My mom tried to skateboard once.
Well, “tried” might be a generous term. So might “skateboard.”
In truth, she stepped on the board the way someone would step on a sidewalk crack. We were living in Detroit, she saw me rolling up and down the drive, and thought, I presume, “How difficult can it be if a 10-year-old can do it?”
But when mom stepped up, the board skittered out from under her, rolling down the driveway and landing mom square on her ass. She hobbled into the house, probably cursing kids today, and never got on a board again. But she also likely never forgot: Set, then go. Set, then go.
The same can’t be said for Laura Ingraham and her SS comrades at Fox News, a network that’s adopting the same mystifying politicking strategy as the GOP: attack a demographic.
She began with Dreamers, who she said should be in front of the firing squad for DACA’s failures. Then she took aim at Parkland survivors, who she said had neither the experience nor maturity to discuss adult matters (like guns and DACA?). Then, perhaps intoxicated by free-range chickenshittery, she hammered one of the Parkland kids on Twitter for his rejection from several colleges.
“David Hogg Rejected By Four Colleges To Which He Applied and whines about it. (Dinged by UCLA with a 4.1 GPA…totally predictable given acceptance rates),” she keystroke-belched.
Aside from her capitalization problem, the attack was a stumper. Normally, Fox and Fiends go after races and genders. Why would anyone think it prudent to take a bead on a demographic — that’s about to come of legal age, no less? Are we really taunting kids over rejection letters? Is this the swamp or the drain?
It suggests a larger dilemma for the GOP, which finds itself on the wrong side of the three big G’s of politics: god, gays and guns. Millennials already constitute the highest percentage of atheists in American history. What high schooler does not know a gay or transgender classmate? And we know how they feel about AR-15s; the gun debate is over, even if the legal wrangling is not. There’s a reason a Republican presidential candidate hasn’t won the popular vote in an election since 2004: They’re not popular.
Kids like popular. And first impressions matter.
And finally, to Miss Ingraham, who has proved a fine substitute anus for the departed Bill O’Reilly (Tucker Carlson was a ratings disappointment, perhaps because he looks like he’s always trying to stifle a fart).
She had softened her tone by Saturday afternoon, tweeting “Any student should be proud of a 4.2 GPA —incl. @DavidHogg111. On reflection, in the spirit of Holy Week, I apologize for any upset or hurt my tweet caused him or any of the brave victims of Parkland.”
But there’s no saving the crow you had to eat. In response to Ingraham’s first insult, Hogg did something slyly brilliant: He tweeted links to Ingraham’s dozen sponsors, nine of whom pulled the financial plug. The sponsors may eventually return, but Parkland again schooled adults on mature behavior.
And fucking with the wrong people. Coming after kids on Twitter is like challenging a Comic-Con fanboy to a Star Wars trivia contest. When mom took that spill, she did what kids are waiting for other adults to do: act like one. She was done with boarding, but she wasn’t about to ban it. Nor was she going to grab it to challenge Tony Hawk to an X-Games skate-off.
Laura: Set, then go. Set, then go.
Away.
