Category Archives: asshole culture

punchdrunk villa

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When you have an infantile Secretary of Defense with an inferiority complex and a desperate need to prove his manhood (yes, I’m talking about Pete Hegseth here), you have to expect a lot…and I mean a lot…of performative macho bullshit. Like murdering alleged drug runners in small craft with MQ-9 Reaper drones firing Hellfire missiles. Like inventing military medals so he and Commander-in-Chief Comrade President Trump can hand them out on stage.

I’m talking about the Mexican Border Defense Medal. It’s basically the Temu version of the Mexican Border Service Medal issued in 1918. The Mexican Border Service Medal was issued to troops who weren’t eligible for the Mexican Service Medal, which was issued in 1917.

Okay, there’s a good chance you’re saying, “Wait…what?” right about now. Here’s what you need to know (okay, you don’t actually need to know this, but it’ll help if you want to understand all this). For about eight and a half years–from 1910 to 1919–the US was involved in a low intensity (punctuated by some serious, deadly skirmishes and battles) border war with Mexico. Mexico was engaged in a civil war at the time. On top of that, Mexico was also a potential ally of Germany in World War One. Really, it was a whole thing–Germany sent a secret, encoded telegram to Mexico saying if the US entered the war against Germany, Germany would help Mexico invade the US and recapture the states of New Mexico, Texas, and Arizona. So yeah, the US had troops at the Southern border. We even invaded a few times, and at one point occupied Veracruz for half a year.

Gen. John ‘Blackjack’ Pershing during the Mexican War

The thing is, there was a shooting war with Mexico and some Mexican paramilitary elements (like Pancho Villa), and even a few German soldiers. So the troops involved in that shooting war were given a medal. The Mexican Service Medal. Some of the serious Big Hat folks in World Wars 1 and 2 earned that medal. Like ‘Blackjack’ Pershing, and Douglas MacArthur, and George Patton, and John LeJeune.

A year later, troops who weren’t involved in the shooting part of the war–the troops who provided logistics and support (without which the combat troops would go into battle with rocks and sharpened sticks)–were awarded the the Mexican Border Service Medal. They also faced danger.

Now Pete Hegseth and Comrade Trump have issued the Mexican Border Defense Medal. You’re probably wondering how a service member earns this prestigious new medal. Well, I’ll tell you. They have to be assigned, attached, or detailed for at least 30 days to a unit deployed within 100 miles of the US-Mexico border (or 24 nautical miles in adjacent US waters) as part of a designated operation supporting the Customs and Border Protection Agency.

Pete Hegseth awards the Mexican Border Defense Medal (to a woman who could probably kick his ass).

Seriously. That’s it. You didn’t have to actually DO anything. Just be assigned to a unit near the border. It’s such light duty Pete Hegseth thinks even girls can do it. And hell, he’ll hand them a medal too. That’s the kind of guy he is. I’m sure he’d rather be giving the medal to the MQ-9 Reaper drone operators, but they’re sitting in air conditioned rooms in (probably) Yuma, Arizona, which is too far away for them to get the Mexican Border Defense Medal.

But what’s important is that the medal gives Hegseth and Comrade Trump a chance to stand around with men (and a token number of women) in uniform and hand them a medal. It makes them feel important. Competent. Maybe even manly. During the ceremony in which the first 13 medals were issued, Trump noted that the troops had “endured scorching heat and bitter cold, and had given up their holidays and weekends.”

Greater love hath no man (or, possibly, woman) than to give up holidays and weekends to…to…to stop families escaping poverty and violence from crossing the Southern border of the United States?

Jesus suffering fuck…these people, I declare.

a tiny period of temporary release

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Let me first say this: this is NOT about golf. It’s also NOT about television. It’s about assholes. I don’t watch much television–couple hours in the evening, that’s about it–and aside from women’s futbol, I don’t watch much sports on television. But recently, wanting a tiny period of temporary mindless release, I decided to turn on the quietest television sport. Golf.

It was awful. Not awful in the expected way. Awful in an asshole sort of way. Instead of the tranquil, hushed environment I expected to see, there was a loud, raucous, obnoxious crowd jeering and aggressively insulting European players. And who was leading them on? Comrade President Donald Trump.

Guardian sports analyst Bryan Armen Graham noted that the behavior reflected “what’s been an incremental breakdown in public behavior. The country now lives in all-caps, from school-board meetings that sound like street rallies and comment sections that have spilled into the street.” He’s talking about the phenomenon I call Asshole Culture.

I first used the term ‘Asshole Culture’ in August of 2021, in a post about the MAGA response to an unvaxxed man on his deathbed, admitting that Covid was real and pleading with people to get themselves vaxxed up. The MAGA response was what you’d expect–cruel, scornful, aggressive, hateful, profoundly and proudly stupid.

A month later, I felt the need to explore Asshole Culture a bit more carefully in a post called I Am Asshole, Hear Me Roar. In that post, I described the credo of Asshole Culture:

I do/do not want to do this thing. I don’t care if it helps/hurts other people. You can’t make me do or not do this thing. I will go way the fuck out of my way to create a disturbance sufficient to make others miserable in order to do/not do/stop other people from doing this thing. I am Asshole, hear me roar.

I’d expand that credo now. It’s not just about things assholes do/do not want to do; it’s also about things assholes do/do not want to exist (mostly trans folks and, to a lesser extent, Democrats). I’ve written about 40 posts on Asshole Culture (I say ‘about’ because I got distracted while trying to count them and couldn’t be bothered to start over). Here’s a list of topics I’ve written about in which Asshole Culture has had an influence:

  • gun rights
  • vaccines/face masks
  • libraries
  • trans kids in sports
  • ebikes
  • insulting behavior toward Volodymyr Zelenskyy
  • MAGA humor
  • Trump’s ear bandage
  • Kristi Noem / puppycide
  • MAGA support for Trump’s hush money/stormy daniels/repeated infidelity
  • Trump role as bull goose looney of Asshole Culture
  • Trump as martyr
  • Matt Gaetz omfg
  • MAGA response to white supremacist mass shootings
  • MAGA congress
  • Twitter
  • Attack on paul pelosi
  • Abortion
  • Trump’s theft of classified documents
  • Facebook
  • Will Smith bitch-slapping Chris Rock
  • Celebration of January 6 insurrectionists
  • Nazi free speech
  • Kyle Rittenhouse

I used to believe Trump supporters did cruel stupid shit because they were too stupid to grasp that what they were doing was cruel. Over time, it’s became clear to me that many of them are doing cruel stupid shit because they’re cruel. Not just cruel, but performatively cruel. In your face cruel. Visibly and vocally cruel. And because of Trump, they now believe (and they’re too often correct) that they can be cruel without any fear of consequence. It’s led to louder, more aggressive, celebratory cruelty.

We’re seeing it everywhere. Every day ICE agents are openly committing atrocities, confident they won’t be held accountable. Recently a Fox News personality casually mentioned murdering the homeless on live television, and to my knowledge he hasn’t even been reprimanded. Yesterday, a television news report on the day’s second mass murder was interrupted to announce a third mass murder had taken place. Comrade President Trump orders the murder of suspected criminals in international waters with a shrug at the law.

It shouldn’t surprise me that asshole culture has spread to the golf course. Golf in the US has always been a sport for conservatives with money and MAGA has a lock on that demographic. Even so, I didn’t expect to hear a television golfing audience yelling ‘Faggot!’ at golfers on the links.

Flann O’Brien wrote: Anybody who has the courage to raise his eyes and look sanely at the awful human condition…must realize finally that tiny periods of temporary release from intolerable suffering is the most that any individual has the right to expect.

Those tiny periods of temporary release are becoming tinier still.

i don’t have time for your trans bullshit

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Look, this is really simple. Trans women are women. Trans men are men. Trans people are people. Same goes for non-binary folks.

Trans military troops are troops. This is so fucking obvious, but there’s a lot of macho bullshit involved here. Again, it’s really pretty simple. Trans helo pilots are helo pilots, trans mechanics are mechanics, trans medics are medics, trans EOD specialists are EOD specialists. A helo or an unexploded bomb doesn’t care about gender. Piloting helos and defusing bombs are skills that can be learned. Sure, some folks will be better at it than other folks, but that’s just how the world works. It’s massively stupid to refuse to enlist anybody willing to put on the uniform, shoulder a weapon, and walk a post.

Trans athletes are athletes. There’s SO MUCH bullshit about this topic. It shouldn’t surprise anybody that not all athletes are equal, and not all of that is due to native talent. There are dozens of ways one athlete can have an advantage over another. There are technological advantages, in gear and in training. Having cutting edge equipment and sophisticated training tools make a difference. There are massive financial advantages; rich kids can afford trainers and gym fees and gear beyond the reach of poor kids.

And yes, there are genetic/physical advantages. Why was Michael Phelps such a good swimmer? He had unique physical attributes—a long torso, short legs, long arms, large hands and feet, and double-jointed ankles—that gave him a physical advantage over other swimmers. High testosterone levels can matter in sports, but variances in testosterone levels occur naturally (which is why you see those commercials for men with ‘low-t’). Even so, sports governing bodies like the NCAA created policies that require trans women (this apparently isn’t an issue for trans men) to complete a full calendar year of testosterone suppression treatment before being allowed to compete in women’s sports. If a trans person excels in sports, it’s for the same reasons anybody excels in sports. Hard work, good training, dedication, and maybe (like Phelps) some quirk of biology.

Trans teachers are teachers. Math is math, geography is geography, grammar is grammar, history is…well, debatable, but the eccentricities of history aren’t dependent on the biology of the teacher. Trans shopping clerks are shopping clerks. Whether you’re shopping for a sweater or a lawn mower or a canoe or patio furniture, all you want is somebody who knows the product they’re selling.

I could continue this. Trans surgeons are surgeons, trans plumbers are plumbers, trans lion tamers are lion tamers, and and and. Trans people are people. There’s no point in waffling about this. Yes, people will have different opinions on the matter, and yes, they’re allowed to voice those opinions, but no, you don’t have to respect those opinions.

And by the way, it works both ways: Trans assholes are assholes (uh…I’m talking personality here, not anatomy. Although that would also be true). My point is this: if you don’t accept trans people as people, then the problem isn’t with the trans folks; the problem is you’re an asshole.

EDITORIAL NOTE: This trans bullshit is another facet of patriarchy. We need to burn the patriarchy to the ground. Then dig up the roots and burn them. Then piss on the ashes before burying them in lye. Then nuke it from orbit (it’s the only way to be sure). Then have some of those little lemon cakes.

a modest ebike proposal

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Okay, first, this is NOT a Jonathan Swift-style modest proposal (see Endnote). This isn’t satire. Second, yes, okay, maybe I’m focusing on this relatively minor problem in an attempt to dodge thinking about the truly massive, cataclysmic problems we’re facing in the US. But hey, it’s my blog and I get to do what I want.

The fact is, there’s a very real problem in the Ebikeverse, and I have thoughts about it. I’ve been thinking about this problem off and on for a few months, in part because I had a minor disagreement with a fellow cyclist/photographer on Bluesky. He’d made a rather broad, disparaging comment about ebike riders. As an ebike rider, I asked for clarification. It turned out he was talking about a specific type of ebike, which he referred to as “not-a-moped” ebikes. These little bastards.

Ride1up Revv 1 FS

I responded to his comments:

It’s a mistake to equate all ebike cyclists with not-a-moped jerks, who I’ll agree are a massive problem.

I can’t quote his reply exactly because…well, he’s blocked me (see the Other Endnote). Basically, he said the people who ride that type of ebike were assholes. I responded that assholes are assholes, regardless of the type of bike they ride. At which point, he blocked me. Perhaps he thought I was calling him an asshole. Who knows?

But he was right about the problem. A sizable chunk of the people who ride this particular style of ebike DO tend to be aggressive jerks who are abusive and a danger to regular cyclists and pedestrians. But he was wrong to call them not-a-moped bikes, because (in my opinion) they actually ARE mopeds, not bicycles. They may have pedals, but they aren’t really designed to be pedaled; they’re designed to be driven using a throttle.

In the US, ebikes are basically categorized by how they’re powered. Class 1 ebikes rely exclusively on pedal assist (they’re technically called ‘pedelecs’).They have a top speed of 20mph and they lack a throttle. Class 2 ebikes are basically Class 1 ebikes, only with a throttle (which is used most often to get the bike moving again after a complete stop). Class 3 ebikes have pedal assist and a throttle, but have a top speed of up to 28 mph.

There are also Class 4 ebikes, which generally have more powerful motors and aren’t limited by a top speed. They’re considered to be motorized vehicles and (in many states) require a license to operate, as well as proof of insurance. They’re generally prohibited on bike paths.

The ebike/mopeds I’m talking about (like the one pictured above) are the bastard children of Class 3 and Class 4 units. They’re marketed as Class 3 ebikes and sold as Class 3 ebikes, but they’re not ridden like ebikes. Everybody knows this. In fact, in a review for the Ride1up Revv 1 FS shown above, it’s openly admitted.

[It] isn’t a bike, at least in conventional terms. The presence of pedals on little crank arms is more incidental and added to skirt existing laws about electric mopeds…nothing about the bike’s weight, geometry, or gearing is built for actual pedaling.

They’re designed to be throttle-driven. While they may be sold with a top speed of 28mph, they’re easily modified to go much faster, and there are lots of videos showing people how to do it (for example, here’s a video showing how to unlock the ‘bike’ in the photo above). And this is why they’re a problem.

So here’s my modest proposal: designate this specific type of ebike as a Class 4 ebike and establish an age limit for purchasing Class 4 ebikes.

That’s it. Don’t allow manufacturers to skirt existing laws by attaching mock pedals to a vehicle designed to be throttle-driven. It won’t stop assholes from riding like assholes, but it would reduce the asshole quotient on bike paths and sidewalks.

Endnote: Back in 1729, Swift wrote a satirical piece called A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Poor People from Being a Burthen to Their Parents or Country, and for Making Them Beneficial to the Publick. The proposal was that poor folks should sell their children to the rich for food. So, nothing at all like my proposal.

Other Endnote: Even though I was blocked by this guy, I can’t/won’t complain about it. I’m a huge fan of the way blocking works on Bluesky. It’s incredibly effective and efficient. If somebody is annoying you, you block them and they disappear. You’ll never see anything they post again. They’ll never see anything you post again. If somebody you follow responds to a post by the person you blocked, you’ll see the response but not the post itself. It’s brilliant (even when it’s used against you).

kiss the ring

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Let’s face it, Donald Trump is well on his way to turning the United States into a mafia state. It’s not just a matter of corrupt officials using governmental power and authority to enrich themselves (and their families and friends) while punishing poor and marginalized people. It’s not just manipulating the system so public services can be turned into private ownership for the profit of the already-wealthy.

It’s also the petty authoritarian mindset, that mobster code that demands unquestioned loyalty and obedience. Any disagreement, any hesitation, any refusal to obey is an offense that can’t be tolerated. Everybody must abase themselves before Trump. Everybody must kiss the Godfather’s ring. Failure to do so leads to punishment.

Back in February, during a conference of Governors, Trump threatened Janet Mills, the Democratic governor of Maine, over her public refusal to issue an unconstitutional ban on transgender athletes competing in school-sponsored sports. She replied, “I’ll see you in court.”

Hours later, the Trump Department of Education opened an investigation into Maine’s educational policies. Within days, there were six different administrative and Congressional investigations of Maine’s policies. Trump’s Department of Education threatened to cut off all federal funding to Maine’s Department of Education.

There are apparently no trans athletes competing at the collegiate level. There are around 45,000 high school students competing in sports competitions in Maine, four of which are trans girls. Only two of them have competed in statewide events. But Trump threw the entire weight of the Federal government against them. There are more federal investigations of this handful of high school girls in sports than there are of the fatal crashes involving Tesla’s ‘self-driving’ system.

Nonetheless, Maine’s universities, facing a massive loss of federal funding, have agreed to comply with Trump’s executive order banning trans athletes. But that’s not enough for Trump. Like a Mafia don, he insists on having his ring kissed. Trump wrote:

While the State of Maine has apologized for their Governor’s strong, but totally incorrect, statement about men playing in women’s sports while at the White House House Governor’s Conference, we have not heard from the Governor herself, and she is the one that matters in such cases. Therefore, we need a full throated apology from the Governor herself, and a statement that she will never make such an unlawful challenge to the Federal Government again, before this case can be settled. I’m sure she will be able to do that quite easily. Thank you for your attention to this matter and, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!! DJT

Aside from the bullshit lies (the State of Maine didn’t apologize), this display of arrogance and petty vindictiveness is classic mobster behavior. It’s not enough that he successfully bullied Maine’s Department of Education into complying with a spiteful, cruel, unconstitutional executive order. It’s not enough that he used the government of the United States of America to embarrass and punish four trans girl athletes. Trump is now insisting that Gov. Mills must personally grovel to him and humiliate herself before he’ll stop the intimidation. She must kiss the ring so he can feel powerful.

This is what America is now.

EDITORIAL NOTE: It’s no coincidence that the subjects of Trump’s pettiness and vindictiveness are women and girls. It’s baked into the patriarchal system WHICH MUST BE BURNED TO THE FUCKING GROUND. Burn it, gather the ashes, piss on them, douse them in oil and burn them again. Burn it for generations, just to be sure. Burn it burn it burn it. Then bake cookies

five things

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Name five (5) things you accomplished this week in support of the agenda of President Comrade Donald J. Trump.

  1. Further dismantled the US government’s ability to govern itself by summarily firing several thousand random federal employees.
  2. Played 18 at Trump Doral in Miami and 18 at Trump International in Palm Beach. Scores not reported, but probably best ever.
  3. Abandoned role as global leader in democracy and open aligned the US government with noted Communist dictator Vlad Putin (assisted by that bearded guy who’s always hanging around).
  4. Had a public temper tantrum when Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy failed to thank me enough. He also refused to thank my buddy Vlad Putin. Nobody would even know this Zelenskyy guy’s name if not for Vlad. He owes a lot to Vlad.
  5. Attended a presidential cabinet meeting hosted by Elon Musk, who said he fixed that thing where he accidentally stopped preventing ebola for a while. Is that right, ebola? I thought that was the way colored people spoke. I mean the Blacks.
“Look, all I want is for you to thank me, preferably on your knees, like that bearded guy does.”

Extra credit: The S&P 500 and the NASDAQ fell for the second week in a row as tariff threats escalated again and US government bonds fell to their lowest levels in nearly three months.

trump at madison square garden

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Every so often I take a stiff drink and subject myself to the fetid swamp of FreeRepublic.com in order to find out what’s on their feverish minds. This morning I wondered how these ‘patriots’ would respond to the ‘comedy’ at Trump’s Bund rally in Madison Square Garden.

As usual, their first response to anything that might reflect negatively on Trump is to claim it’s Democratic ratfucking or a false flag attack by the Deep State. In this case, they let the Deep State off the hook and went straight to sneaky Democratic infiltration tactics.

There is no doubt that this racist POS is a Kumrade supporter. He should be exposed immediately.
by alstewartfan

I’m guessing the comedian was implanted by the rat party.
by No name given

He may have thrown the Harris campaign a badly needed lifeline. It would not surprise me if he was a DNC plant.
by Dan in Wichita

You would have to prove to me beyond any doubt whatsoever that this person wasn’t simply a plant to show his indignation.
If someone is so mentally insufficient that they take such sincere offense at a joke, they aren’t capable of voting on any intellectual level. All emotion. Sounds like a Leftist.
I say a plant.
by rlmorel

Surprisingly, most Freepers agreed the comedy was racist. Not everybody, of course, but I’ve never seen this much general condemnation of a speaker supporting Trump. However, even those who felt the humor was racist focused their disapproval on whoever invited the comedian. They saw it primarily as a political or tactical mistake.

sigh this is really frustrating. why was this non-funny person even invited to speak? why are standards so low for this kind of event?!
by CondoleezzaProtege

It’s outrageous and disgusting.
by Romulus

It was an unforced error on the part of Trump’s campaign, but it will probably not have a huge impact. The electorate has become more sophisticated these days. Most have learned to filter out the “Trump is a felon”, “Trump is a NAZI”, “Trump is a threat to Democracy” talk and focus on what matters.
by mbrfl

IMO it’s such an unforced error. There was no need for something so stupid.
by hillarys cankles

Of course, there were those who defended the ‘comedy.’ Some thought it was actually funny. Some complained about the limits placed on free speech. Some felt that Democrats just don’t know how to take a joke.

You cannot joke about anyone other than white males. Let them shout from the rooftops and watch the entire act.
by bray

NYC humor is not MAGA humor.
by stars & stripes forever

I thought he was funny. He told about a pile of trash floating in the Atlantic Ocean, they call it Puerto Rico.
by tired&retired

Back to the joke. Good jokes have some truth to them. This was one of them.
by PeterPrinciple

“Distressing result of eating turkey day after day.
The poor old party has come out all over feathers“

Finally, there were Freepers who simply didn’t understand what the fuss was about. Somebody told a bad joke, who cares? It’s not a big deal. It’ll all be forgotten soon. Nobody cares about Puerto Rico anyway. It’ll have no effect on the election at all.

Puerto Rico isn’t actually a state so although they can technically vote, they don’t actually get a single Electoral vote…So (shrug) oh well I guess..
by apillar

Most Puerto Ricans I know in the US are voting Trump. They left the island “paradise” of Puerto Rico for a reason.
by LeonardFMason

I don’t visit FR very often these days. I’ve lost my ability to be dispassionate about it. But one thing I did find interesting on this visit: more people are willing to openly criticize Trump, to call his competence into question, to acknowledge some of his flaws. They’re all still going to vote for him, of course, but he’s been tarnished. He’s no longer the Flawless Genius he once was.

And when Trump’s support on FreeRepublic begins to get squishy, well…as my kin used to say, “A pig has enough arithmetic to take a short cut to the trough.” They loved him when he was a winner. They still loved him when they thought he’d been cheated. But will they still love him when he’s a two-time loser?

the bleeding ear of trump

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I confess, I’m a wee bit disappointed. I mean, yeah, I’m glad Trump’s idiotic but hypnotic control of the MAGAverse is waning. But I really thought this might happen. I’m talking about the potential for an Ellen Jamesian moment.

Now some (okay, probably most) of you right now are wondering, “Greg, old sock, who is this Ellen James of which you speak and what would that moment entail?” I’m going to tell you. Back in 1978 novelist John Irving published a novel called The World According to Garp. It won the National Book Award for Fiction the following year. Garp was the first novel I’d ever read that explicitly examined toxic masculinity, and the first novel I’d read that featured a trans character in a positive way. It also looked at ideological extremism and cults of personality. One critical element of the narrative revolves around a group of women who cut off their own tongues in solidarity with an eleven-year-old sexual assault survivor (Ellen James) whose tongue was cut out by her rapists to silence her.

When I first saw a Trump supporter wearing a sweatshirt with a ‘Diapers over Dems’ logo and other supporters wearing adult diapers with the logo ‘Real Men Wear Diapers’ I thought his cult of personality might have hit a high water mark. Then came the assassination attempt. Trump’s ear got pinked, possibly by a bullet fragment. It doesn’t matter what pinked his ear; it got pinked. It bled. He had to wear a bandage for a few days. And some of his supporters adopted the bandage. People actually put bandages on their ears. It looked ridiculous, but that never stopped them before.

I felt all the elements of an Ellen Jamesian moment began to coalesce. I actually thought there was a chance–not a great chance, but a chance–members of the MAGAverse would pink their own ears. But no. The cowards stopped with the bandage. Sure, there was at least one guy who got a tattoo of Trump surrounded by Secret Service personnel with his tiny fist raised and an angry look on his face. But that was about it.

Bloodless fake crucifixion

I truly believe that if the assassination attempt had happened a year ago, we’d have seen some MAGA fuckwits piercing their own ears. A year ago, a bleeding ear would have been seen as Trump stigmata. Maybe the most dedicated Trumpists died of Covid, maybe his people are just weary of having to support every idiotic thing that rancid motherfucker utters, maybe JD Vance has hollowed out some of his support, but a year ago Trump’s bloody shirt would be enshrined at Mar-a-Lago. A year ago Trump would be selling cheap-ass Chinese-made white shirts with symbolic blood on the collar. It seems clear (to me, at least) that Trump doesn’t command quite the same passion that he did a year ago.

And yes, that’s a good thing. A very good thing. But I did sorta kinda want to see Trumpists tearing out a chunk of their own ears.