Dingus of the week: Richard Hanania

Plus, an ode to the O’Hare Chili’s

The dingus of the week, is a weekly newsletter that roasts to hell someone or something in our lives that’s made everything a little worse. The dingus has been going strong for three years, through pandemic, multiple Olympics, an insurrection, and more. Never miss a dingus. Become a subscriber.

This week, during the Democratic National Convention, America got a closer look at the families of Kamala Harris and Tim Walz.

And everyone was totally normal and did not say upsetting things about children of people running for office that revealed more about themselves than it does about the kids in question. And we all lived happily ever after.

The end.

Just kidding.

That is not what happened. Ann Coulter made fun of Tim Walz’s son, Gus, for crying tears of joy during his dad’s speech. It’s not worth even picking Ann Coulter as a dingus at this point. Ann Coulter has made a career out of being five racisms and two sexisms in a blond wig. Being mad at her would be like being mad at the sun for rising every day. 

At the heart of this meltdown is a picture of families that don’t look like they spend their Thanksgivings with dry white meat, repression, and hangovers from Josh wine. 

But look, Ann Coulter would drop-kick an infant live on Newsmax if it meant staying relevant.  Making fun of her just gives her more power and we need her to crawl back into her sarcophagus. If we summon her, there will be a field being eaten alive by crows. Think of the agriculture! Plus, you can’t expect better from someone held together by hate and botox. So I won’t bother. Plus, Parker Malloy already had a good analysis of it all.

But also, Richard Hanania decided to spend a lot of time talking about Ella Emhoff, the daughter of Doug Emhoff, and step daughter to Kamala Harris.

But first I need to tell you what a Richard Hanania is. If you have chosen to live a good and righteous life, you don’t know what a Richard Hanania is. You are pure of heart. Stop reading this now. The rest of you sickos, continue on.

Richard Hanania is a political commentator who has written for The New York Times and other outlets. To put it more clearly, he’s like if R/RedPill became sentient.

Last year, Christopher Mathias wrote for the Huffington Post about Hanania’s past writing for white supremacists sites under a pseudonym. While Hanania has disavowed that ideology and has claimed he’s changed. Mathias noted:

Hanania’s rise into mainstream conservative and even more centrist circles did not necessarily occur because he abandoned some of the noxious arguments he made under the pseudonym “Richard Hoste.” Although he’s moderated his words to some extent, Hanania still makes explicitly racist statements under his real name. He maintains a creepy obsession with so-called race science, arguing that Black people are inherently more prone to violent crime than white people. He often writes in support of a well-known racist and a Holocaust denier. And he once said that if he owned Twitter — the platform that catapulted him to some celebrity — he wouldn’t let “feminists, trans activists or socialists” post there. “Why would I?” he asked. “They’re wrong about everything and bad for society.”

So this guy logged on and decided he had the moral authority to comment on how Ella Emhoff dressed and say she was the “nightmare scenario for most people with a daughter.”

He then shared a picture of Emhoff in a Harris/Walz camo cap, wearing a cream-colored sleeveless tank.

Emhoff is a model who has a degree in design from Parsons and her own independent fashion company. Her style often plays with and subverts traditional feminine norms. In an interview with Emhoff and designer Batsheva Hay, who helped Emhoff design her outfit for the 2020 inauguration, Hay noted, “I lived in this world, so I know; in D.C., you’re mostly rocking Ann Taylor Loft. Women in politics often have these feelings of having to suppress their style or their individuality to fit into these boxy suits.” 

Not Emhoff. Emhoff is a successful 25-year-old woman with a degree in her chosen field who appears in a photograph expressing her individuality, along with a hat supporting her stepmother. OH MY GOD! What’s next? A loud laugh? Public displays of joys or affection?! Something else that has absolutely no effect on Hanania whatsoever?

In the replies, Hanania noted that it was the visible tattoos that bothered him. He even sent another tweet noting that Emhoff seemed nice but he didn’t like the tattoos.

Oh, thank you, Richard, for letting us know what a white supremacist finds disgusting in a woman. 

Women en masse call tattoo artists desperately begging for the Ella Emhoff special, cow tattoos

The real problem here is that a woman exists who is not trying to specifically make Richard Hanania happy. And that upsets him.

When men talk about women like this — critiquing their visible body hair, their tattoos, or weight — I wish they’d just be honest and say what they really think: that they hate women. If you hate how Ella Emhoff looks, I have bad news for you about the rest of us. A lot of us have visible tattoos and body hair. And none of us are going out with you, sir.

It’s almost as if women have inherent worth and style and value beyond their performance of sexuality. It’s almost as if Ella Emhoff walks this earth for purposes other than to please a man who thinks we should all just consider that some racisms might be a little right. And what’s really making him mad is the concept that women do not exist solely in their roles as wives, daughters, and mothers, but as a secret fourth thing: human beings.

Also, does this man not possess a TikTok? This is what most Gen Zers look like right now — a cross between Charli XCX and Adam Sandler, and honestly, I think it’s great. I actually have a daughter and I can think of worse futures for her than being a really cool fashion designer and model living in Bushwick. For example, she could be dead, or on Richard Hanania’s podcast.

Anyway, I’m begging people to read one history book, because Alice Roosevelt smoked on the roof of the White House and became America’s sweetheart. So if Hanania thinks that some tattoos and a camo hat are going to make parents upset, I regret to inform him we will probably crown her our queen.

And now for something good

The DNC refused to allow a delegate from the Uncommitted movement to speak. This delegation is urging a ceasefire and for America to stop supplying weapons to Israel and aiding in the war, but their voices have been barred from the main stage. Georgia state Rep. Ruwa Romman’s prepared speech ran in Mother Jones and it’s worth reading.

But in this pain, I’ve also witnessed something profound—a beautiful, multifaith, multiracial, and multigenerational coalition rising from despair within our Democratic Party. For 320 days, we’ve stood together, demanding to enforce our laws on friend and foe alike to reach a ceasefire, end the killing of Palestinians, free all the Israeli and Palestinian hostages, and to begin the difficult work of building a path to collective peace and safety. That’s why we are here—members of this Democratic Party committed to equal rights and dignity for all. What we do here echoes around the world.

I am really loving the fashion analysis coming from Derek Guy, who is known as the menswear guy on Twitter. 

This same-sex flamingo couple hatched an egg!

HENS BLUSH!

Michelle Obama finally went a little low and we love her for it.

Whatever this is. This is the future I want.

CHAPPELL ROAN CROP ART!

What I am enjoying

This week, I snuck away to New York for a meeting on a project I am very excited about, but it’s not yet ready for me to talk about.

But on my way out, my flight was canceled and I found myself, once again, stuck in O’Hare.

This year, I keep finding myself grounded in O’Hare. It started last October with some flight delays that led me to discover the joys of the Terminal Spa and the MAC store. In January when a snowstorm grounded me and the guy I was seeing at the time in O’Hare, we rented a car and drove through the ice, only for me to get broken up with at 3am in front of the Avis car rental booth. And in March, my kids and I were grounded in O’Hare and I found myself driving at 3am to get them home. The past two trips, I’ve ended up in the O’Hare Marriott vibrating with exhaustion, drinking martinis, wondering if one of my long-ago ancestors murdered an O’Hare and I’m paying for it.

My relationship with O’Hare is the most abusive one I have. And yet, flying out of Cedar Rapids, it’s often my only option. Once Pete Buttigieg is done appearing at the DNC, I have some suggestions about some infrastructure he could fix.

My friend Kate noted that if I get grounded at O’Hare one more time, I get to claim squatters’ rights. The airport will be mine. The airport code letters changed to LYZ.

With each delay and cancellation, I’ve become resigned to the airport in that way that people who are kidnapped allegedly fall in love with their captors. In a real enemies to lovers arc I have come to enjoy some things about O’Hare. Here is a list of those things:

The Publican Tavern. It’s so expensive but honestly it’s really good. Better than it has any right to be.

Miroslav at the Terminal Spa gives the best deep-tissue massages.

Buying things at duty free has never really made sense to me. But I do love to go there and smell the perfume and sample all the Le Mer lotions.

Grabbing a Diet Coke from McDonald’s (friends don’t let friends drink soda out of plastic bottles), turning on my Garmin and seeing how far I can walk through the terminals and then recording it on Strava.

There are these little booths where you can vibrate your feet. That’s fun.

Licorice vending machines.

And of course, my one true love, the Chili’s in Terminal 3. They basically only let you order through a QR code, but this also means you get left alone to your margarita and chips and salsa and book. The food comes out quickly but it’s a great corner for people-watching. A perfect dining experience.