Full of crap

Ordinarily I’m not the world’s biggest fan of social media. In the greater scheme of things (including online bullying and trolling) I think the bad outweighs the good.

Not last night. Last night I absolutely loved social media.

Last night was, of course, the long anticipated vice-presidential debate between Kamala Harris and Mike Pence.

A few minutes into the debate, Andy Borowitz of the New Yorker posted a photo of the two of them with the message: “If you’re keeping score, so far Kamala is leading Pence by 90 IQ points.” (After I shared this on Facebook, a friend commented: “Only 90?”

It’s safe to say this was a more dignified occasion than last week’s presidential debate, but that’s a pretty low bar.

Like last week’s debate, there were rules, including one that each candidate would have two uninterrupted minutes to respond to a question directed at them. Although not as aggressively (or stupidly), Pence ignored this rule just as annoyingly, frequently interrupting the moderator as well as his opponent. Leading to this gif quickly doing the rounds.

I loved the combination of Harris’s brilliant smile and the fuck you look in her eyes.

Like every political debate since debates began, both candidates dodged actual questions in order to give the answers they wanted. Both, for example, failed to answer a question about the ages and health of their running mates and whether they’d had conversations about succession – or thought they should. (I am reasonably confident that Biden sold the veep’s role to Harris on the understanding that he will retire well before the end of his first term, making her – albeit unelected – the first female president of the United States.)

That said, Pence did the majority of the dodging, flat out refusing (no surprise there) to answer a question about Amy Comey Barrett’s appointment to the Supreme Court leading to the overthrowing of Roe v Wade. His defence of the indefensible administration response to Covid-19 would have been laughable if it hadn’t been so serious.

Harris did her own balletic pivot when asked if Biden planned to expand the Supreme Court if Barrett was appointed. Harris didn’t bother to highlight the sheer hypocrisy of McConnell’s indecent rush to fill RBG’s seat during an election after refusing to give a hearing to Obama’s pick early in an election year. What would be the point of that? Republicans cannot be shamed. Instead she said, “You want to talk about packing the court? Great. Let’s have that conversation.” She went on to highlight the number of the 100+ federal judges nominated by the Wankmaggot and approved by the Republican-led senate who have been dismissed with great alarm by legal bodies as hopelessly under qualified for the job. She missed her chance to make another important point: the reason the Wankmaggot had 100+ vacancies to fill was McConnell’s refusal (like Merrick Garland) to hold a hearing for any federal judge nominated by Obama.

But when, you ask, am I going to get to the best bit? Because, anyone who watched last night knows who completely stole the show.

Moments after the fly landed on Pence’s head, this image appeared on Twitter with the message: “That fly is Mike Pence’s only black friend.” Social media exploded and before the debate was over #TheFlyOnPence and #Flygate were trending.

As the fly rested for two minutes on top of the sanctimonious prick’s head, I couldn’t help having a flashback to this other major political fly story.

I wasn’t alone. This video also quickly resurfaced under one hashtag or another. The contrast couldn’t have been more perfect: no flies on Obama.

And moments after the debate ended, the Biden campaign had put this out.

Soon afterwards the Biden campaign was selling “Truth Over Flies” swatters on their website which sold out almost immediately.

As I said, there are times when social media can be extremely entertaining.

My favourite moment of the night, however, was not on social media, but during Stephen Colbert’s post-debate monologue when he proclaimed: “Oh, my god, he’s so full of crap he’s attracting flies!”

The monologue was a better summation of the debate than I can be arsed to write. Enjoy.