Birthers, Bernie Bros, and the Art of Punching Our Own Genitals

By Joe Starr | Think Pieces | March 29, 2016 |

By Joe Starr | Think Pieces | March 29, 2016 |

As the primary battle between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders enters its ‘Gondor marching on the Black Gates’ phase of drawn out and exhausting warfare, the focus has increasingly been placed on looking ahead: when the dust settles and the ‘not this day!’ speeches are done, can we all smile and get along once a candidate has been chosen?

Whether we reach a miraculous state of unity or not, whether the party lands from this skydive like a ton of shit jettisoned from an airplane or like a peace-loving little bird on a podium, one thing is for certain: we’ve already fucked ourselves.

Seriously, when are we going to learn? As a party, we’ve already spewed an Exxon Valdez’s worth of bullshit into the oceans of liberal politics. We’ve tossed into the trash more animal-choking Pepsi six pack rings than any hippie homeroom teacher can hope to take a pair of scissors to. Words and ideas last, especially poison ones- and especially on the god damn internet- and the idea that all of the vitriol we’ve been spewing as a party will turn into sparkles and artisan maple bacon donuts once we all get on the same page is hopelessly idiotic.

After all, we’re not screaming accusations of Hillary as a lying insider and Bernie as an ineffectual incompetent in an echo chamber. The Republican party isn’t politely ignoring all of this rhetoric. Hell, they’re probably saving money on strategists by just copying and pasting most of it, while we punch each other in the dick and pussy until we’re all staggering around with hopelessly damaged dicks and pussies.

Elections have always been wildfires, and combining that atmosphere with the infinite content producing machine that is the internet is creating a shitstorm that will not only make getting a Democrat elected an uphill battle, but governing once elected? It’ll make the trench warfare of the first World War easier to win than a game of MASH- a game about finding out if you’ll live in a mansion or a home with Idris Elba or Oscar Isaac that is impossible to lose, unless you’re very set on a specific kind of pet or number of children.

Overdramatic? Not in the slightest. After all, President Obama has spent the past eight years splitting time between doing his job and fending off the tornado of fuck that has been chasing him since he first ran in 2008. Nothing quite like walking into the White House for the first time, as the leader of the free world, and having people screaming that you’re not American because you’re black.

You’ll remember that particular charge being led by Donald Trump, now best known for being known as the president that it’s starting to look like we deserve. Trump spent Obama’s first four years crowing demands for Obama’s birth certificate to anyone who would listen. It was his Kim Kardashian sex tape- the thing that made this minor celebrity curiosity an unkillable pop culture mainstay as he fucked his way into our political discourse. In this metaphor, our country is Ray J.

The problem is that the Birther movement didn’t start with this sentient collection of melted orange crayons. It started right here at home in the 2008 Democratic primaries. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were neck and neck when Clinton supporters made your weird racist aunt, who’s constantly forwarding uncomfortable racist emails to your work account, look like Elizabeth Warren by distributing an email that questioned Obama’s nation of birth and highlighted his Arab-African heritage.

Even after Clinton conceded, the website PUMA (party unity my ass) continued to do Right Wing Extreme Conservative God’s work by spreading disgusting and xenophobic crap about Obama. For every time you’ve ever complained that Fox News spews constant bullshit, remember that we’re just as bad- and we’ve had eight years of internetting to get better at it. Liberals are a delightful bunch, right?

It’s important to reinforce that independent investigations found absolutely no link between these rumors and Clinton’s campaign. If your first response in the comments is to yell something along the lines of ‘see, she’s awful and this is proof!,’ I honestly hope a truck hits you. I believe that there’s no link. I think we’re discovering again and again that there doesn’t need to be a conspiracy, or any orders from the top to eat ourselves alive. We’re doing a fantastic job of that on our own.

Also it’s Pedro Pascal in an apartment with 4 kids and a domesticated fox. I win MASH!