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This week, Vice President Kamala Harris sat down for an interview with Fox News. She was interviewed by Bret Baier, who just last year was praised for his “tough but fair” interview with Donald Trump. In that interview, Baier did bold, groundbreaking work like asking Trump to make sense and approaching him with facts and statistics. 

Wow. So revolutionary, asking a person in power real questions and pressing them on the answers. Bret Baier must be a genius for *checks notes* doing his job.

To be fair, it’s not like anyone else was doing it. Nodding and pretending like what Trump actually said makes sense is a fun little game we’ve been playing in America for over eight years now. Oh, did he ramble about Hannibal Lecter in some nonsensical monologue that if your father exhibited similar behavior you’d rush him to the hospital to be evaluated for a stroke?

Well, you idiot, you absolute chucklefuck, you damp single-celled, algae eating proto-life form, you don’t get it, “HE’S A GIFTED STORYTELLER! HE’S PAINTING A VISUAL IMAGE!” Which you’d understand if you hadn’t traded your one brain cell for a magic bean, you absolute waste of oxygen who could be replaced by a limp snake plant and you’d add more value to my home because at least you’d filter carbon dioxide.

Did Donald Trump say nothing of substance or meaning about foreign policy? Well, you dillweed, you are not a Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times columnist, so you wouldn’t know that that means, he’s really just a peaceful guy, and it’s the woman who is mean and aggressive and will begin all the wars. How could you be so stupid? I mean, this woman? She has ambition, which means she is power-hungry and running amok (LIKE ALL WOMEN, JESUS, KEEP UP) and is going to throw us over the cliff of global thermonuclear war. 

And on and on.

Anyway, this week, Bret Baier, that stunning and courageous journalist, sat down with Harris to ask her burning questions like, “Why is Trump beating you?” Or, “Trump said this absolutely insane thing, why don’t you take him seriously?”

The interview was less real questions and more, as Margaret Sullivan wrote, “Grievance theater.” Less a series of probing questions and more of an airing of complaints, unfounded in reality but deeply felt. A real, “Yo, Kamala, Imma let you finish but have you ever considered that you personally murdered people because you couldn’t pass a border control bill?”

Biaer’s performance, in which he interrupted Harris and Fox spliced in video to undercut her answers, was revelatory. A man would rather look like a tough guy pressing a liar who doesn’t make sense than take a woman seriously. Yeah, Bret, like you can speak truth to power but can you listen to a woman?

It’s just like that old adage: You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him stop hating women. 

This was the Bret Baier party and he was going to cry about illegal immigrants if he wanted to. And he did. 

Runner up: Harrison Butker

Hi, my name is Harrison Butker. You might know me from my work kicking a ball. But you probably know from my best work: looking like a damp gym sock and scoring points for the patriarchy. I am a sentient fascist haircut and the thing I really want to kick is not footballs but people when they are down.

And if you remember my viral comments, well, you probably misunderstood. See, when I said that the best thing a woman could be was a wife and mother, I was HONORING THEM. I was praising them for doing the thing I asked them to do personally, which is to just step aside. Like, I’m honoring you for taking up less space. I’m praising you for never having an orgasm and never asking me to stop sucking in bed. I’m HONORING you for running and screaming when I enter the room. I think it’s beautiful that you will so willingly lock yourself into that room and hallucinate with the wallpaper. I appreciate how you will chain yourself to the bed and become a breeding machine for me personally. I don’t hate women. I just don’t ever want to see them, or think of them, or pay them, or have them in my presence unless I’m getting a baby or a blowjob. JUST AS CHRIST WANTED.

Dingus of the Week

Dingus of the Week: DOUBLE HEADER TIME

lyz · May 17

This is the Weekly Dingus. The newsletter where I make fun of someone or something in the news that’s made our discourse just a little worse. If you like this newsletter, subscribe. Subscriptions help me be able to live and work in Iowa. They also help me pay an editor and a podcast producer, so we can make this content for you.

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And now for something good

Illinois launched a program that helps the formerly incarcerated get jobs in the solar industry.

Food assistance just got a little less racist.

This week, I launched Season 2 of This American Ex-Wife: The Podcast! The first episode is with Scaachi Koul and it is so freaking good, you are the dingus if you don’t listen.

Early voting is open in Iowa. I voted and while I was in line I got to meet newsletter subscriber Greta and her lovely daughter Liz! 

If Jimmy Carter can Pokémon go to the polls, you have no excuse.

What I am enjoying

This week, I rented a paint sprayer and got to work on my basement ceilings. I’ve long hated the creepy drop ceilings and have spent a year watching men named Kyle take down drop ceilings in YouTube videos, so I figured I could do it. Like, I’ve hired men to do things in my home and I haven’t come away with any sense they are more skilled than me; just that they have more upper body strength. So I’ve become convinced that if Kyle can do it, why not me?

A woman recently was like, “Oh wow, you are so brave for doing this.” And I was like, “Hi, have you met men? I have and I’m not convinced they have more innate fixing skills than us. It’s not bravery; it’s just a love of tools.”

And even if I did and it came out sketchy, that it would be better than the murdery drop ceilings my basement currently had. Or paying Jared $2,000 to do a shoddy job on my behalf. Plus, after the sump pump was installed, my basement needs a new coat of paint.

So, in September I ripped down part of the ceilings, had an electrician install new lights, and then, this week, in a fit of election-related anxiety I took out the metal beams, rented a sprayer and got to work. And listen, I do not need therapy. I just need power tools. 

I owe men a HUGE apology. This is actually fun work and I would so much rather be in my basement vibing to an audiobook and ripping out large beams of metal than doing literally anything else. If the patriarchy robbed men of the supportive group chat, it has robbed women of power tools.