There are few things funnier to me than the white-hot raging beef parents can have with fictional characters written for young children. You want to hear one of the funniest rants of your life, you ask nearly any parent of a young child their least favorite little cartoon guy. It'll be amazing.
Under the sterile blue lights of his studio, Fallon laughs endlessly at the same pseudo-jokes, rubs elbows with Trump and Sam Altman, and us
Fallon presides over his rituals of play like a vampire, feeding not on blood but on enthusiasm. He doesnât really converse with any of his guests; they all know what they are there for. Rather, he extracts. He demands ârelatabilityâ from them, draining the authenticity from the interaction until only the husk of a âviral momentâ remains. The horror lies in the repetition: the feigned shock, the hysterical laughter at unfunny mishaps, the relentless âGolden Retriever energy.â
It is a performance of joy so excessive, so desperate, that it reveals the void it attempts to cover. It is the logic of the assembly line applied to human connection. What Fallon offers is a standardized production of âfunâ that feels increasingly like a desperate plea to ignore the crumbling world outside the studio walls.
The real, unsettling mechanism of Fallonâs banal horror is its insistence on a radical non-engagement with reality: a position that, in our current political climate, is itself an aggressively political act.
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Fallon and his show are not horrifying because they are malevolent, actively creating suffering in the world, but because of a thoughtless, systematic refusal to perceive any of their work as having ethical consequences.
Anyway, read the whole thing, itâs short and worth it.
"But it's not FOR them!!!" The biggest military power in the world belongs to a christofascist nation overseen by a felon found guilty of 34 federal crimes and has greenlit a gestapo with more direct funding than the entire military of Canada for the purpose of ethnic cleansing. Let Hetero Jessica throw some biodegradable glitter at a municipal parade
overhearing my neighbor rant on the phone top of his lungs and his friend is saying something in calm voice and he goes NO. NO NUANCE. STOP SAYING NUANCE. MY BOSS NEEDS TO DIE
Last week, White House Deputy Chief of Staff and xenophobic racist Stephen Miller attacked Democratic Texas US Senate candidate James Talarico with the level of class and dignity typical of MAGA.
Responding to a boilerplate Talarico campaign announcement posted by the Democratsâ account on X, Miller responded, âThe Democrats made history in Texas by nominating their first transgender senate candidate.â Miller later doubled down on Fox News, claiming that Talarico was âtransitioning into a female.â
Miller is lying; Talarico is cis, not trans. Itâs also grotesquely bigoted; Miller is attempting to smear Talarico by suggesting that being trans should be disqualifying from participating in public life.
But this ugly attack is very much in line with the GOP strategy in Texas which has centered obsessively, and repulsively, on attempting to feminize and misgender Talarico. Rather than talk about issues, records, or even personalities, Republicans have simply started bellowing âWE ARE MEN! THEY NOT MEN! MEN GOOD! NOT MEN BAD!â over and over again in a toxic masculine fugue of bile and sweat.
Itâs a repulsive spectacle. But itâs also a clarifying one. Republicans could not make it much clearer that their party is entirely given over to bigotry, rage, and bullying. There are no issues to compromise on, no middle ground to occupy. The only question is whether women, queer people, non-white people, and indeed Democrats as a whole are human beings with a stake in democracy, or if non-Republicans are all simply vermin to be subjugated.
Faced with that stark choice, the Talarico campaign, and Democrats in general, have responded by standing firm rather than folding. Thatâs a welcome change from early in Trumpâs term â and itâs also a hopeful sign that Democrats are starting belatedly to realize that the only way forward is fighting back.
Everything is gender
Last week, Republicans held their run-off primary election. Incumbent John Cornyn lost; the GOPâs candidate is instead the disgustingly corrupt state Attorney General Ken Paxton, who is so obviously unfit his own party tried to impeach him.
Talarico, a member of the Texas House, is, by contrast, a talented communicator who has made his progressive Christian faith a center of his campaign.
[...]
Paxton and the entire GOP have responded to this tough electoral situation by turning hard right and spiraling into semi-incomprehensible smears and conspiracy theories centered on the fantasy that Talarico is not a man or is doing manhood wrong.
The big Republicans scandal moment of the campaign so far came a couple weeks ago when Talarico ordered a potato, egg, and cheese taco.
An innocuous moment, you say? Well, yes. But every Republican with access to a keyboard rushed over to X to declaim that ordering an egg taco meant that Talarico was a vegetarian (he is not) and/or a vegan (vegans donât eat eggs!).
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said that Talarico âwas not beating the vegetarian allegationsâ (why are they allegations?!). Donald Trump said, âYou canât get elected as a vegan in Texas.â Ken Paxton called his opponent âTofu Talerico.â And on and on.
Other similar nonsense followed. Dan Weldon, a Florida congressional candidate, popped up to say that Talarico didnât look like he could name âa single obscure wide receiver from the early 2000s.â And in his first general election add, Paxton claimed that Talarico was âlow-T.â This is a common insult on the manosphere right, where testosterone is conflated with strength, resolve, and virtue.
Not coincidentally, Democratic representatives, and Democratic voters, are often not straight men. LGBT voters and women both disproportionately support Democrats, which of course is the party that broadly supports abortion rights and LGBT rights. In contrast, Republicans are viciously opposed to both â and are even flirting with the idea of trying to disenfranchise women altogether.
The attacks on Talarico are not, then, simply attacks on one politician. They are an attack on the Democratic coalition, and on the idea that women, queer people, or anyone who supports women and queer people should have any role in government or public life. Paxtonâs campaign is saying that Democrats are illegitimate because they are not manly men, and that women and LGBT people are illegitimate because they are Democrats. Only manly Republican bullies are fit to rule.
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Go further
Democrats have belatedly but thankfully concluded that the way to deal with bullies is to hit back harder. Theyâve decided that the way to deal with vaunting toxic masculinity is to point out that it is ridiculous and repulsive, and to connect it to abuse and corruption.
This is all to the good. In addition, though, Democrats could take the Talarico campaign as a moment to recognize that thereâs little point in trying to meet Republicans halfway, either on policy or on candidate selection.
Republicans are going all in on the James Talarico âisnât a real manâ smears to deride his manhood.
"Wow, you're really good at this, you should do this professionally" okay but have you considered that I don't want to because that would suck all the fun out of this thing that I do for fun and entertainment and it's actually a conscious choice to not do this professionally because that would destroy the very reason I do this to begin with