Spartan doesn’t like writing in the first person. He also really doesn’t like that Caro-esque “this reporter” or “this writer.” Stretching the boundaries of logic – as well as Jack’s tolerance for getting associated with certain deranged rants – to use “we” is the least bad option which is why he uses it.
Third person is stupid too, but it’s necessary here if only for a brief anecdote about something stupid and funny that happened on Twitter to preface the rest of this gutter-level stupid story.
Ahem…
We would have embedded this but the video that Catturd linked on January 16th was “flagged for hateful content” because it’s a video clip of a bunch of (alleged) DeSantis fanboys raiding Republican voter turnout activist Scott Presler’s live audio chat, spitting homophobic slurs and graphic sex talk, and all the usual MAGA stuff, which Catturd was evidently offended by.
Spartan didn’t actually listen to any of it at the time, he simply reminded Catturd that Scott Presler was fired from the Virginia GOP in 2016 for having sex with another man in their Richmond offices after hours and then for some reason taking pics of the encounter and posting them on Craigslist.
Like not even Facebook or Snapchat or whatever. It was fucking Craigslist.
It seemed relevant to mention given that a month earlier there was the MAGA freakout over that one Dem aide doing more or less the same thing and posting a video in a Slack group, as well as just the general homophobia endemic to the American right wing. Presler – an Islamophobic QAnon freak – wasn’t part of this conversation nor was he tagged nor has Spartan ever had any interaction with Presler on Twitter. And yet somehow he spotted it and took offense to that little reminder…
It’s not quite @NationalZeroUSA’s Gold Medal block from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, or the Contentious Otter’s Platinum Trophy from Rudy Giuliani, but it’s something, especially considering it was not at all directly provoked by Spartan. Presler had to find him to do this.
Now to the actual “news” as promised in the headline: Following the New York Times’s reporting that Ronna Not-Romney is headed for the exits at the RNC, quite a few folks on MAGA Twitter are agitating for a man too toxic even for Elise Stefanik to take her spot leading the party. They were joined by one certain notorious Republican apostate who was equally excited…
Dude. This is a serious move to make Scott Presley the RNC chair. Oh my lord please yes!
The GOP would crumble.
“I and all RINOS opposed Scott Presler for RNC chair!!”
(Will my anti-endorsement work?). Best news ever https://t.co/Lgd6jEdq7A
— Adam Kinzinger (Slava Ukraini) 🇺🇸🇺🇦🇮🇱 (@AdamKinzinger) February 7, 2024
Which some low production-value right wing news site called “The DC Patriot” claims means Kinzinger is “crying” over the (very remote, but definitely better than Mike Lindell’s chances) possibility that Presler could take over, writing “The angriest man with a little man complex in America, Ukraine loving Adam Kinzinger is super duper upset that conservatives and Trump supporters in the MAGA movement want the hardest working man in American politics next to Donald J Trump to be RNC Chair. That’s right, as you may have heard tonight, Ronna Romney McDaniel is resigning as head of the RNC after pressure from President Trump and others.”
Spartan finds it very hard to articulate this uh, vibe, from the DC Patriot’s blogger Julio Cahn here.
It’s almost like that one old “Yeah he’s an asshole, but he’s our asshole” trope turning into just cringey defensiveness. It’s not like Kinzinger was even really that clever or funny with the “reverse psychology” bit here. It did the job fine enough, and more importantly there is zero reason to doubt the sincerity of his insincerity and that he – along with Liz Cheney and Ronna’s uncle and every other Republican that got excommunicated from the party since 2016 – would in fact be happier than even Democrats to see an assclown like Presler installed and the party to further implode.
It is very safe to take Kinzinger’s word for it. Who else other than he or Cheney would be better positioned in the Never-Trumper fantasy of a future normal, responsible Republican Party rising from the ashes of MAGA? Calling him out for “crying” and mocking your male Rapunzel comes across as pretty impotent and butthurt, while also validating his point on the self-destructiveness.
Which is why Spartan concurs with Adam Kinzinger and endorses Scott Presler for RNC chairman enthusiastically. Plus it’d be awesome to tell everyone Presler blocked him before it was cool.