When the White Knight of the alt right comes for you

The “white” doesn’t refer to being a good guy, but rather skin tone, which is really important to these people.

He’s a former New York cop, a former Secret Service agent, a three-time failed congressional candidate, and the operator of one of the most popular podcasts airing, rivaling Joe Rogan’s audience. In fact, in the week following the election Dan Bongino’s podcast was #1 on iTunes, beating both Rogan and the New York TimesThe Daily.

And a few days ago, he used that podcast to sic his legions on me.

I had never even heard of the guy until recently; I still don’t have a fucking clue how to pronounce his name, and I don’t care. He was trending on Twitter a few days ago for having a shrieking meltdown on Fox over Amazon Web Services dropping Parler.

He seemed to have appeared out of nowhere. He’s written several books that I would never read because the latter ones are full of pro-Trump QAnon conspiracy theory bullshit. The earlier ones are his “life inside the Secret Service” that his former colleagues at the Secret Service criticized as being full of shit. Good thing this guy isn’t protecting soon-to-be President Biden.

His most recent meteoric rise has a lot to do with being an election truther. He claims that he doesn’t say outright it was a fraud, but he has a lot of “questions” about it.

He has over four million followers on Facebook and 2.5 million on Twitter. I poked a bit of fun at him on Twitter and he used his podcast to cry about it. I don’t know if he actually cried, because I only listened to literally six seconds of it in a clip of that length that someone tagged me in. I saw how he screen capped my Twitter profile and referred to me being a writer for the “fake news” Los Angeles Times and the “fake news” Chicago Tribune. I have zero interest in watching the entire thing, because I’ve had douchebags like this come after me several times before and I can already imagine it. I don’t need to see and hear it again. I can practically guarantee he mentioned the pronouns in my bio. They always do.

By the way, on the day this went down Dan’s Facebook page had both the #1 and the #4 most popular posts for ALL of Facebook, and yet he cries about his freedom of speech being taken away. Speaking of which, he had no problem with the public Twitter flounce, but seems to be fine with staying on Facebook even though Zuc banned his Jaundiced Jesus there too. At least be consistent in your brainless battle in misunderstanding the First Amendment, Dan.

What did I write that instilled such ire in a guy with a massive hate-spewing platform to come after me? On January 8th, in response to Trump getting punted from Twitter, Dan made the following tweet, kissing his 2.5 million Twitter followers goodbye:

“This will be my final post on this anti-American platform. The greatest threats to liberty are the destructive tech tyrants who have acted as publishers in their ongoing wars on conservatives & free speech. You can find me on Parler, where we respect free speech. I’m dbongino.”

There were 18,000 replies, and 3,300 quote tweets (that’s a retweet with added commentary by the retweeter). Glancing through them, he got made fun of by a LOT of people, many of whom were Twitter Verified and had much larger followings than me. I did a quote tweet. Why did he choose me? Probably because I was big but not too big, and me listing newspapers I used to write for gave him his opportunity to spew his “fake news” crap. What did I say about Dan that set him off? This was my added commentary in my quote tweet, made three days after his public flounce:

“Hey, Dan Bongino. Tried to find you on Parler. Not working. What's going on? I thought you invested in that platform. Please tell me you didn't sink a bunch of money into a platform that's gone defunct. That would be terrible for you. So very terrible.”

And yes, he did invest in Parler, saying he purchased an “ownership stake” in it, so he probably lost a lot of money and is pissed about that. Boo fucking hoo.

The morning after I made my tweet, I noticed I was starting to get hate in my Twitter mentions. More than usual, that is. Most of the people who were sending the hate had minimal followers. Usually fewer than 20. Some had zero. Their bios were full of #MAGA and #KAG and words like “patriot” and “Christian”.

On Twitter alone, I had hundreds of mentions. It takes only a few seconds to report them so every one that used an insult or slur I reported because you never know, it might work. If I can shut some of these fuckers up for even 24 hours, I’ll call it a win. Perhaps it will get them to think twice next time, although that implies that I believe these people do any thinking at all. They’ll likely just see it as another example of the Deep State “tech tyrants” silencing their freeze peach.

Then the emails started. I haven’t been inundated with email hate in over a decade, when I wrote my piece excoriating Jillian Michaels in the LA Times in 2010 and the article had my email address at the end, and it turned into a media shitnado when she threatened to sue. If you’re unfamiliar with that tale, the whole thing is here.

But I guess Twitter hate alone wasn’t good enough and many decided they needed to seek out my email address and send me their well thought out and grammatically creative opinions that way. They also found me on my Facebook page, and I got dozens of DMs there, as well as plenty of comments in various posts I’d made on the page. You probably didn’t see them because I was being diligent and banned all those fuckers as fast as they could make them. That’s one of the reasons I prefer Facebook to Twitter. You can block people on Twitter, but you don’t make their posts disappear. If you act like a cockwaffle on my Facebook page, however, I can ban you and everything you wrote goes bye bye, because fuck you.

Anyway, what did these people say? Well, a bunch of bigoted, stupid, homophobic garbage, mostly. And it only lasted a day, as I knew it would. I was the target of ire of the day, and then it was over and they moved on to whoever else Bongino pointed them at the following day. Imagine being AOC or Nancy Pelosi. They have real reason to fear for their lives. If they had been found by the terrorists storming the Capitol Building, I have no doubt they would have died horribly.

You may want to stop reading soon. I’ll write my conclusion in now and follow it with a gruesome addendum of an example of just one of the emails I was sent.

The email gives an insight into the minds of the typical Bongino follower, as well as the overwhelming hatred held in the dark hearts of the people who stormed the Capitol Building. It’s why these bullshit calls for unity from the Republicans ARE indeed bullshit, because nothing will change if we act like this shit didn’t happen. There must be accountability. There must be consequences. Humans—all species, really—are driven by a strong survival instinct, and they will avoid that which threatens their wellbeing. If people break the law, they must go to jail. If they violate the terms of a social media platform by spewing hatred and violence, they must be booted off. If they engage in egregious behavior and suffer marginalization, loss of employment, public shaming as real consequences for behaving like a piece of shit, it will give them pause. It will give those who witness it pause as well.

“Aw, shit. Bubba lost his job at the poo factory cuz dem libtards ratted him out to his boss for being a Nazi. Fuckin’ libtards. Still, mebbe I should delete that post on the tweeter about Hitler bein’ awesome an’ shit. I needs to buy more diesel for ma coal rollin’.”

Or something like that. I do NOT want to be unified with fascist bigots and Nazi asswipes. The only way we move forward is via making them fear the consequences of being such, driving it further underground so their poison can’t spread. Gradually move the Overton Window so those in proximity, and their offspring, see the hate for what it is rather than some misguided fight for freedom. The rewards of a civilized society are for those who embrace that civilization, not the ones who try to destroy it. The research is clear that right-wing-domestic terrorism is the #1 threat to America, and the government needs to treat it as such.

Anyway, that email. It’s pretty horrible. If you don’t want to read it, just stop here.

This was the subject line: So you want to talk shit to Dan Bongino over Parlor, eh FAGGOT

The dumbfuck can’t even spell the name of the platform that got cancelled. This is the body of the email:

Ha listen up you fucking cowardly twerp, you bring your queer faggot ass down her to the land of the free because of the brave and you talk your shit you Commie

Come on FAGGOT, I'd love for you to run your big bitch ass mouth to me faggot ass queer reprobate. You don't have the balls.

Boy speaking of reprobates I'll bet your booty buddies with BIG Mike. AKA trans gender michelle obama and her/his. Eh what the fuck ITS husband BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA. Kenia is missing its village idiot. Anyways two faggots in a pod, you can make the third, eh queer.

Ha FAGGOT, does your BITCH ASS whore of a wife know you slide both ways. I hear she is one UGLY fucking slut, and works the streets. So your both reprobates.

Ha FAG, you have a great day, tell the RCMP to SUCK my fucking ass when you call them on me. You tell those jack booted thus queers in high heels I fucking dare them to come after me. That would be a blast, but not for them.

Get my sweary history book On This Day in History Sh!t Went Down.