The 69 Idiots of 2018: Online Fever Swamp
2018 was a year filled with idiots—including the many denizens of the conspiracy-addled, Trump-worshipping, far-right political swamp. Here are some of the worst.
Ben Garrison
Hoo boy. Garrison is a spicé one. The cartoonist has continued being the alt-right’s literal poster boy, drawing up repeated renditions of an uncomfortably ripped Donald Trump owning libs in every which way, shape, and form. It’s gotten to the point where the most vile cartoons available are attributed to him, even when they’re not his creation, because Garrison has slowly begun to corner the market on being an asshole with a Crayola pack. Given his commitment to ridiculousness, it’s tough to decide whether Garrison’s work is so hammy and heinous that it goes full circle and becomes comedy. What’s not tough is deciding whether Garrison’s an idiot.
Benny Johnson
Due to a computer glitch, I am no longer able to see tweets by Benny Johnson—now editor at large at the Daily Caller—and I am poorer for it. Overt race-baiting in his efforts to politicize a young woman’s murder; knowing nothing about fellow internet conservative Kanye West; and blindly defending Sarah Huckabee Sanders—only one of the great conservative meme-makers of our time could come up with this stuff. Thankfully, I am still able to consume his content on Instagram, where he posts roughly one million staged photos of himself eating epic bacon for the win and sipping fine aged scotch, like all normal dudes do.
Charlie Kirk/Turning Point USA
Charlie Kirk is that dipshit you went to college with who would never stop engaging you in “serious debates” when all you wanted to do was smoke some shitty, overpriced weed. Kirk decided to inflict this unfortunate personality on the masses when he founded the conservative youth organization Turning Point USA at the age of 18. The group is best known for an incredible stunt in which members protested by wearing diapers in public, dealing the left a blow from which it will never recover. TP USA bills itself as a grassroots, student-led movement, despite receiving funding from organizations like the Heritage Foundation and the NRA. When Kirk was recently questioned on his salary during a Politicon debate, he completely lost it, challenging his opponent to a fistfight on stage. Sadly, we were denied what would surely have been a triumphant spectacle of conservative alpha male prowess.
Ed Whelan
Whelan is an idiot unbeknownst to most until this year, when his crackpot defense of Brett Kavanaugh went viral. Ed not only asserted that Christine Blasey Ford was confused about the identity of her attacker, but identified a another potential other classmate that it could have been, and posted the man’s name and photo. The thread’s evidence included diagrams of the layouts of houses in the Chevy Chase area, screencapped from Zillow. Ed took a leave of absence from his organization after calling his thread an “inexcusable mistake,” but he’s back now. Also, Brett Kavanaugh is on the Supreme Court. Another victory for the idiots.
The Federalist
You almost have to admire the Federalist for being so deeply committed to having the worst takes of any online outlet. Imagine the most insane, reactionary, conservative position on any issue, something you wouldn’t even see in the National Review, and they’ve been there. Kavanaugh should sue Christine Blasey Ford? Done. Kavanaugh should be confirmed even if he’s guilty? Done and done. “Pedophilia Isn’t The Main Problem With Catholic Priests, Homosexuality Is”? Sure, why not. Perhaps best of all, though: A disturbing call for bloodlust against socialists, warning that “America is over” and asking Americans to consider how it would feel to scalp someone. Uh, metaphorically.
Jacob Wohl
I was at a hipster coffee shop the other day, and everyone around me was whispering about Jacob Wohl, the boy genius who ran a hedge fund before he became perhaps the youngest person ever banned from futures trading. Accepting this defeat, Wohl moved on to an obvious next step—becoming a #MAGA Twitter star and capitalizing off the fame by crafting an elaborate scheme to frame Robert Mueller for sexual assault. Sadly, the plan went off the rails immediately when it was discovered that Surefire Intelligence, the laughably fake agency making claims against Mueller, reported on by Wohl for The Gateway Pundit, was run by Wohl himself (the phone number listed on Surefire Intelligence’s domain went to Wohl’s mother). Whoops! Wohl, if you’re reading this, the hipsters are saying to never give up on your dreams.
Kaitlin Bennett
Despite having offered zero appreciable influence on our cherished national discourse, the so-called “Kent State Gun Girl” has nevertheless insisted on spending the past year inflicting herself on our timelines with brutal self-owns such as returning to her alma matter in “disguise,” only to be told that she was an entirely forgettable asshole.
Laura Loomer
Even if she weren’t a bigoted, ass-kissing MAGA sycophant who spent the year pestering Democratic political candidates and interrupting congressional hearings, Laura Loomer would still make it on this list for being the woman who chained herself to the door (just one) of Twitter HQ, all because she wanted her verified account back. Honestly, what more do you need to know?
The QAnon Crowd
2018 was the year of the QAnon conspiracy shifting from internet oddity to a deeply depressing cult of divorced dads who aren’t invited to Thanksgiving anymore. They walk among us, convinced that Donald Trump is smart enough to be waging an internal war on the deep state in general and Robert Mueller and a vast cabal of powerful pedophiles in particular. Although these sound like the ravings of people experiencing the symptoms of tertiary syphilis, some of them are dangerous in real life. Stay wary.
Scott Adams
What can one say about the Dilbert man that hasn’t already been said? Scott Adams is a man that lives in a house that’s shaped like the cartoon he created. He is a man who finds his purpose in slamming the dreaded SJWs of the world and in backing Donald Trump. This year, he met with the president in the Oval Office, and threw his support behind Kanye West. The man is an idiot, and like a great number of them, he has an insane amount of eyeballs on his work. The inevitable result, should this hellworld continue on its current track, is that Adams will be tasked with designing our new United States of Trump dollar bills come 2020.
Seb Gorka
Sonorous-voiced, Nazi-adjacent former Trump adviser Gorka won’t return Splinter’s emails. Perhaps he’s too busy hosting propaganda videos about the dangers of socialism, or illegally parking his midlife crisis on a D.C. curb. Or maybe he’s still smarting after he got BOFA’d into the stratosphere even though it’s 2018 and anyone who’s on Twitter as much as he is should have definitely known better.