Hogg Bites Hand That Feeds, Demands Older Dems Hand Over Control to Him
Parkland shooting survivor and liberal activist David Hogg recently posted a tweet essentially saying that guns can’t stop mass shootings because, to paraphrase, you can’t stop wildfires with more fire.
Hogg’s schoolmate, Second Amendment supporter Kyle Kashuv, pointed out a very inconvenient fact: That’s actually exactly how you stop wildfires from spreading, by a controlled burn of foliage.
Actor James Woods had the perfect response: “Kyle, it’s like trying to teach a marmot to do calculus. Ignore him. He’s way past his 15 minutes.”
Well, to be blunt, the Democrats are now going to have to figure out whether to teach their adopted marmot calculus or inform him that his 15 minutes of outside time are over and it’s time to go back to his cage and entertain himself with his wheel.
That’s because Hogg wants older Democrats to maybe make way for younger voices and listen to what they have to say. He wants them to engage in a respectful discussion of ideas, that sort of thing.
Or, to use his exact quote, “move the f— off the plate and let us take control.”
Hogg gave a lengthy series of interviews to New York magazine that were published on Sunday. In it, his statements veered between the delusional, the incoherent, and stuff that sounded like it came from an Atari Teenage Riot song. His statement about what the Democrats ought to do fit firmly in the first and third categories.
Most of the article dealt with Hogg’s recent bus tour in support of gun control and, well, his own public profile. But then writer Lisa Miller began asking him questions about his politics because, well, he now has a lot of opinions about them.
“In the past five months, Hogg has developed political opinions on just about everything. He is against charter schools and for universal health care,” Miller writes. “He is obsessed with Mueller’s investigation and especially the indictment of Maria Butina, the alleged Russian spy who infiltrated the NRA. He believes that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is ‘a future president of the United States.’” (Once she becomes an expert on geopolitics, one assumes.)
And then came Hogg’s idea that age limits should be placed on politicians. He thinks it’s time the Democrats let millennials take over, because they’re clearly the presidential type:
“Older Democrats just won’t move the f— off the plate and let us take control. Nancy Pelosi is old.”
I’m assuming Hogg is talking about limits on being too old to serve here. Hogg isn’t terribly specific about what he means, and he doesn’t mention anything about the fact that there are already constitutional age limits on being too young to serve.
Miller was either too nice to bring it up, was making a sarcastic point about Hogg’s political acumen by leaving his ambiguity purposefully ambiguous, or was simply being sloppy. As for Hogg, I don’t believe we have to guess.
Miller also wasn’t exactly impressed with Hogg’s arrogance on the issue, or the caliber of his followers. “I am old enough to be Hogg’s mother, and pushed back on the idea that age equals ineptitude,” she wrote.
“Later, he posted a survey on Twitter. ‘I had an interesting conversation today when the question of congressional age limits came up. Do you think there should be an age limit on congressmen, congresswomen, and congressthem?’ Of more than 33,000 votes, 59 percent said yes.”
And Hogg has big plans for making the most of his own youth.
“Hogg is working on a seven-year plan,” Miller writes. “Now that the bus tour is over, he and his friends in the March for Our Lives organization plan to spend the next several months meeting more activists and canvasing in advance of the midterm elections.”
For those of you familiar with Miller, she’s hardly a closet conservative, and she’s writing for one of the most liberal outlets there is. Yet, there’s a wonderful tone of dry, sarcastic pseudo-objectivity throughout the piece that reveals exactly how little she thinks of Hogg self-aggrandizement, and which induced plenty of laughter on this end of the screen.
Consider her description of his political ambitions: “(i)f he could design his future without any obstacles, he would go to college in the fall of 2019, ‘read a s—oad of books,’ then take some time off in 2020 to work on a presidential campaign. (Certain candidates have already approached him, he told me.) Then, after college, he would prepare for his congressional run. ‘I think I’ve come to that conclusion,’ he says. ‘I want to be at least part of the change in Congress.'”
Or take this nugget of joy about Hogg’s clubfooted attempt at being a male feminist ally.
“Later that evening in Orange County, at a bonfire on the beach, Hogg was talking to half a dozen girls who were looking for advice on how to organize anti-gun movements at their schools,” Miller writes.
“He talked about the way women get shafted at work and in culture. ‘Promise me you won’t take anybody’s s—,’ he said. It was as teen-earnest as a John Hughes movie. Then he looked around at the blackness, the beach, the waves. ‘Beaches are a place for a mass shooting,’ he said. ‘I hate to bring that up.’”
Democrats, please: Try to teach this marmot calculus. Move off that plate, Nancy. I promise you, you won’t be disappointed.
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