The Worst Political Tweets of the Week
Photo by Chip Somodevilla/GettyTwitter is a cesspool of bad tweets, bad information and Nazis. It’s also the greatest breaking news service in the history of mankind. Despite our constant complaints about how Jack Dorsey’s product is garbage designed to inflame the worst people among us, we all know that we will never leave this hellsite. If you are lucky enough to not have a Twitter account, keep it that way. The breaking news is not worth breaking your brain, and you can count on us here at Paste to recap the worst political tweets for you each week—since our brains are irrevocably impaired—so we might as well use our powers for good. Here are the five worst tweets of the past week.
Trip Gabriel
Technically this bad tweet was sent last week, but since it was posted after last week’s bad Mueller Report tweets column went up, it qualifies for this week’s installment. Plus, unlike most of the bad tweets here, this is actually enlightening and newsworthy—and not just something that we’re pointing and laughing at. If you’re ever wondering why the New York Times politics section is so overwhelmingly inadequate, this is the kind of thinking that permeates that section. Elizabeth Warren spends her days explaining detailed policy platform after detailed policy platform, but because she read the constitution and understands Robert Mueller’s request to consider impeachment, that is all that Trip here thinks is going to define her candidacy in 2020.
Most 2020 Dems are shifting the focus off Trump to talk about health care, wage inequality, etc. If Warren is the nominee, the race will be a referendum on impeachment. https://t.co/gmxBAxtnJY
— Trip Gabriel (@tripgabriel) April 19, 2019
Mainstream media is mostly one big exercise in projection. Many reporters clearly don’t care about the details of policy (which is, you know, the entire point of politics), so even though Warren has spent 99.9999999% of her time explaining in detail how she plans to fix this country, the moment the word “impeachment” came out of her mouth, some major media members finally started paying attention to her campaign (this shot does not include the terrific Astead W. Herndon at the NYT, who has covered Warren’s campaign as well as any reporter out there).
Lou Dobbs
This one is a bad tweet that became a good tweet thanks to the efforts of liberal and leftist Twitter. Of course felons (and prisoners) should have the right to vote, otherwise, you are basically saying they are not citizens, and then you must explain what other kinds of democracy incarcerated people cannot enjoy. Fox Business’s Lou Dobbs created a Twitter poll that was supposed to reinforce his bankrupt narrative, but reality had other plans for him.
#LDTPoll: Do you think felons should have the right to vote? #MAGA#Dobbs
— Lou Dobbs (@LouDobbs) April 23, 2019
Harvard Undergraduate Centrist Society
These folks rose to prominence during CNN’s town hall this past week, and they gained Twitter fame by having one of their members ask Bernie the standard mindless question of “but Venezuela!” when it comes to his Democratic Socialist beliefs (Venezuela it should be noted, is a socialist country being ruled by emergency decree for most of this century—meaning that they have functionally been a dictatorship for most of the 21st century). After having a Very Serious tweet ratioed to high heaven, the Harvard Centrists got even more Very Serious and (correctly) pointed out that Twitter cannot handle civil discourse.
We deleted our former tweet because it was demonstrated once again that Twitter cannot handle civil discourse and instead resorts to demeaning personal attacks
— Harvard Undergraduate Centrist Society (@HarvardCentrist) April 23, 2019
Welcome to Twitter, Harvard centrists. It’s a madhouse not for the faint of heart, and if this is how you are going to passive aggressively treat your experience on this hellsite, you will get eaten alive.
John Cornyn
I feel bad for whatever low-level staffer for the 2nd most powerful Republican in the Senate had to go through comedian Patton Oswalt’s tweets and search for swear words, then censor them. This is peak Boomer Brain.
Hollywood Hegar supporter and video guest star, Patton Oswalt, has tweeted some offensive comments over the years, reply A or B to let us know which one is more offensive to you: pic.twitter.com/gXgPvstK6V
— Team Cornyn (@TeamCornyn) April 23, 2019
But wait… there’s more! Another reminder that Hollywood Hegar embraces this celebrity: pic.twitter.com/wHgyVNeLUO
— Team Cornyn (@TeamCornyn) April 23, 2019
They keep coming… pic.twitter.com/GT2c2W8CGD
— Team Cornyn (@TeamCornyn) April 23, 2019
Peak White Liberalism
The goal of these columns is to highlight high-profile tweeters, as punching down is something that should be avoided at all costs. Plus, if we expanded the bad tweets pool to all of Twitter, this column would be at minimum, 10,000 words every week. However, I am making an exception in this case because this exchange is absolutely jaw-dropping, and is a perfect example of how some white liberals love to project their anger on to non-white people when attacking Bernie Sanders (who it should be noted, is trailing only Joe Biden in support amongst black Democrats, who these same white liberals always *clap* talk *clap* about *clap* supporting *clap*).
This is just…*kisses fingers*
The backstory to this is that Peter and Leela Daou were two of Hillary Clinton’s most passionate supporters in 2016, and like most of us who genuinely want to improve upon the liberal failures of 2016, they have reconsidered their politics in the Age of Trump. Peter wrote a column this week explaining why we cannot tear down Bernie in 2020, and as you can see above, the Hillarystans who refuse to change anything from 2016 are not taking the Daou’s evolution well.
BONUS: Bad Biden Instagram
This was just too bad to leave out of the column. This image is part of a larger set of images that spell out Joe Biden, but, uh, this still looks…not good for a man who once said of then candidate Obama, “I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy.”
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Jacob Weindling is a staff writer for Paste politics. Follow him on Twitter at @Jakeweindling.