Lemme start with the premise everyone knows: right-wing media must produce a steady stream of outrage to keep their dim-witted followers engaged. Over the years, I have heard whoppers from medical death panels, Obama taking away my doughnuts, to nonexistent caravans of brown people, to not being allowed to say Merry Christmas. The right does its best to send their non-fact-checking dolts into a rage to keep them engaged. The problem is that for years, there was always a scary Black person (Obama) or lady (Hillary) or Jewish man (Soros) that they could depend on to be behind whatever conspiracy they were pushing. Bigotry is an essential ingredient for conspiracy theories.
They are now struggling in the Biden era. Despite what Fox News is claiming, viewership is suffering. Right-wing media outlets across the board are losing people. This is a curious development, since their numbers should be way up after the Democrats reclaimed the federal government. They are apparently having a real problem coming up with outrage ideas. Outrage against masks and vaccines were working, but since the ones dying are their own supporters, they’ve backed off a bit. Outrage about fake violent mobs in cities ring hollow now, since they are also trying to justify the violent insurrection attempt in January. So what are we left with?
First, it was "cancel culture." I was treated to nonstop posts about Dr. Seuss and Mr. Potato Head, which has run out of steam—because it's stupid. Then I watched school board hearings erupt with angry, misshapen attendees screaming about critical race theory—even though none of them know what it is, and our schools don't even teach it. It’s gotten so bad that the right is just blatantly making things up. Fox News, The Federalist, Breitbart News, The Daily Wire and The Daily Mail all carried a bogus story about a supposed “activist group” trying to keep white kids out of college. Turns out this “group” has right-wing connections and is about as real as Trump’s election, but hey, they are desperate.
One thing they can’t do: attack Joe Biden. Joe just doesn’t inspire the outrage his predecessors did. Joe knows this, and decided to really twist the knife this week.
So recall back in August 2014, Obama committed the worst scandal of his presidency. Out of nowhere, he decided to wear a tan suit.
For his 60th birthday this week, Joe Biden decided to honor President Obama in the most awesome possible way:
That’s just one this week!
Earlier, Joe had another tweet I adored. If you recall, President Donald J. Trump had a perpetual “Infrastructure Week,” announcing every other month that his administration was going to focus on passing a huge package that would invest trillions into America’s depleted infrastructure.
Even with the GOP in complete control of both houses of Congress and the White House, and even though Trump bragged getting infrastructure done would be “the easiest thing of all,” it never happened. People quickly figured out that Trump would always announce “Infrastructure Week” right before a major scandal:
Just a few months into his first year, Joe Biden is about to deliver the largest and most historic infrastructure deal in U.S. history. He couldn’t help himself with a slight dig at Trump … see if you can spot it:
Lastly, Biden decided to have a little fun with Ron DeathSantis. My governor has announced that any school that requires masks will lose funding. He’s just awful. Biden really got to him when he announced that one-third of all new COVID cases came from just two states: Florida and Texas. Both governors aren’t just refusing to take action to stop the spread, but are taking action to actively encourage the spread. Biden told them if they are not going to help, get the hell out of the way:
Ron DeathSantis, who really, really, really wants to be the GOP nominee in 2024 if he can solve the Trump problem, was anxious to get into a battle with Biden. He responded as stupidly as you would think, blaming Biden for spreading COVID-19 through Florida because … immigrants. Forgetting that other states with large immigrant populations aren’t suffering, that racist attack was supposed to goad Biden into a reality show PR battle so he'd have something to talk about on all the right-wing shows he lives on.
Trump would have taken the bait, as probably I would have as well, but Biden has been around a bit. He knew what DeSantis wanted and didn’t give it to him. Instead, this is how he responded:
If you can’t play it, when Biden was asked Thursday at an open-press event on the South Lawn to respond to DeSantis’ attack, the president just said: “Governor who?”
As in, you aren't on my level, so don't even bother. Biden insulted him while giving him nothing to respond to. And just like that, #GovernorWho was trending.
To my right-wing friends: you’d better stick to doughnuts and Dr. Seuss. You are seriously out of your league here.