Hi and welcome back! One of the many scandals erupting out of right-wing Christianity lately involves Republican Congressman Matt Gaetz. This pious fraud of a TRUE CHRISTIAN™ seeks nothing less than the creation of a Republic of Gilead in America that will, naturally, be ruled by him and his evangelical pals. And predictably, after a career spent mostly trampling over other people’s human rights and civil liberties and deliberately yanking his tribal enemies’ chains for Jesus Points, Gaetz’ sheer awfulness is finally catching up to him. Today, let me show you the scandals swirling around Matt Gaetz — and just how unsurprised anybody really is about any of it.
Everyone, Meet Matt Gaetz.
Even by Republican standards, Matt Gaetz is a repulsive little troll. I use the word “troll” in its more modern internet meaning, of course. This Congressman deliberately stages stunts that he hopes will provoke his tribe’s enemies, all so he can then claim a boatload of Jesus Points over the outrage he’s stirred. Then, he redeems these points for greater power over his tribe. Along the way, he fights tirelessly to destroy Americans’ human rights and infrastructure so his religious tribe will have an easier time regaining absolute dominance.
Matt Gaetz attends First Baptist Church in Fort Walton Beach, Florida. If this is their website, then they’re a member church of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC). This same church shows up on a Yellow Pages listing for Reformed churches.
When I saw that, I thought: Ah, yes. There it is.
“Reformed” is another term for “Calvinist.” There do exist some differences between the two, yes. As far as normies like us are concerned, though, they’re interchangeable.
And that’s bad news for anybody around Matt Gaetz. There just isn’t another big denomination or flavor of Christianity that comes close to Calvinism for cruelty, misogyny, control-lust, overreach, and sheer authoritarianism.
Calvinists engineered the entire Conservative Resurgence of the SBC — by persuading Southern Baptists to buy into “inerrancy.” Their current big push these days is for church discipline. This car rides on the same inerrancy rails as the last.
(The tribe just pretends that this kind of lopsided power division doesn’t produce inevitable and constant scandals).
So Matt Gaetz fits in very well with his chosen tribe. His sheer power-lust transferred well to the world of conservative politics.
Or at least, it did until kinda recently.
Matt Gaetz, the Troll Under the Bridge.
From the very beginning of his political life in 2010, Matt Gaetz acted like an internet troll. He stages stunts that he knows will upset and anger his tribal enemies. For example, he proudly displays this stunt on his official page. (He tweeted graphic anti-abortion lies and got slapped for it by Twitter.)
Once he’s provoked people sufficiently, he claims persecution. Obviously, people only oppose his behavior because Baby Jesus likes him extra-lots.
Wikipedia offers up a smorgasbord of various Matt Gaetz controversies. From many speeding tickets in Florida to a weird drunk-driving arrest, from using posts from a conspiracy-theory Trumpist subreddit as a source for a resolution to professionally associating with a Holocaust denier, from taunting Michael Cohen with infidelity to literally storming a confidential Congressional meeting that had not invited King Him, this guy was absolute trash before the pandemic and Donald Trump’s stunning election loss.
Regarding the former, he showed up on Congress’ debate floor in March 2020 wearing a gas mask for some reason. He’s also blamed the Chinese for engineering COVID-19.
Regarding the latter, he’s a die-hard Trumpkin. He appears to buy fully into every ridiculous, blathering conspiracy theory Donald Trump emits. He was one of the wingnuts in Congress trying to overturn Joe Biden’s fair-and-square election win.
Y’all, I can easily understand why one of his habitual facial expressions looks like he’s trying hard to stop himself from sniggering.
Yes, Matt Gaetz is no stranger to scandals. But the latest one might blow all those other ones out of the water.
Gaetz-Gate.
Lately, investigators seek information about Matt Gaetz potentially trafficking a 17-year-old girl in the recent past. They also wonder if he misused campaign funds to buy stuff for various young women he met for sex.
As the investigation continues, we keep getting new glimpses into this utter hypocrite’s private life.
A few days ago, we learned that Matt Gaetz has quite a reputation on Capitol Hill for his womanizing. CNN tells us that he even played some kind of sickening scare-quotes “game” with his fellow lawmakers that involved earning points for bedding women who worked in and around the Capitol building. This game apparently required Gaetz to take intimate photos of these women. Then, he showed them off to his colleagues. (I wonder if those women even knew he had nakey pics of them?) So yes, his colleagues were well aware of this “game.”
During Gaetz’ first term, CNN continues, Paul Ryan’s staffers allegedly felt the need to have a serious chat with him about behaving professionally while in the Capitol.
Another CNN story reveals Gaetz’ strategy for dealing with this trafficking investigation. Yep, he’s gone full-throttle on DARVO (Deny, Attack, and Reverse Victim and Offender). He insisted to Tucker Carlson that he was totally a victim. Yes! A victim! Meaniepie libruls just wanna silence a TRUE CHRISTIAN™!
Not even Tucker Carlson played along with that one, though.
How delusional does a Christian wingnut need to be before Tucker Carlson nopes out?
Nobody Was Even Surprised.
What really strikes me, when I look over the news about this reprehensible dumpster fire of a human, is that nobody sounds really all that surprised by any of this stuff.
His reputation around Washington (DC) was well-established very quickly. He might crusade as a TRUE CHRISTIAN™ zealot, but this guy has sexxxxxxxxxxxxx!
He’s made no attempt to hide that side of himself, either. He minimized his sexual shenanigans and antics in an editorial yesterday. (The Hill brings it to us.) In it, he piously declared that he’s “not a monk.” By “monk,” he means he’s not celibate like monks are supposed to be. I guess everyone just has to ignore the fact that as a TRUE CHRISTIAN™, he’s not supposed to be having any nonmarital sex in the first place.
But why was the party of “personal responsibility” and “family values,” the party that Christians keep telling us Baby Jesus likes best, the party that might as well be called the Jesus Party, not denouncing this unspeakable cad years ago?
Hell, they ain’t even denouncing him now. They’ve withdrawn their heads into their shells like turtles and are mostly doing their best to ignore Matt Gaetz’ entire existence. Someone in the party even convinced Donald Trump to STFU about the scandal and just stay out of it. (Breathtaking, the implications there.)
Republicans don’t seem at all surprised that a Matt Gaetz scandal finally broke. Nor should we be all that surprised that they said and did nothing substantive about him for years.
After all, Matt Gaetz adheres perfectly to the principles of power we always see in broken systems like theirs.
NEXT UP: The principles of power that Matt Gaetz abused shamelessly for years. See you tomorrow!
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