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This year has been the longest three days of putin’s life.

Radicalized white males who support Trump are pitching a tent in the abyss.

T R E 4 5 O N

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This chaos was totally avoidable.

You are here: Home / Elections 2024 / 2024 Primaries / Late Night Dumb Nastiness Open Thread: Botox vs Clearasil

Late Night Dumb Nastiness Open Thread: Botox vs Clearasil

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LET.THEM.FIGHT.gif:

… Pushaw, fairly famous at this point for her face that (for whatever reason!) doesn’t move, went at it with “GOP Josh,” a high school student by day and popular pro-Trump Twitter user by night. At the very least, the online altercation between the ~32-year-old DeSantis aide and 16-year-old Trump supporter took on the critically important issues of the day: Pushaw’s alleged botox injections (and a little bit about Ukraine, too!).

The argument began in earnest when Pushaw shared a screenshot of a tweet by someone with “MAGA” in their username insulting her appearance: “Call me ugly all you want… must be tough when you can’t call me WRONG,” she wrote, followed by a string of emojis. That’s when GOP Josh chimed in, pondering, “How much of the $1M DeStablishment raised yesterday will go towards your Botox?”…

“Does your mom know what you are doing on the internet,” Pushaw shot back, instigating a right-wing war of characteristically not-sick burns. GOP Josh rejoined, “Does your boss know that you’re a foreign National?” in apparent reference to reports last year that Pushaw registered as a foreign agent due to her former work for the former president of Georgia, a former Soviet republic. Don’t worry—Pushaw, originally from California, had a classic locked and loaded in the barrel for this one: “I know Gavin Newsom thinks he is a dictator but California isn’t a foreign country,” she tweeted back.

This seems to be the first full-out Twitter exchange between the two, but a cursory scroll of Pushaw’s abundant tweets shows GOP Josh has long been on the DeSantis aide’s ass. And after Pushaw stopped replying to him on Thursday, he continued to heckle her, replying to a tweet from Pushaw disparaging the Trump campaign by asking point-blank, “Why do you spend all day on Twitter?”…



Truly, Pushaw seems like… a piece of work, and the perfect press secretary for the Tallahassee caudillo. A Washington Post article from last year:

… In the 14 months since joining DeSantis’s staff, she has transformed the typically button-down role of gubernatorial press secretary into something like a running public brawl — with Twitter as her blunt-force weapon. Her usual targets: Democrats, the news media and anyone else she deems insufficiently supportive of DeSantis’s agenda and her own conservative politics.

She has knocked The Washington Post as “the Pravda of DC,” implied that Chelsea Clinton is “a grifter,” and referred to President Biden as “a seemingly senile 79-year-old aspiring dictator.” She invoked a notorious antisemitic trope about the Jewish Rothschild family while criticizing pandemic-related restrictions in November. (She deleted that tweet after describing it as “an attempt at sarcasm.”) In January, she questioned whether a neo-Nazi demonstration in Orlando was organized by Democratic staffers. (She walked that one back, too.)

Pushaw’s attacks on national news organizations and reporters can not only be blistering (“slobbering regime sycophants”), but they can also run on for hundreds of tweets and retweets — once prompting Twitter to suspend her account temporarily for “abusive” behavior.

She has also been credited — or blamed — for helping make the incendiary term “groomer” mainstream in GOP circles. In early March, she used the word, once reserved to describe pedophile behavior, to characterize anyone who opposed a DeSantis-favored bill restricting discussions of sexual orientation and gender in schools. “If you’re against the Anti-Grooming Bill, you are probably a groomer or at least you don’t denounce the grooming of 4-8 year old children,” she tweeted.

While conspiratorial QAnon followers had previously used the term “groomer” to tar their enemies, its use took off among conservative politicians and pundits after Pushaw’s tweet, and has thereafter been widely used to demonize Democrats and educators who discussed sexuality or gender identity with young children…

It’s been suggested Pushaw wants to be the next Kellyanne Conway, but I think she’s really best suited to be Press Secretary to the (*ahem*) ‘God-Emperor of Twitter’, if only that dude had the smarts to pay a professional instead of trying to insult all his many enemies with nothing but his own feeble wits.

Reader Interactions

48Comments

  4. 4.

    Tehanu

    Pushaw’s name sounds like a Victorian swear word, which seems appropriate. In a field with Laura Ingraham, Dana Loesch, Kellyanne Conway, Megan McCardle, M.T. [pronounced phonetically] Greene, Jeannine Pirro, and Bobo of the Rockies, she stands out for sheer nastiness.

  5. 5.

    Redshift

    she used the word, once reserved to describe pedophile behavior, to characterize anyone who opposed a DeSantis-favored bill restricting discussions of sexual orientation and gender in schools

    Argh, I hate this. Political writers are always making excuses to make the most awful Republicans seem less awful.

    They’re not taking a word that used to be used for pedophiles and using it as a generic insult, they’re accusing anyone who disagrees with them of being pedophiles to short-circuit arguments against them.

  7. 7.

    Steeplejack

    It’s weird. When I first read about Pushaw a year or so ago, I pictured her as a standard GQP apparatchik in her mid-40s. Then when I saw pictures of her in this latest blow-up I was like “Whut?!” The combination of much younger than I thought and the Botox or filler or whatever is surreal, to say the least. And that’s before we even get to arguing with teenage shitbirds on Twitter.

  8. 8.

    Amir Khalid

    Why does a woman who is only 32 need Botox injections? Was that really the least unflattering photo Ms Pushaw could find of herself? Questions, questions …

  12. 12.

    JWR

    Freakin’ hilarious! (From NBC)

    In the recesses of the internet where some of Donald Trump’s most fervent supporters stoke conspiracies and plot his return to the White House, suspected con artists have been mining their disappointment over the last presidential election for gold.

    They’ve been peddling “Trump Bucks,” which are emblazoned with photos of the former president, and advertising them online as a kind of golden ticket that will help propel Trump’s 2024 bid and make the “real patriots” who support him rich when cashed in.

    John Amann told NBC News he bought $2,200 worth of Trump Bucks and other items over the past year only to discover they were worthless when he tried to cash them in at his local bank. So he’s gone on Twitter to warn other Trump supporters not to fall for this scam.

    And this guy knows how to work the twitters? Geez. I’d love to see the look on the bank teller’s face when he tried cashing them in. ETA Hell, I’d love to see the look on his face when they laughed his a** out the door.

  13. 13.

    MagdaInBlack

    @NotMax: I put “clown regardant family crest” in Bings AI image generator. The results were pretty scary. Apparently AI assumes clowns = evil.

  14. 14.

    Splitting Image

    @Redshift:

    Argh, I hate this. Political writers are always making excuses to make the most awful Republicans seem less awful.

    They’re not taking a word that used to be used for pedophiles and using it as a generic insult, they’re accusing anyone who disagrees with them of being pedophiles to short-circuit arguments against them.

    They’re setting up a Bothsides situation.

    “Democratic strategists are using the word nazi, formerly reserved to describe people who support the policies of the German Third Reich, for any Republican who supports banning books, suppressing sexualities which they consider deviant, forceably returning women to traditional gender roles, dehumanizing ethnic and religious minorities, violently overthrowing the elected government, and invading neighbouring countries.”

  18. 18.

    bjacques

    Since it’s Twitter, and these people seemingly can’t walk away from the dumbest of fights, I see a golden opportunity for some blue-check mayhem.

  19. 19.

    lowtechcyclist

    It’s good to see genuine nastiness between Trump and DeSantis partisans. The more they hate each others’ guts now, the harder it will be for them to patch things up later.

    And it’s totally a cult thing, because there’s no meaningful substantive differences between their favored candidates. It’s all about the hate, and they’ve got so much of it that they’re turning on each other for microscopic reasons.

    Siri, more popcorn!

  20. 20.

    sab

    5:30 am and the robins are blasting away. I know they are big by bird standards, but they are tiny by animal standards. How do they make that much noise?

    Birds have interesting, complicated lung structures, because it takes a lot of air to be able to fly without fainting. So I guess when they are just sitting around doing not much they have a lot of lung capacity for just chirping.

  21. 21.

    Brachiator

     

    @MagdaInBlack:

    I put “clown regardant family crest” in Bings AI image generator. The results were pretty scary. Apparently AI assumes clowns = evil.

    AI can’t do context well. Some clowns are evil, e.g. Stephen King stuff. And some people find clowns scary or unnerving.

    There’s probably a lot of negative clown data out there to feed AI.

  22. 22.

    Tony Jay

    Painfully online Wingnut edge lords with a substantial age difference? My hazy crystal balls say that Ms Tyre-Pressure Face and The Boy Whose Friends All Have Neckbeards will end up starting a torrid affair at CPAC that will end in feuding OAN recriminations after he calls her “Hot Mommy” one too many times and their secret daughter will go on to change her name and design propulsion systems for the Disney Corp Space Fleet.

      she used the word, once reserved to describe pedophile behavior, to characterize anyone who opposed a DeSantis-favored bill restricting discussions of sexual orientation and gender in schools

    Funny, because if you just replace ‘groomer’ with ‘antisemite’ that’s exactly the same tactic Nu-Lab are using over here to (mis)characterise opposition to their authoritarian takeover of the Party and full-pelt race towards adopting 2010-era Tory policies.

    Conservatives, eh? Always working from the same song sheet.

  24. 24.

    satby

    Probably a sign that I’m on Twitter too much that I know “MAGA Josh” from his attempt two days ago to proclaim himself an “alpha male, liberals fear me” with a photoshopped profile pic  with added fake beard stubble on his baby butt smooth cheeks.

  26. 26.

    bjacques

    @NotMax: couldn’t resist skipping past redundant footage to the end in a vain search for the Battle Of Cable Street, in which they take a pasting at the hands of unimpressed Eastenders. No stars.

  28. 28.

    RevRick

    Dark Brandon seems to have scored the best possible outcome for the Democrats in the debt ceiling negotiations, and MAGA is livid.
    The details leaking out say that it lifts the ceiling through 2025, caps spending increases at 1% for this year, imposes unenforceable unspecified caps in years thereafter, protects Biden’s climate initiatives and college loan forgiveness and Medicaid.
    In exchange, the GOP got to whack some SNAP recipients under 55, got a one year shift of money to the IRS to social programs and… not much else.

    Did I say MAGA is livid?

  29. 29.

    evodevo

    @sab: They are advertising to other males that they are physically at their peak, and no one should try to invade THEIR territory, dammit!  If your songs are below par, the unmated males in the vicinity will soon be at your doorstep, checking to see if you can successfully defend it..

  30. 30.

    Geminid

    Voting in Turkiye started 6 hours ago, 8 am local time. Turkish journalist Ragip Soylu (@ragipsoylu) has posted a few polling station scenes on his Twitter account. Besides the obligatory cat standing on a clear plastic ballot box, there is one of a man being wheeled out of a polling station on a gurney to the applause of onlookers. Soylu’s caption: “In case you haven’t noticed, Turks take voting very seriously.”

    The best one shows a woman filling out her ballot with her pet lamb standing by. She’s then seen walking away outside with the lamb following dutifully, four feet behind her. It’s fleece was white as snow.

    This is the first runoff under the Presidential system begun in 2018 (Erdogan won in the first round that year). Turnout for the first round was 86%, high even by Turkish standards. Lines are shorter for the runoff, but that may be because the ballot is much simpler. In the first round, people voted for the National Assembly as well, with candidates from multiple parties.

  31. 31.

    Geo Wilcox

    @sab: Robins are big birds with a big song but the house wren beats them for volume any day of the week and is really tiny.

  33. 33.

    Keith P.

    @JWR: I’ve got a friend with a pistol that has Trump’s profile engraved on it.  He’s convinced it’ll be worth good money some day; I’ve told that it will not age well.

  34. 34.

    Suzanne

    @Amir Khalid:

    Why does a woman who is only 32 need Botox injections? 

    Some of the people I know who are really into this go for what they call “preventative Botox”. The idea being that wrinkles won’t form at all if you can’t squint or wrinkle one’s forehead.

    Also, thick, highly arched eyebrows have been in style for a few seasons now, and I know some women who have gotten Botox injections strategically placed to make their eyebrows appear to arch more.

  35. 35.

    Shalimar

    @AlaskaReader: Short answer: because DeJoy is doing what the USPS board wants him to do, and he’s a convenient lightning rod for unpopular policies.  Whether what they want him to do is his proclaimed objective of reducing costs and increasing efficiencies, or his real objective of privatizing everything, is open to speculation.

  36. 36.

    artem1s

    @Suzanne: ​
    &nbsp

    I know some women who have gotten Botox injections strategically placed to make their eyebrows appear to arch more.

    completely their choice of course. but MAGAt’s screeching ‘groomer’ can’t see the irony of it all when the upper class soccer mom’s are dragging their and daughters asses to the dermatologist because apparently Jeebus won’t love you if you have a few laugh lines.

  37. 37.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Betty Cracker: ​It really is a remarkably well-behaved lamb.

    And I’m sure it will make a remarkably tasty shish kebab and various other meat dishes in the near future.

  38. 38.

    Suzanne

    @artem1s:

    Jeebus won’t love you if you have a few laugh lines 

    Their husbands might not.

    Pretty privilege is a real thing. I don’t do it, but I get it. I dye my grays.

  39. 39.

    Geminid

    @Uncle Cosmo: That’s mean!

    I want to congratulate you and other Ravens fans on Lamar Jackson’s re-signing. I feared the Ravens would say, “Nevermore.”

    The Washington Post had a good article on the process. It turned out that even though Jackson did not have an agent, he did have a trusted advisor: his mother.

  41. 41.

    kindness

    I got a chuckle out of her jab at my governor, Gavin Newsom.  Calling him a dictator and all.  That might sell well on the right but to us here in CA it is seen as a sad attempt of an unworthy to pick a fight with someone in a completely different league let alone class of individual.

  43. 43.

    StringOnAStick

    @Brachiator: I have a good friend, a tiny 4’10” woman who looks like an elf and has amazing performance energy, and spent 35 years as a professional clown, often working with very sick and terminal kids so they get one last laugh.  Now she does gigs at nursing homes because popular culture from movies has made clowns scary and evil so she rarely gets birthday gigs anymore, and when she does she arrives out of costume and works the kids into it with music and magic tricks.  The evil clown stuff has taken her profession away, and that’s sad because of all the history with entertaining terminal kids.

  44. 44.

    StringOnAStick

    @Suzanne: Nothing says “I take care of my body and value my health” like having processed botulism toxin injected into your facial muscles.  Botulism: The bacteria that kills by paralyzing your muscles so you suffocate.

  48. 48.

    Ruckus

    @Pete Downunder:

    I’d guess out behind a closed liquor store next to the dumpster. (It’s the only place that lets them stay, because it’s where they belong…

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