I like to remind friends anguishing over “the state of things” that — at least until we hit the fatal tipping point — there is a counter-balance to the stupendous landfills of venality and criminality choking the headlines. And right now there’s no story making that counter-balancing effect clearer than Devin Nunes suing … Devin Nunes’ Cow … and Devin Nunes’ Mom.
The no-doubt atheist writers for the Jimmy Kimmels and Stephen Colberts of the world had to have fallen to their knees in praise of Yahweh and golden calves for this latest heaven-sent torrent of “you can’t possibly top this” comic material. I mean, Nunes is outraged that people (maybe the same person) claiming to be his cow and his mother are constantly making mercilessly fun of him, mainly for being a witless tool of a corrupt moron? Where could they possibly get that idea? And how dare they!
Technically, Nunes — the California Republican most identified as a complete Trumpist stooge — is suing Twitter. On the grounds that the OCD-inflaming social media platform is damaging his hard-earned reputation … for being a witless tool of a corrupt moron, apparently. He’s demanding $250 million in damages for this suit and is threatening to bring “many more” in his valiant effort to rid the world of snarky bastards who make fun of public fools.
In case you’ve missed the first chapter:
” … the lawsuit objects to a colorful array of claims made by the since-suspended account @DevinNunesMom:
– ‘Nunes is ‘not ALL about deceiving people. He’s also about betraying his country and colluding with Russians’
– ‘I don’t know about Baby Hitler, but would sure-as-shit abort baby Devin’
– ‘Alpha Omega [Nunes is an investor in a Napa vineyard] wines taste like treason’
and
– “falsely [suggesting] that Nunes might be willing to give the President a ‘blowjob.’”
The lawsuit also accuses ‘Devin Nunes’ Cow’ of spreading false claims to its 1,204 Twitter followers. Those claims include stating that ‘He’s udder-ly worthless and its [sic] pasture time to move him to prison” and “Devin is whey over his head in crime’.”
Naturally — and also hilariously, where Devin Nunes’ Cow had 1204 followers before Nunes’ suit, the number exploded to over 152,000 by the end of the day, with off-shoot accounts like “Devin Nunes’ Goat”, “Devin Nunes’ Grandmother”, “Devin Nunes’ Lawyer” and “Devin Nunes’ Cock” sprouting by the minute. [UPDATE 3/21: @DevinNunes’Cow = 528,000 and still growing.] Simultaneously, “Devin Nunes’ Mom” — with a gleeful push from snark-loving liberals — was pushing north of 300,000 with the goal of more followers than (the real) Nunes. (Oops! It’s now suspended.)
This is all gob-smacking, extremely funny, cathartic and reassuring. When the history of the Trump era is carved in granite, Devin Nunes will be there as the most … well, I can’t use “witless stooge” again so soon in the same rant, can I? The guy’s a nearly impossible tool/fool. You really wonder what weird, anomalous genetic combination spawned someone so astonishingly devoid of self-awareness and common sense?
But there’s an element of this Twit-storm carnival that gnaws at me.
Not being a Twitter guy, (Life Goal #14: Less time staring at a glowing screen, not more), this may be another opportunity to remind snarky, hipster, tech-inhaling liberals that Nunes’ people, the crowd out in Fresno that keep on re-electing him, probably because of his witless stooge-ism, isn’t living on a regular diet of Twit.
The modern press corps and the entertainment industry have an intravenous relationship with Twitter. And it’s not just the appeal of the immediate news flow. The second-by-second call and response of Twitter is like an individualized Nielsen rating for every reporter, pundit, comic and elected official’s ego. You can tell in a flash if you’re tracking or not. If you matter, or not. If you’re a player, or not.
But while Twitter is 99% of the conversation at The Cool Kids’ Table, it’s (very) telling that Team Trump 2020 is making its biggest social media investment in … Facebook, otherwise known as Crazy Grampa in Sun City’s Slow-Mo Twitter.
Nunes’ — my guess here — represents a whole class of people who, A: Don’t “get” Twitter, B: Don’t “get” irony and satire, but C: Do get an enormous chunk of their “news” off of Facebook. The tales of how Facebook has allowed itself to be gamed over and over again by Russians and other cynical actors are well-established. But Team Trump is betting that it can do what it did all over again next year. Facebook nation hasn’t changed.
Facebook better suits a crowd — picture your average 65-plus retiree with a couple free hours before the weekly gun show meet-up — that isn’t on the move. They can sit home and scroll through what their tribe is trading today: Hillary Clinton sex rings in pizza parlors, invading Honduran toddlers with machetes for lopping off the heads of heroic Vietnam vets, skinny wackadoodle liberals coming to take your hamburgers away.
Nunes gets that crowd.
For me, I’m left wondering who is backing the guy’s latest shameless absurdity? Who’s going to pick up his legal bills? And/or how much of this nutjobbery is just a Michelle Bachmann-style set-up to extract “legal fund contributions” from the Crazy Grampas on Facebook?