I Like Ann Coulter: An Existential Crisis

Ann Coulter

I found myself in the middle of an existential crisis last night. Sweat was beading down my brow and I was on the verge of tears. Sure, it was a hot night and I was watching Project Runway. But still. Here I am: an unashamed liberal who believes the Affordable Care Act didn’t go far enough, that CEO salaries and bonuses are outrageous and leading to the death of the middle class. But here I find Donald Trump and Ann Coulter absolutely charming.

I read Mitchell Sunderland’s profile of Ann Coulter in the new sub-Vice Broadly last night. It’s filled with great bon mots from whom liberals call Satan’s spawn:

“My main reason for opposing gay marriage is once your friends get married, you lose them.”

“The angry gays don’t like me, but the angry gays don’t like anybody. My theory on the angry gays is they’re not really gay: They just hate their fathers.”

“Gays are right wingers who like butt sex.”

I’ll be honest. I don’t think too much about talking heads. I know what I believe in and don’t need anyone to tell me what’s good and what’s bad. So I really do tune a lot of this noise out. But before I learned how to do this, folks like Coulter would drive me up the fucking wall.

So I was shocked when I kept laughing throughout the profile. Not ha-ha-she’s-so-backwards, but ha-ha-that’s-a-smart-crack. And that’s when the crisis set in.

ohmygod am i becoming a conservative? oh no i think donald trump is funny too. does that make me a bad liberal? do i now have to wear ugly pleated khaki pants and have sexual desires for 14-year old girls?

Thankfully the crisis didn’t last long. No, I’m not becoming a conservative. No, I don’t agree with the majority of what Coulter or Trump believes. No, I won’t ever wear pleated khaki pants. No, I will never have sexual desires for a 14-year old anything.

I reminded myself of something I watched earlier in the day, a relic of the 60s when Woody Allen had his own talk show and invited conservative superstar William Buckley.

They don’t agree in politics, but they seem to be having a good time here. They seem to like one another. Why must we hate people we don’t agree with?

Just listen to the hatred on a particular gay subreddit:

“She’s not a gay icon. She is, quite frankly, a complete bitch who, to top it all off, apparently strongly opposes equality for her friends.”

“Sadly, the fact that gay men voluntarily hang out with her is proof that we are not automatically smarter than our straight counterparts.”

“She’s trying to be popular by being edgy, and that Junior High mentality isn’t getting you anywhere in my opinion.”

Such pearl-clutching responses a la Helen Lovejoy from The Simpsons is pretty funny. This is why I want Trump in the presidential race for as long as possible because it’s hilarious to see people lose their shit.

So crisis averted and logic has returned. All of you assholes can now return to being smug sanctimonious jackasses.