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1) Draft Scott Presler
This week, the news broke that Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel would resign.
McDaniel served as de facto head of the party’s election efforts since 2017, and since then, the party lost control of the House in the 2018 midterms, fell to President Joe Biden in 2020, and flopped terribly in 2022.
While she’s faced serious backlash her entire tenure, it reached a crescendo this fall, best exemplified by a ferocious tirade by then-presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, laying into her at the start of a debate.
“We’ve become a party of losers,” he said, calling her out.
While RNC Chair is typically reserved for a prominent pol who has the party’s backing, a grassroots movement is afoot for someone outside the structure. The people want Scott Presler.
Presler, a conservative influencer, gained significant notoriety this year for his work on the ground to register Republicans in Pennsylvania. The effort attracted the attention of the RNC, which got severe backlash when it took credit for a county being flipped in the state without citing Presler’s work.
Now, the people want him in charge.
“Scott Pressler would make a good choice. He’s earned it,” said one user on Gab.
“Hallelujah! Now let’s get someone like Scott Pressler in there!” responded another to the news.
“Scott Presler is the name trending to replace Ronna as Chair of the RNC. Who do you support?” asked one user.
Unfortunately, there’s just one significant problem the far-right has with picking Presler.
He’s gay.
“NO. Pressler has worked hard, but I don’t want a homosexual in charge of the RNC. NO,” responded one user to the query.
Winning, it would seem, has some strings attached.
2) Trump or Q: Gaetz quote divides
This week, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla) delivered a press conference, alongside top far-right Republicans, introducing a resolution to declare that former President Donald Trump did not engage in or commit an insurrection with regard to his actions during the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
The presser and symbolic legislation comes just days before the Supreme Court will hear arguments over whether Colorado can legally kick Trump off its ballot for his behavior.
“It’s not the job of the states, and it’s especially not the job of some bureaucrats in Colorado to make this assessment and interfere with the rights of voters to cast their vote for the candidate of their choice,” he said.
In response to a media member asking why Gaetz was issuing a non-binding resolution and not exercising more authority than Congress has, Gaetz said with a smile “the best is yet to come.”
The comments were flagged on a QAnon forum as a wink and nod to the movement, but rather than be embraced, a fight broke out.
No one, it seemed, could confirm whether the mysterious poster Q, or Trump, first adopted the phrase.
“That’s a Trump campaign slogan. Don’t think it is a Q quote,” came a response.
.
Oh yea, asked someone in response, flagging a post from October 2020 by Q.
“Did Trump first say “TBIYTC” before or after that Q post?”
No one seemed to know.
“Not sure if the OP’s memory is clouded, but it seems fairly clear that Q is quoting DJT here, and not the other way around.”
3) Ger-man-boobs
There’s a lot of scholarship about why Germany lost both World War I and World War II (overextending its armies, a unified global alliance against it, other things, probably) but a new theory has been percolating on 4chan.
Manboobs.
Did the German army’s man boobs bring about its downfall?
Over on 4chan, one user pushed forth quite the theory.
“Germany, despite being an industrial power with large population size, failed to win both world wars, why? The truth is, the beer drinking culture is what caused it. Germany has a strong beer culture .. One of the main ingredients of beer is hops, hops contains phytoestrogens, a compound that mimics estrogen …, thats one of the reasons hard beer drinkers get manboobs … So when the Germans went to war and fought against the Russians, they were pumped up full of estrogen and that made them frail, especially compared to vodka drinking Russians.”
You know what… sure.
