Dan Bongino, an Emotional Wreck, Throws QAnon a Bone
Plus: Nick Fuentes and Tim Pool rethinking their looks.
Bongino Gives QAnon New Life
Donald Trump is still stumbling through his Epstein mess, quipping Monday that he never had the “privilege” of visiting Epstein’s island and discussing today how he broke things off with his longtime friend after Epstein “stole” personnel from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago.
Fortunately, the administration still has FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino’s extreme social-media posting habit to rely on as a way to get the faithful back in line.
Now firmly returned to work after threatening to quit over the botched rollout of the July 7 Epstein memo, Bongino did the administration a solid on Saturday by tweeting one of his classic florid posts in which he insists he’s working really hard, even if his fans can’t see it.
Bongino said he had been stunned by the “political weaponization of both law enforcement and intelligence operations,” which seemed to be an apparent reference to the Trump administration’s attempts to create a “Russiagate” distraction from Epstein.
“But what I have learned in the course of our properly predicated and necessary investigations into these aforementioned matters, has shocked me down to my core,” Bongino wrote. “We cannot run a Republic like this. I’ll never be the same after learning what I’ve learned.”
Bongino may have been trying to satiate a MAGA base increasingly despondent over the Epstein affair. And, certainly, imaginations ran wild on the right over what could have so shocked the hardened former podcaster.
But perhaps Bongino should have been a bit less cryptic. Because shortly after issuing his post, the right began demanding more disclosures in order (to borrow Bongino’s phrase and capitalization) “to get the answers WE ALL DESERVE.”
Comedian turned right-wing video host Russell Brand called the tweet a “gnostic” pronouncement, saying Bongino had seen the equivalent of the glowing suitcase in Pulp Fiction. Undercover-video provocateur James O’Keefe demanded to know more, saying the public has a right to know what shocked Bongino.
While they wanted answers, the denizens of QAnon-land claimed some degree of vindication. MJTruthUltra, a major QAnon account with more than 500,000 followers on X, cheered Bongino’s pronouncement as a sign that the conspiracy theory about pedophile elites controlling the world is real. “The X22 Report,” one of the largest QAnon podcasts, saw Bongino’s comment about being shocked to his core as a reference to the QAnon slogan “those who know cannot sleep.”
“Those who know have a very difficult time sleeping,” the podcast’s anonymous host said.
Even people who aren’t explicitly QAnon supporters couldn’t help but think Bongino was alluding to a pedophile cult rather than cooked-up conspiracies about Barack Obama orchestrating a coup against Trump. Popular right-wing commentator Candace Owens said Bongino couldn’t have been referencing the Russia investigation because that would be way too boring!
“I am hoping he’s going to come out and say the world is run by sexual deviants,” Owens said.
What an odd thing to hope for!
Groypers Turn on Fuentes in Looksmaxxing Controversy
Over the weekend, white-nationalist figure Nick Fuentes traveled to Los Angeles to make videos with “Clavicular,” the alias for an anabolic-steroid enthusiast who advises teenage boys on how to be as good-looking as possible.
Fuentes’s followers—the “groypers”—are not happy about it!
Clavicular is a hero in the “looksmaxxing” community, a place where young men go to sometimes extreme lengths to improve their appearances. In Clavicular’s case, for example, he was kicked out of college after campus security found a pharmacy’s worth of steroids in his dorm.
In videos, he offers advice to 13-year-olds on how to get steroids without your parents finding out.1 In one recent video, he said he’s preparing to undergo “double jaw surgery” and hopes to emerge looking like a completely different person.
Ostensibly, Fuentes was there to debate Clavicular on whether racism or looksmaxxing is a better solution for aggrieved young men. But in reality, Fuentes spent hours conversing with Clavicular about all the best ways to look handsome, but in a vaguely off-putting way. At one point on the stream, some of Clavicular’s handsome, similarly plasticky roommates entered and talked about how many Xanax they had just taken.
Fuentes’s fans were angry. Why is he learning about seven-step moisturizing routines when he’s supposed to be saving the white race? They were apparently uncomfortable with this well-documented aspect of fascism. Groypers raged in the comments under Fuentes’s videos, with one declaring the collaboration “absolutely baffling.”
Jaden McNeil, a former Fuentes lieutenant who fell out with him a few years ago in part because he alleged Fuentes didn’t want him to have a girlfriend, was stunned to see Fuentes running through makeup routines with Clavicular and his associates.
“Dude, Nick’s literally wearing fucking eyeliner!” McNeil said in a video, reviewing Clavicular’s makeup routine.
What the discontented groypers failed to appreciate is that, like Adolf Hitler acolyte Ernst Röhm, Fuentes blends his fascism with a deep appreciation for the male body. Previously, Fuentes palled around with “Catboy Kami,” a hardcore racist who wears cat ears and dresses in pink shirts and maid costumes. (Fuentes claims they later ended their friendship because the catboy was too racist.)
Fuentes addressed the backlash to his segment with Clavicular on Monday, saying on his show that only his younger fans, rather than “boomers,” would understand why he had to court the looksmaxxing demographic. While Fuentes said he would remain an “incel,” he was still happy to discuss looksmaxxing techniques like leg-extension surgery.
As for his critics?
“Carpe Donktum is down the hall and to the left,” Fuentes said, referring to the older-skewing MAGA meme-maker.
Tim Pool ditches the beanie
The longest-running mystery in conservative media has been solved. Tim Pool has finally revealed what’s under his beanie—albeit only for $200 and for less than two minutes.
Pool lifted his trademark beanie in an appearance on Gen-Z YouTuber Matan Even’s show.
After showing up with bodyguards and participating in a tense negotiation over the deal, Pool lifted his beanie to reveal what’s long been suspected: he’s bald on top, with a George Costanza cut on the sides.
Good for him, even if it took a wad of cash and a back-and-forth reminiscent of a spy exchange to make it happen. (Pool eventually gave the money back.)
While I hate to fixate on Pool’s hairline, this is the first publicly available picture of him without his trademark beanie. It’s been his whole thing since he rose to prominence in 2011. Pool wore his beanie to the White House, Mar-a-Lago, and even on his recent wedding weekend.
In the masculinity-obsessed online right, perhaps it’s no surprise that Pool would try to cover up his baldness. So Pool going toque-less made a lot of waves. This would be like MAGA voter-registration activist Scott Presler cutting his flowing locks. Or MAGA Hulk quitting the gym! Or Benny Johnson lifting real weights. (Or Nick Fuentes taking tips from a looksmaxxer?)
What’s Pool up to here? I think that, like Candace Owens and Megyn Kelly before him, he’s trying to expand his audience by appearing on potentially hostile podcasts with more apolitical audiences. And if he does that, he’s going to be asked about the beanie, so he might as well get it over with.
The beanie isn’t going away for good, though. Within ninety seconds of taking it off on Even’s show, Pool put it back on.
Have an older cousin set up a P.O. box for you, it turns out.
OMG, I never realized how fragile these right wingers were! I laughed my ass off reading this piece. Thank you for giving us insight into just how pathetic and foolish they are despite what comes out of their mouths. Their time is finite and, soon enough their followers will see them for the fools they are!
“… the hardened former podcaster.” I may never stop laughing at this.