I read perhaps the perfect summation of what it means to be a woke leftist in Town Hall last week. The article is called “Sad Clown: Progressive Reporter Unfriends Old High School Pal Over a MAGA Hat.”
The title pretty much gives the plot away. But the details are worth savoring. It seems that a Think Progress reporter (and yes, I read “think” in that title as ironic, too) named Zack Ford is the open-minded leftist who was shocked when he came across a picture on FB of a high school friend of his celebrating Independence Day, with her daughter on her lap. Worse, she was wearing a MAGA hat.
How does Che McWoke-ington react to that offensive image?
He says, “I really disagree with her political choice, but I’m not the boss of her. As a committed leftist, I always mind my own business, so I’m going to wish her a happy Fourth, and continue our friendship for the rest of our lives. The end.”
HA! I kid. He did pretty much the opposite of that.
After noting that “she and her family are evangelical Christians,” [Gross!] he explains that they had spoken respectfully in the past, and he had even stayed in her home. But now she has crossed the line, because wearing that hat “violated this accord deeply.”
Isn’t that the way you discuss differences of opinion with your friends? In terms of “accords” which must not be “violated”? “Hey Ribbentrop, your inexcusable wearing of a St. Louis Cardinals hat has broken the social contract between us! If you don’t apologize and burn that hat immediately, I’ll never speak to you again, or my name isn’t Fred Molotov!” (Yes, that was a timely Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact joke. You’re not going to get that kind of top shelf humorous reference in your average Stephen Colbert monologue!)(Also, Molotov had a sinister Russian first name that I am not going to waste my valuable time looking up.)(Hence, Fred Molotov.)
Ford next went through a series of oh-so-deep thoughts. First, “It’s not just a hat. It’s a symbol of all of the oppression and injustice the Trump administration is responsible for.” Okay. That might sound stupid, if it weren’t backed up with a lot of solid evidence. To wit: “It’s an endorsement of caging kids, banning Muslims, firing trans people… and the fascist military display that graced the National Mall last night.”
Great points, all!
Except that the caged kids pictures were taken when Obama was president, and Trump never banned Muslims, or fired trans people. And that fascist parade featured two tanks and a couple of military fly-overs (as virtually every national parade and major SEC football game has featured since we figured out how to fly), as well as a non-partisan patriotic speech that even dullards like Ford couldn’t point to as objectionable.
But Ford is not dissuaded by such petty details as these. No! He is going to bless his old friend with his wisdom, in a teachable moment: “I explained all of this to my old friend.” Insert a bunch of insulting smears about how that hat is an offensive symbol of all that is wrong with humanity. “It’s unacceptable to me to be subjected to that symbol from someone with whom I hypothetically have mutual trust.”
Did you catch that? Her choice of headwear is not to be accepted!
You may be starting to think that this dope takes himself a wee bit too seriously. And the beginning of the next paragraph will not dissuade you from that impression: “I gave my friend an ultimatum. I told her I wouldn’t unfriend her so long as she apologized for wearing the hat and promised me I wouldn’t have to see it in my feed again.”
He’s giving his old friend an ultimatum — about her hat!
And the way he threatens to unfriend her suggests that anybody would logically regard that action as tantamount to being eternally damned. “If thou dost not repent of thy sartorial choice, I will cast you into the outer darkness, where my non-friends weep and gnash their teeth. Thou art become like lukewarm water, which I must spew out of my mouth!”
Lighten up, Edsel.
Unfortunately, his benighted friend was foolish enough to object to his threat. “When she claimed I was trying to police her beliefs, I corrected her, pointing out that my conditions only regarded the hat, not her position on any particular issue.” See? She can still cling to her stupid, deplorable, ungood thoughts – she just can’t wear the hat.
Did she modestly stand corrected and beg his forgiveness? She did not. “When she claimed that she’s equally offended by the Pride flag, I corrected her again, explaining that objecting to a symbol of inclusion is in no way comparable to objecting to a symbol of exclusion and that she was making a false equivalency.”
Thank God she has him there to correct all of her stupid wrong thoughts. Also, FYI, this guy has the lefty buzzwords down pat. As in, “I’m ‘inclusive’ in the way that I totally refuse to accept your hat, whereas you are ‘exclusive’ when you object to my gay flag.”
This genius goes on, adding a little theological twist: “Anyone reading this is free to wear a MAGA hat, but you can’t both wear a MAGA hat and claim to “love thy neighbor.” First, thanks for granting us the freedom to choose what we wear. Second, that sound you heard is not thunder – it’s God, face-palming himself over this guy’s misunderstanding of virtually everything.
“You can’t both wear a MAGA hat and claim to respect me or millions of other Americans.” Don’t get ahead of yourself, there, Mr. Ford. NO ONE respects you, and it has nothing to do with their choice of clothing.
As this bonehead is wrapping up his comically pompous screed, you’re probably thinking, “I can’t believe this guy didn’t play the other “greatest hits of leftism” theme: I’m a victim!”
You might want to sit down to read this next part: “My decision today to unfriend this individual was no simple purge; I am significantly emotionally wounded.”
There it is! If we were playing BINGO on a card full of leftist clichés, Ford just dropped G-4, and Hans Landa just clapped his hands and said, “Oooohh, that’s a BINGO!”
When I first read that, I couldn’t help but think of my dad, who worked for the gas company. One time when I was a teenager, he came home with his face wrapped in gauze, with holes for his eyes and mouth. He had been working on a gas service in a ditch beside a house, and he lit his welding torch in a spot where the gas was supposed to have been turned off. A roiling fireball went up the side of the house, scorching the siding. My dad had closed his eyes tightly at the moment of the ignition, and he had deep crow’s feet around his eyes for almost two years afterward. He had to put ointment on his forehead, he had spots in his vision for the next day or so, and my mom had to trim his beard to cut away the hair that had been singed.
He went back to work the next week.
Guess what he said at supper that night? “I’m significantly emotionally wounded!”
HA! I kid again.
He actually said that he was thankful to God, that it could have been much worse, that it was his own fault for not double-checking that the gas had dissipated from the ditch, and that he was very lucky to have a beard that protected most of his face.
I had THAT guy as a dad. Thus I am the well-rounded Renaissance Man you see before you, a working dog, not a show dog, and a contributing member of society.
If Zack Ford somehow manages to have children – and I think the smart money is on “nope” – they are likely to be emotional hemophiliacs who live in a bubble and are allergic to everything.
Anyway, Ford is almost done: “Here was someone with a happy, clean, healthy child on her lap openly praising the man who has torn apart families and won’t even give kids soap. And when asked to choose between a hat that embodies that evil and someone she’s known half her life, she chose the hat.”
Good lord! I don’t know that woman, but I still know that choosing that hat over this colossal wuss had to be one of the top 5 decisions that she ever made. Also, she is a saint, if only because she knew Zack Ford for half her life and still managed not to give him the beatdown he so obviously deserves. I mean, emotionally speaking.
Take it home, All-Knowing Zack: “My final words to her were: ‘Every time you wear the hat, you remember you lost a friendship over it. Every time.’ I know for sure I’ll now think of her every time I see a MAGA hat, and I’ll fear its corrupting power even more than I used to.”
This guy is the purest distillation of everything that is wrong with young leftists; he’s a nauseating combination of arrogance, unearned moral certainty, inflexible judgmentalism and a delusional view of the world and himself.
So… Avenatti/Ford, 2020!
Martin Simpson 