Conservative voters really do have an embarrassment of riches to pick from for GOP presidential candidate hopefuls going into next year. The less terrible among us are looking at the field of Nikki Haley, sexual abuser Donald Trump, Ron “Meatball Ron” DeSantis, and others and wondering how the party of Lincoln has fallen this far and this hard. These people are dangerous but at least we can laugh at them from time to time, and now is one of those times, as two of these candidates are arguing over the dumbest thing imaginable.
Trump and DeSantis—the two current GOP frontrunners—are waging war over what they believe to be prime digital turf, and if you’re thinking it’s The Daily Wire, you would be sorely mistaken. It’s so much stupider than that. Trump and DeSantis are fighting over The Babylon Bee, which is the laughably, painfully unfunny conservative satire site that is supposed to be the right’s answer to The Onion but has exactly one joke. Per Rolling Stone:
One of the bigger prizes in this social media contest between the Trump and DeSantis camps is The Babylon Bee, a satirical news site that positions itself as a conservative answer to The Onion. During his presidency, Trump had approvingly retweeted the site’s stories (at times appearing unaware they were fake) and the Bee reciprocated the affection with shots at the president’s enemies.
However, the relationship between Trump and The Babylon Bee soured when DeSantis tried to muscle his way into the Bee’s affections in February. Per the above source:
But in February, the relationship between Trumpworld and the Bee soured when anti-Muslim activist and far-right Trump backer Laura Loomer noticed a $21,500 payment from the Friends of Ron DeSantis PAC to the Bee made during the governor’s race and tweeted that Seth Dillon — owner of The Babylon Bee — had claimed to her that the money was for “joke/speechwriting.” In text messages reviewed by Rolling Stone, Dillon claimed to Loomer that the payments were about helping DeSantis fight Democrats, not Trump.
Imagine fighting over someone like this, an unfunny a-hole who you’ve hired to write mean-spirited jokes about. Right-wing comedy is all about punching down, which in my expert opinion, is never actually funny except to bullies, and f*ck those guys. They’re the worst!
Since Trump is a bully, he did not take too kindly to The Bee partnering with DeSantis—who, side note, I just now learned that Trump has referred to as “Meatball Ron” in his search for the right derogatory moniker, and I hate to give it to him, but that is an objectively funny nickname because it’s so absurd. Conservatives really are only funny when they’re not trying to be, but I digress.
Anyway, Trump took to Truth Social to put both The Bee and DeSantis on blast. “You don’t spend that much money on The Babylon Bee if you’re running for Governor, in fact, you don’t spend money on The Babylon Bee if you’re running for anything!” he wrote.
Again, they are fighting over a site that thinks headlines such as “OOOOOOOH YEEEEAH: Kool-Aid Woman Shatters Glass Ceiling” and “Due To High Crime, Mafia Closes Its Chicago Office” are the height of comedy. Those are laughably unfunny to the point that any comedy derived from it all but ensures you’re laughing at the person who wrote it and not with them, an unintentional byproduct to be sure.
The Trump team, for what it’s worth, is already conceding that they lost The Bee, and have moved on to other high-value influencers in order to maintain their online bully presence. Per Rolling Stone:
This year, Trump has on several occasions solicited and received updates from aides and other allies on which extremely online right-wing personalities have drifted from him and toward his foe DeSantis. “I, personally, have briefed him on how he’s lost Bill Mitchell, the Babylon Bee, John Cardillo, and some others,” says a person close to Trump. “The [former] president’s reaction is usually, ‘Well, that’s too bad,’ or just saying that they’ll be back soon enough.”
What a time to be alive. Presidential candidates are fighting over “s*itposters” as the article points out. On the one hand, it’s hilarious, on the other hand, I remember the outcome of the 2016 election so it’s also objectively terrifying. This is truly the best the Republican party has to offer right now. Meatball Ron, and the man who gave him the moniker “Meatball Ron,” fighting over someone who posts unfunny articles because it helps them win favor with conservative bullies online. Politics!
(featured image: Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
Published: Jun 1, 2023 04:15 pm