I will now do a very fast blog on the two dumbest stories of the week, because when the possibility of war with Iran appears to hinge on the ability of Donald Trump’s ego to withstand Brian Limeade calling him a wuss on Fox & Friends, it’s best to get the takes out quickly!

The key to the FAST BLOG is to assume that you, Constant Reader, are either already familiar with the basics of the stories to be discussed, or are willing to follow the links provided and do the little bit of work necessary to catch up. I’m not going to summarize these two dumb stories any more than I absolutely have to, because they are dumb and this is a FAST BLOG.

Kyle Kashuv DENIED entry to Harvard by PC LIBERAL MOB, universities irrevocably broken, western society to collapse

It’s not that long ago that the mere existence of a student with an alleged GPA of 5.345 would be enough to get the right-wing media world all riled up by itself. Just what the hell is a 5.345 GPA on a 4-point scale, anyway?! These soft-ass millennials are being given extra credit just for showing up! I’ll bet that 1.345 was handed to you as part of some socialist scheme to balance the scales after you claimed harassment over your history teacher mis-gendering you with oppressive pronouns, wasn’t it, KYLE?!

But that’s not the dumb issue at hand, here. A couple of years ago, Kyle was using a shared Google doc and group chat to study for a test, and posted a bunch of terrible things, most notably repeatedly using the word “nigger” over and over again, mostly in the hopes of seeming cool to his friends. Cool, of course, is short for being as much of a piece of shit teenaged online edgelord as possible—as it has long been in the circles of 16-year-old suburban boys.

The chats leaked, and Harvard—which had previously granted Kashuv admission to the school—ultimately rescinded their invitation. David Brooks wagged his finger at Harvard for failing to adhere to his proscribed path to redemption and wisdom. David French bemoaned America’s further slide into a post-Christian, post-forgiveness PC wasteland. Ben Shapiro went full loon, deciding that this decision by Harvard is “the worst move [he’s] ever seen in academia,” that “our colleges are irreparably broken,” and “disgusting.”

So the largely anti-Trump, (allegedly) thoughtful wing of intellectual conservatism believes that a private institution that bases its membership on the achievements and known public character of children should not deny admission to someone who gleefully performed racism. Kashuv performed this racism because he knows it is transgressive, because he recognizes that such behavior would have terrible consequences for himself, and would be disproportionately hurtful to others, if performed in public. And it is up to Harvard to preserve its reputation for moral and intellectual authority by not imposing any consequences on his actions? The most recognizable name in academia must ignore and forgive him, because he said he was sorry? This is the path to grace, the one where you can be an insufferable little shit and not have to pay any actual price, like going to some other Ivy-league safety school? If your conservatism demands that a private institution should not consider the plain moral failings of its potential membership, what exactly is it about Trump that you don’t like, David and David and Ben?

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez pretends she doesn’t know what she’s doing, actually does, definitely sucks

AOC was doing a little at-home vlogging about Trump’s shitty border policy, and called the “migrant detention centers” by a slightly more inflammatory name—“concentration camps.” By the dictionary definition, she’s absolutely right to use that term, as legitimately pointed out by the relevant experts.

Concentration camp, noun: a place where large numbers of people (such as prisoners of war, political prisoners, refugees, or the members of an ethnic or religious minority) are detained or confined under armed guard

Of course, she’s not just using the term because it is a technically correct application of specific language—she’s also speaking metaphorically, fully aware of the cultural and historical weight that comes with using such a word. She’s so aware of it, in fact, that in the very next breath, she’s says “I want to talk to the people that are concerned enough with humanity to say that ‘Never Again’ means something.” “Never again” is another phrase that is completely linked to the holocaust, a fact made even plainer in AOC’s next breath, when she makes the links even more explicit: “I don’t use those words lightly. I don’t use those words to just throw bombs. I use that word because that is what an administration that creates concentration camps is. A presidency that creates concentration camps is fascist.”

Maybe you agree with AOC, that it’s totally appropriate, in order to end an awful policy, to link said policy to the worst atrocity readily available to the popular imagination. Or maybe you think that’s a step too far, and that she, and her cause, would be better served with more cautious, less historically freighted and fraught language. But what cannot be denied is that she is doing what she is so clearly doing—well, it cannot be denied, but that’s not going to stop her from smarmily denying it.

“ACTUALLY, I didn’t say ‘NAZI,’ Chuck, that was you, so kindly don’t put words in my mouth, k thanks,” is one helluva ballsy, smug-ass riposte to someone giving an entirely accurate summation of what you said and why you said it.

AOC is just doing politics. She clearly cares more about playing politics than affecting change—and hell, maybe that’s the “right” thing to do, from her perspective, as the leftist vanguard in a House that doesn’t seem keen to act against Trump, anyway. But if it were otherwise, she wouldn’t frame the terms of the conversation in such a way as to make it impossible for those who she disagrees with to come to her side. If it were otherwise, she wouldn’t pedantically insist that she wasn’t doing what she was so clearly, and self-admittedly doing, simply because she kept the N-word out of her mouth. There’s somebody else who specializes in that sort of cutesy, PC, bullshit “truth-telling,” and I don’t think he’s the hero we need right now, either. Though if there’s any doubt as to whether or not he’s the hero we deserve, look no further than who we choose to elevate to the status of being utterly beyond criticism in response, like AOC herself.

FAST BLOG!