The conservative media were shaken by a video of an over-the-top, obviously gay, hyper-feminine man-boy person thingie running around the White House and interacting with Jen Psaki, all to promote vaccines. What few realized is that they were seeing a gay comedian doing one of his characters, so it was a comedy sketch, not a real person. However, there’s a profound lack of dignity that the White House would use a 20-something’s parody character to sell something young people don’t need — and it’s an insult to the American people to think this is a product they’d buy. But the worst thing of all is that the Biden administration could be right.
So, here’s that video, which, if you take it at face value — that is, that this is the type of person the Biden administration is inviting into the White House — is pretty horrifying:
The White House hired another influencer to promote vaccines pic.twitter.com/LK7JOOcGz1
— Libs of Tik Tok (@libsoftiktok) August 9, 2021
A little research, though, revealed that the video isn’t quite as bad as it appears. The character you’re watching is named “Kooper the Gen Z intern,” and he is the creation of Benito Skinner, AKA Benny Drama, a comedian from Idaho who’s making it in California. In May, the New York Times profiled him, so you know he’s “up-and-coming.”
On YouTube, Skinner has over 300,000 subscribers, and on Instagram, he has over a million followers, so he really is a big deal to the Gen Z crowd — or at least the gay Gen Z crowd. His humor, which revolves around gayness and drag, eludes me, but here you can see the Kooper character to understand what Skinner brought to the White House:
So, again, the White House didn’t invite in an over-the-top, irresponsible, deranged LGBT character. The White House invited an actor-comedian.
But here’s the deal: has the White House really fallen so far? I guess so. It started with Bill Clinton and the “boxers versus briefs” questions and the “I did not have sexual relations with that woman” lie. George W. Bush, despite his many faults, returned dignity to the White House, but Barack Obama dragged it right back down again, with a constant parade of vulgar, racist rappers and trashy actors.
Donald Trump, despite his own over-the-top persona (WWE wrestling, apartments with gold-plated bathroom fixtures, and model wives), treated the White House with respect. He may have been a larger-than-life character, but he recognized that he was in the People’s house.
Biden’s tenure is dragging it right back down again. I’m reminded of the possibly apocryphal story telling how Stalin, when he heard a suggestion that the pope might join in his meetings with Roosevelt and Churchill, said, “The pope. How many divisions has he?” For Stalin, the only strength was brute force. Moral strength eluded him.
In the same way, the Biden team, like the popular girls at high school, is all about being with it and hip. Bidenites fail to understand that, to the extent that the presidency is an elected position and the president is looked up to as the world’s leader, dignity matters. It’s bad enough to have a forgetful, dishonest, creepy doddering old man in the White House. Whatever cachet remains is demeaned with Kooper the Intern on the premises.
Using the Kooper character to push vaccines on young people, despite continued concerns about its safety and effectiveness, also speaks to how little the White House thinks of Americans. To those holding the reins of power in America, regular Americans are morons who can be bought off with cheap comedy tricks pandering to the lowest common denominator.
The scariest thing of all, though, is that the White House could be right. For youthful generations that have been raised on TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat, and the narrative that LGBT people are all more funny, creative, and important than you are, this may be the level of discourse that works best.
Once, there was Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address:
It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
Franklin Roosevelt, although a proto-socialist, said, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”
John F. Kennedy, who probably did the worst damage to America of any president when he unionized the bureaucracy, offered, “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.”
And of course, Reagan:
Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.
But from the Biden administration, we get…well, this:
No wonder Kooper the intern fits right in, and what a sad, sad commentary about America today.
