fronts of a winnable war.
The COVID Scolds, with their hectoring about health and safety protect our body. While I think they go too far and often erode their own message with condescension there is no doubting their passion. COVID is serious and you should take it seriously. Vaccines are effective and safe. Let’s care about each other and get through this together.
The Freedom Karens, with their anti-mask protests protect our soul. The very American idea of individual freedom. The idea that the things we give up for safety come at a price. Even now, as city officials use words like “fully open” they don’t mean what they used to.
What happens to the things we knew as normal that don’t make the cut? Do they ever come back? Are we going to acknowledge they are gone?
There is no doubting the passion of the Freedom Karens. Although I think they erode their position with irritating, unrelenting bombast. An unbending purity test that is unsuited for a clearly complicated age.
As so they fight, the COVID Scolds and the Freedom Karens.
A few of you reading might be amongst the melee. Even more of you are rooting on the sidelines. The majority of us just take in the spectacle, wondering how all of this is going to play out in the break room after we get back to normal.
They fight each other because they are at odds now. Yet they both have righteous causes, even if you feel that one is “more correct” than the other. I’ve been tempted online to try and step between them. Make them see the other perspective. Because their true enemies are not each other. The Scolds fight a disease and the Karens fight authoritarianism. But each see the other side as enablers and that’s close enough.
I say, let them fight.
You can’t convince a crusader that God isn’t worth fighting for after they traveled all the way to Jerusalem to secure the Holy Land.
I’ve learned to appreciate the carnage. I’ve learned to honor their sacrifice. One shitpost to one side. A Facebook slander to the other.
COVID is real and our freedom is fragile. If by the end of this we know both lessons then it’s a net positive.
Let them fight.
The Matt Gaetz story gets even weirder
As you all know, I am obsessed with this story and our muddy picture has gotten a bit clearer.
In texts that Matt Gaetz wingman Joel Greenberg sent to Roger Stone (almost certainly recorded and broadcast by either Greenberg or prosecutors trying to terrify Gaetz) the former Seminole County Tax Collector says that he and Gaetz accidentally slept with a 17-year-old they thought was 19. After they were tipped off that the woman lied about her age they cut off contact until she was legal.
This largely falls in line with the facts we knew before:
Gaetz and Greenberg liked to meet college-aged girls through sugar daddy websites. Greenberg facilitated this and Gaetz helped supply gifts via Venmo. The assumed arrangement was that the girls would enjoy travel, money and the high life. This is legally muddier than a more straightforward “cash for sex” transaction at least according to current legal precedent.
There was a trip to the Caribbean where Gaetz allegedly had sex with a girl who just turned 18. Greenberg contends in these texts that it was not the first time but rather the first time since finding out she wasn’t already of age.
Stone says that Gaetz intervened at the 11th hour to tell Stone NOT to help lobby for a Greenberg pardon.
But why?
It kind of makes me wonder how long Greenberg has been working with DOJ and if his reach out to Stone was not also part of an investigation. Why else would Gaetz want to quash his wingman getting pardoned. Or himself?
How To Read The News: Caitlyn Jenner launches Recall campaign the way the only way the Kardashians know how
When you are running for office without a record, you need an issue. Something that politicians haven’t done enough on, therefore making your outsider status a plus and not a minus.
This helps if you can tie it to your background. A businessman wants to reign in government spending, a victim of violence wants to bring stricter laws, a reformed criminal wants a more compassionate path for felons…. blah blah blah.
Caitlyn Jenner is a trans woman who also happens to be very famous for her athletic achievements. She is a Republican. And so it’s no surprise that she’s found her way in the middle of a current brouhaha over trans children being involved in youth sports. She says trans girls should not participate in cis girls sports as it would create an uneven playing field.
This is squarely in line with GOP dogma and creates a complication for the “Listen 👏 To 👏 Trans 👏 Voices 👏” crowd that fiercely fights for trans athlete inclusion. IMO this does more to announce Caitlyn as a national culture war figure than it does help her with this particular campaign… but instead of getting into the middle of this issue-wise, let’s understand how it broke.
To say that TMZ doesn’t have a beneficial relationship with the Kardashians is to assume the Democratic Party doesn’t have a beneficial relationship with the New York Times. Kardashian Grand Poobah Kris Jenner is old friends with TMZ founder Harvey Levin. I assume that any news even tangentially related to the Kardashian clan is managed so a perfectly timed messaging announcement for a political campaign? Oh that’s a plant.
Going forward, view anything Jenner-related in TMZ as deliberately placed and ask yourself why it’s coming out now.
On the podcast this week we have a preview into how Donald Trump’s enemies list is already affecting the 2022 midterms. See you there!
- Justin