Dingus of the week: Decorum

Dingus Madness continues with the Embarassing Eight!

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This week, during Donald Trump’s address to Congress, he lied a lot. And I know, I know. That’s like stating that grass is green, TikTok influencers use filters, and JD Vance looks like a child who is going to get carried off by Oompa Loompas in a chocolate factory. You know, things that are obvious.

But during the speech, Trump declared, “The presidential election of November 5 was a mandate like has not been seen in many decades.”

This is fundamentally not true. He did win. Sorry, Starlink conspiracy theorists, but he did. But not by the “big numbers” he claimed. According to PBS, “For votes counted through Nov. 20, Trump’s margin over Harris was 1.62 percent. That’s smaller than any winner since Bush in 2000, when the margin was 0.51 percent. Going back further, only John F. Kennedy in 1960 and Nixon in 1968 won the popular vote by smaller margins, 0.17 percent and 0.7 percent, respectively.”

In terms of percentages, Trump’s 2024 victory was the smallest since 1960.

When Trump made this claim, Texas Democrat Rep. Al Green stood up to shout, “You have no mandate!” (Green later said he was referring specifically to a mandate to cut Medicaid — a key issue as Republicans look to slash federal spending in order to fund top Trump priorities such as making rich people richer and deporting everybody else.)

Green continued to heckle Trump as House Speaker and past Dingus of the Week award winner Mike Johnson banged the gavel and called for “decorum.”

Decorum?

*Looks around at America*

Decorum?!

Read the room, Mike.

Let’s recap: Trump is stripping people of their rights; firing legions of federal workers, many of whom actually are responsible for lifesaving humanitarian assistance; starting and stopping tariffs on goods from our closest trading partners in a wild yo-yo that’s tanking the markets; stabbed longtime ally Ukraine in the back at a globally humiliating (and televised) White House meeting; and attempted to host a fire sale on federal buildings. Also, he renamed the Gulf of Mexico in some kind of weird dick-waving power play; he wants to turn Gaza into a luxury resort; he’s gutting lifesaving biomedical research; and his minions have rounded up thousands of immigrants in inhumane mass deportations. And the problem is that a member of Congress yelled at him?

Yes, the House speaker whose party let the childcare tax credit expire and plunged American children into poverty and food insecurity without losing one bit of sleep* called for decorum.

(Editor’s note: You can tell he’s getting 8 hours from his dewy, collagen-plump visage. Mikey J., do not tell Lyz but I will personally expunge you from the dingus archives if you drop the skincare routine.)

(Lyz’s note: I am pretty sure the skin care routine is a necrotizing portrait of him hanging in an attic.)

This man would be on the deck of the Titanic asking someone to pass him the salt.

This man would be on the Challenger space shuttle demanding to know if everyone at Mission Control had their ties on.

This man would be reading news about mass shootings and blaming the teaching of evolution. (Just kidding, he actually did that one.)

Sir, there was a whole actual coup (which you weren’t not involved in) but you want to bang your little hammer and call for rules and order?

The president has already tried to override the Constitution by executive fiat (and not for the last time, I fear), but you are going to get mad because congressman Al Green lacked “decorum.”

Also, Mike Johnson is cool with his chief of staff getting arrested on drunk driving charges. But Al Green has gone too far.

Green was escorted out of the speech, and good for him. Other Democrats left voluntarily.

Some of those who stayed did very brave things, like wearing pink. Clearly they were inspired by the Regina George school of action. Not since Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde has America seen such a bold use of color in the halls of Congress.

And others bravely held up little paddles that read bold things like “false” and “lies.” The paddles looked like a fan you’d use to cool yourself off after all this norm-breaking gave you a case of the vapors.

My stars! The president is lying again. Hand me my fan and loosen my corset.

On Thursday, Republicans voted to censure Al Green, and 10 Democrats crossed the aisle to join them. Which is so fair. Because rules must be upheld. If we don’t have rules, what’s next? A coup? Oh wait. I guess we had one.

I mean, what’s next? The president using the office to enrich himself and do some other crimes, claiming he’s immune from the consequences and getting backed up by the Supreme Court? Then getting elected again? That would be crazy. Good thing we upheld decorum.

“I’m so glad we have rules and decorum,” I say as JD Vance hauls me away in handcuffs for felony menopause in the first degree.

“I’m so glad we have respect and norms,” I shout from the cell where I have been locked away for woke because I said there were more than two genders.

“So great we can disagree respectfully,” I say before I’m tied to a stake for taking my kids to a musical, where they were exposed to gay.

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Dingus Madness: The Embarrassing 8

Our second annual Dingus Madness Tournament has been a tough one. Out in the last round was past Dingus of the Year winner Jeff Bezos and those evergreen dingii “undecided voters.”

View the results (scroll to the right to see results for each round)

And vote in the fourth round for the showdown among the Embarrassing Eight.

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And now for something good:

Some Montana Republicans flipped sides to vote against a bill that would remove trans kids from their parents. It’s the bare minimum, but we are so glad they did it.

Workers at US African Development Foundation refused to let DOGE operatives enter. The operatives eventually gained entry, but the refusal to roll over for the railroading of our country is a great start.

A federal judge blocked Trump’s cuts to medical research funding.

And turns out some of these mass firings are oops, illegal!

A photographer took pictures of a fight between a Canadian goose and a bald eagle. And in a decisive victory that metaphorically doesn’t augur well for Americans, the goose won. But like, if you’ve ever come across a goose on a running path (or anywhere else) — well, I wouldn’t mess with the goose, either.

Also, I need to say, when it comes to deportations, I only endorse the deportation of Justin Bieber — a Biebsportation.¹

What I am enjoying

Last weekend, I had the weekend of a much younger woman. I went to a party to support a friend’s literary journal, then I went to Chicago to see THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING BITCH KELSEY MCKINNEY! Then, I came back and saw some Iowa women’s basketball at Carver-Hawkeye Arena.

I was absolutely wiped and then I got a cold that has laid me out flat this week.

Nevertheless, putting on pants and leaving the house is great, and we should all do it a lot more. And will you awkwardly run into ex-boyfriends while you are tipsy in a bar and shouting about how the Beecher Stowe clan was terrible and are your historical nemeses? Sure. Will it be really fun when you smile and offer up your middle finger? Absolutely.

This, my friends, is what they mean about community. You gotta be in it to have it.

1. My editor tried to take this joke out. I put it back in. I’m not sure if I made the right call.