Dear fellow graduates of the Republican School for Performative Outrage:
As I’m sure you’re aware, there have been two very serious not-real developments that require our immediate overreaction. First, President Joe Biden is coming to take our beer. Second, the liberal nanny state is about to re-impose sweeping COVID lockdowns and mask mandates that will take away all our freedoms and turn us into communist Marxist socialist Taoists.
Let’s start with the beer. Not since Bud Light tried to destroy America by giving one can of beer to a transgender person has there been an alcohol-related non-issue in more desperate need of over-dramatization.
This past week, we learned of a comment that George Koob, the director of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, made to a British newspaper, suggesting the U.S. Department of Agriculture might consider adjusting its recommendations on alcoholic drinks down from two per day to two per week.
As we all learned in Leaping to Conclusions 101 at the School for Performative Outrage, a “comment” that is “suggesting” something that “might” be “considered” or “recommended” about beer is no different than the full implementation of a wholly tyrannical law that will be enforced by Federal Beer Investigators.
So a few of our star graduates reacted appropriately.
Republican Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa tweeted smartly about this thing that isn’t happening: “Another Biden ‘czar’ — this one wants to take away Americans’ beer. Absurd.”
Republican Rep. Brian Mast of Florida similarly faux-acted, tweeting: “We tried something similar to this before. It was called Prohibition. There's a reason we ended it. It was terrible. Let the people drink their beer.”
Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas even posted a video of himself, surrounded by a group of manly Texas friends he presumably met on one of his brave trips to Cancun, drinking beer and snarling in a manner one would expect from an everyman who graduated from Princeton University and Harvard Law School: “If they want us to drink two beers a week, frankly, they can kiss my ass.”
Clearly, as Prof. Farce taught us in our upper-level Resistance to Facts class, we must join in and help our fellow Republicans with this collective freakout, and not be lulled into passivity by the fact that nothing has actually happened and, even if it did, it’s just a health recommendation and not the government enforcing beer consumption.
After all, the USDA’s “Dietary Guidelines for Americans” recommend a maximum of 2,400 calories a day for adult women and 3,000 calories a day for adult men, and we all adhere precisely to those figures at all times, lest Biden’s goons come knock the Twinkies out of our hands.
On to the next thing that is not really a thing: COVID lockdowns.
Many Republican School for Performative Outrage alums are dutifully hollering about rumors that an increase in COVID cases means the Biden administration is moments away from locking down all of America and dispatching federal agents to strap KN95 masks to all our faces.
Masks? No thanks:As new BA.2.86 COVID variant emerges, America lifts middle finger to the same old mandates
It appears these rumors – what we outrage scholars call “undeniable facts” – started last month when noted truth-dispenser Alex Jones’ InfoWars website featured this headline: “Federal Officials Blow the Whistle on Biden’s Plan for New COVID Lockdowns.”
Because the entire claim was grounded in nonsense, Republican Rep. Thomas Massie tweeted: “If bureaucrats try to reinstate any COVID tyranny measures, resist them with a vengeance. Do not comply.”
GOP hypocrisy:The Republican Party has become the very cancel culture it pretends to rail against
And before long, former president and current GOP presidential primary frontrunner Donald Trump, our most highly regard alumnus, was sharing a video accompanied by this message: “COVID Tyrants want to take away our Freedom. Hear my words – WE WILL NOT COMPLY.” (This made officials here at the Republican School for Performative Outrage particularly proud, given that Trump was the one who instituted lockdowns in 2020 as part of his administration's COVID mitigation plan. Being pretend-outraged over something you also did is the work of a true performative outrage expert.)
Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders smartly hopped on the unmerited outrage train, tweeting: “As long as I’m Governor, Arkansas will not lock down. We will not close schools, churches, or businesses. And we will not have mask or COVID vaccine mandates.”
Given the complete lack of evidence that any serious person is talking about lockdowns or mask mandates, and because this rumor came from the same man who posited the government is putting chemicals in the water that turn frogs gay, we must do all we can to join in the chorus of baseless outrage.
Is Vivek the next Trump?Do you realize that Vivek Ramaswamy could be the MAGA candidate for Trump lovers?
Biden spent last week talking about superficial things like “negotiating down the price of 10 of the most used and expensive drugs older Americans rely on” and implementing “minimum staffing requirements for every taxpayer-funded nursing home.”
Nice try, Stalin!
We School for Performative Outrage grads know there are larger, more imaginary fish to fry.
So please accept this call to swiftly overreact – via social media, to friends and family or in front of any television camera you can find – to the 1,000%-real threat to our God-given right to drink as much beer as Ted Cruz wants us to drink, and to the definitely-soon-to-be-happening dictatorial COVID lockdowns and mandatory face-diapering.
We recommend you take the following statement and tailor it to fit your own unfounded-personal-outrage style: "WE WILL NOT COMPLY with the things that aren’t happening that we think are happening because if we aren’t in a constant state of existential rage we might be forced to acknowledge we bear some responsibility for our own wretched lives!!"
And always remember our school motto: “Ira iusta nostra numquam a veritate impedita est!” (“Our righteous anger is never hindered by the truth!”)
Follow USA TODAY columnist Rex Huppke on Twitter @RexHuppke and Facebook facebook.com/RexIsAJerk
login
who are we?
contact us
qosheapp
Toi Staff
Gideon Levy
Andrew Mitrovica
Rami G Khouri
Srecko Horvat
visit website
