What year is it again? Most of American culture has moved on from the hypersensitive, identity-obsessed hysteria of 2020, but some online communities haven’t — as former Saturday Night Live star Bowen Yang can now tell you.
The sketch comedian and his friend, actor Matt Rogers, are getting viciously dogpiled by internet social justice warriors for having the audacity to observe inconvenient facts about a Democratic politician who happens to be a black woman. Anti-Trump progressive firebrand Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX), who has mocked “mediocre white boys” and compared border security to “slave patrols,” is running for Senate in Texas, a state Trump won by 1.5 million votes. While she’s popular with MS NOW and CNN, Crockett is an ultra-long-shot candidate in Texas and seems doomed to raise a lot of money, make a lot of headlines, and still lose by double digits.
Hence why Rogers and Yang, who are liberal Democrats, dared to tell the audience during a podcast, “Don’t waste your money sending to Jasmine Crockett … don’t do it. You’re going to waste your money.”
They weren’t even bashing Crockett. They simply concluded that she’s not going to win a Senate seat from Texas — yes, Texas — so Democratic donors should focus their money elsewhere. Apparently, that’s racist, according to the left-wing internet mob that quickly piled on Yang and Rogers.
“Don’t you ever have the caucasity [audacity] to be a c***y a** caucasian telling a black woman who the f*** she can and not be, b****,” ranted one man in a video with more than one million views.
“It’s always a twink with … a microphone that has so much to say,” one viral TikTok rant with more than 212,000 “likes” begins. “It’s structurally violent [and] insane that Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang thought it was appropriate to sit on a microphone and tell black people, or people in general, not to financially support a black woman who is running for office.”
“It’s fascinating how some people comment on topics they know nothing about, only to dip into their subconscious racism and deliver MAGA takes,” another popular tweet concluded.
You get the idea. Yet in reality, the noticing of a political truth can’t be racist. Facts can’t be racist. But the two openly liberal entertainers still got dogpiled and smeared as racist for simply stating that Crockett isn’t going to win, and this hate train really did pick up steam — so much so that, rather pathetically, the pair apologized.
“Transparency and candor matter to me, especially on the podcast. I’m a very progressive person who cares deeply about winning these elections, but my phrasing was not right. I will be more thoughtful! I really do promise,” Rogers said in an Instagram post. “I have great respect and admiration for Rep. Crockett, and I regret that my words suggested otherwise. I just want us to win and I will be better at finding ways to help.”
Meanwhile, Yang promised to use his “platform” in “more responsible” ways going forward.
CAMPUS CONSERVATISM IS IN TROUBLE
Barf. Shame on them for capitulating to an unreasonable mob and, therefore, encouraging people to behave in similarly irrational ways in the future.
But this is all just a microcosm of a much broader problem. As incidents like this make clear, a significant portion of the Democratic Party’s base is still infected with identity politics — and until Democrats disinfect their movement, it will continue to tear itself apart.
Brad Polumbo is an independent journalist and host of the Brad vs Everyone podcast.