Original Florida Man Rep. Matt Gaetz is one thing if he is anything: dreadful. Whether he is taking big swings undermining the political process or simply shirking his responsibilities as a lawmaker, Gaetz has shown the kind of judgment that can only be supported by growing up rich in a state with a political machine that was long ago swallowed up by corruption. Gaetz’s new attack on basic human decency and common sense is the hiring of new congressional legal counsel Andrew Kloster.
Kloster is a self-described “raging misogynist” with a long history of offensive, prolific, and ignorant social media posts and interactions. The Daily Beast reports that Kloster has quite a collection of greatest hits that support his self-assessment as a man who hates women. On top of the list: On The Volokh Conspiracy, a legal news and opinion blog most enjoyed by libertarians and conservatives, there was a post titled “Government Out of Bedrooms, but into Barnyards.” The story, which was about Germany’s move to make bestiality illegal, led to a conversation about whether consent of the animal as Germany argued was a meaningful legal position. Kloster responded with “Consent is probably modern society’s most pernicious fetish.”
Hey, no worries, there’s even more from this king of deep thinking.
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After The Daily Beast published its story on Kloster, tweets like, “You know what I need? I need a woman who looks like she got punched,” have been taken down. But no worries—the Beast archived the tweet for this very reason. What is particularly perfect about this last tweet is that Kloster is responding to a woman’s tweet that said, “Any good guy will date you just as long as you’re sweet and normal and happy and the way you look and dress doesn’t embarrass him. You don’t need lip injections.”
You see, it’s a relatively conservative opinion that the woman is sharing, but what even conservative women do not understand is that self-described “raging misogynists” like Kloster don’t care how conservative you are. They simply care that you shut your face and know your place. What is that place? Whatever a person like Kloster decides it should be. It’s important to recognize that misogynists like Kloster are in their feelings a lot. Unfortunately, they also have a terrible time managing those feelings without blaming everyone else around them. Guys! Amirite, ladies?
While The Daily Beast wonders aloud about Gaetz’s vetting process, especially after he recently tried to honor a man accused of murder (who is still awaiting a trial) and wanted to bring that man into the House of Representatives to lead the House Judiciary’s Inaugural Pledge of Allegiance. But Kloster and his brand of crapitude was long ago vetted by none other than MAGA swamp man himself, Donald Trump. Kloster worked for Trump during his administration and has been one of the big election denier liars very active in the pursuit of overthrowing our democratically elected government.
It is important to say that being a piece of shit seems to be Kloster’s idea of flirting and making jokes. The Daily Beast has archived a slew of his tweets that he has since deleted. For example:
“I’m 100% women respecter precisely because I’m a raging misogynist. I’m so kind you’ll want to kill yourself and die, which is the goal.”
That was Feb. 5 of … this year.
Meanwhile, a couple of days later, Kloster decided to get (his version of) clever, writing: “I think it’s a legacy of racism that white people have forced gun culture on African Americans, and the government should help remediate that.” And before you say to yourself, “Well, that’s a solid position I wouldn’t expect from the likes of this guy,” he followed that up with what I suspect he thinks is a punchline: “Do you know how many gun deaths there were in Africa before slavery? Zero.”
Get it?
Of course, this theme of being racist while trying to say things that offer oneself a plausible deniability in that racism—a cowardly trick used by people who call themselves “contrarians” or “libertarians” in order to have zero responsibility for their ideas if those ideas don’t find the right purchase—had a whole theme going about Black Americans. Playing off of right-wing BS from yesteryear’s alt-right troll Jack Posobiec about Disney trying to make white children hate themselves because of some kind of diversity fear, Kloster wrote: “If slavery was so important why did the south lose.” He followed that up by turning this tweet into a thread:
“(1) slaves did everything
(2) white ppl didn’t free the slaves
Conclusion: slavery was voluntary”
He then posted a well-worn meme showing someone having to make a decision choosing between two buttons, and like all intellectually vacuous right-wing lawyers and libertarians, the cleverness of it all is simply a strawman argument hiding a lack of intellectual curiosity and integrity.
What you’ll notice here is that the left button saying “Slaves were oppressed and weak” is not a thing that people with any intelligence say. It’s the made-up thesis statement of someone who believes being enslaved makes you weak and/or happens because you are weak. To put that into old-timey terms, it’s the foundation of white supremacist thought!
Any the who! After someone called him out for saying this awfulness, Kloster acts like an embarrassed middle schooler as they enter puberty, writing, “No it wasn’t voluntary lmao.” You see? It was all a joke! You’re the jerk for not getting it! In saying racist things, retweeting a racist, and then posting a racist meme all in the same thread, Kloster wasn’t being racist, he was making a joke. What’s the joke, you ask? Don’t ask! A week later, Kloster went back into the only room in his mind palace and wrote: “Slaves built america. Therefore,,, Slaves owe us reparations.” Get it? Don’t ask!
But as they say, most jokes do contain at least some truth about what the person making the jokes feels and thinks about things. Here’s another perfect one supporting the idea that Kloster’s most revealing tweets are the ones about his feelings concerning women. On Valentine’s Day of this year, The Right Stuff, the right-wing failure of a dating app, tweeted out: “This Valentine’s Day, make a vow to stop dating annoying liberals.” Kloster retweeted this post with a response: “Damn that rules out literally all women.” You get it? He hates and believes their politics show a lack of intelligence, and also he can’t get a date with any of them. Weird!
Kloster sports a very well-manicured beard, too. Probably to hide his super strong and masculine jawline. Not because he’s hated looking at himself in the mirror for decades and blames women for making him feel badly about himself.
Judd Legum is the founder and author of Popular Information, an independent newsletter dedicated to accountability journalism. Judd joins Markos and Kerry to talk about the Dominion Voting Systems defamation lawsuit against Fox News and the recent revelations of behind-the-scenes deceit practiced by everyone from on-air host Tucker Carlson to the owner of it all, Rupert Murdoch.
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