“Arizona Rep. Paul Gosar was facing criticism after he tweeted a video that included altered animation showing him striking Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez with a sword.” — The Boston Globe, 11/9/21
Ever since Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez came onto the political scene, I, a white male conservative, have been relentlessly obsessed with her, and there’s nothing remotely wrong with that.
It’s completely normal to talk about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez thousands of times a month, so that my first waking thought every morning is of a thirty-two-year-old woman, and my first waking emotion is to be overwhelmed by all the erratic and blinding rage I feel toward her.
There’s nothing at all amiss about my demand that a woman I’ve never met in real life publicly debate me. No, I’m not running against her in an election, which would be an appropriate reason to expect a debate. The idea of debating AOC gets me so excited … but this is all just garden-variety unremarkable behavior that shouldn’t even raise any eyebrows.
My responses and attitudes toward Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez totally fall on a sane spectrum of human comportment, so there’s nothing weird, deranged, or dangerously repressed about me, no sir-ee! Have I denigrated an adult professional woman by calling her a little girl? Yes. Have I publicly fantasized about dating her? Also, yes. Have I compulsively dug into her background in a desperate attempt to pretend that she didn’t grow up working class while simultaneously denigrating her working-class background? Sure. But this is all perfectly healthy and rational.
The real problem is that there’s not enough masculinity in the world, a crisis that definitely needs immediate attention, unlike the climate catastrophe that AOC spends so much of her time trying to stop. More masculinity is just what the world needs now, especially when it’s channeled as crazed anger and aggression towards women like AOC!
Listen. I helped incite the violent mobs that stormed the Capitol on January 6th, an attack that traumatized the nation and terrorized AOC as a survivor of sexual assault. And while I’ve never taken responsibility for my actions, I want to make it clear that sexualized attacks against this woman and other women politicians is something I do on the regular, so everyone should just calm down, especially women.
It’s not as if my obsession over AOC has gotten out of hand or anything. Sure, yesterday I shared a fantasy video that showed me murdering her and I’ll probably face zero consequences for that and will likely get an invitation to be a CPAC speaker and go on Fox News even as violence against women remains a global epidemic. And let’s be honest — I could reasonably expect to get elected president one day by the same people who voted for an admitted sexual predator in 2016.
But this is completely fine, because who among us hasn’t spent the last three years consumed with seething hatred toward a woman who’s doing her job as a representative for New York’s 14th congressional district? So, yep, nothing to see here, folks. This is all totally normal.