Milo (Yawn)

I haven’t commented on the uproar over Milos Yiannopoulos because he and the circus around him bore me.

He has his defenders—”Milo is indisputably the most effective conservative on campus battling the anti-American identity-obsessed, racist Left,” writes David Horowitz. But Yiannopoulos has always been a provocateur who muddied the good fight against politically correct attacks on free speech (both formal and mob-driven) on college campuses and elsewhere with his own bigotries. Whatever good—and there was some—that came from an openly gay man becoming a major figure respected within the Breitbart crowd was undercut by his playing footsie with the alt right (a loose movement whose size and power are mendaciously exaggerated by the left, but which does exist).

His downfall over previous comments seeming to make light of pedophilia, including his own abuse by a priest, have now resulted in his leaving Breitbart News and being disinvited from the upcoming Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), where he was to be a keynote speaker, all of which is to the delight of the alt-left.

Perhaps the circus has now left town.

More. CPAC is minus Milo, but the Log Cabin Republicans, once excluded, again have a booth.

17 Comments for “Milo (Yawn)”

  1. posted by Tom Scharbach on

    Milo Yappiopolous a performer, not a provocateur, as he acknowledged in his Tuesday statement to the press: “I started my career as a technology reporter who wrote about politics but I have since become something else. I am a performer with millions of fans in America and beyond.” Provocateurs trade in ideas, not self-aggrandizement.

    Yappiopolous is the feminine of Coulter’s masculine, every bit as much of a contentless drone.

    Sam Kriss, a writer in the UK, summed it up well, I think:

    Milo’s secret is that he’s one of the most boring people on the planet.

    He spends every waking second trying to hide this fact. It’s why an adult man who used to dress exactly like the awkward tech journalist he was now swans around in costumes ranging from “Poochie the dog” to “the binbags behind Asda” to “scene-filler from Triumph of the Will”. It’s why, like every other failed reactionary loser to get bored of these pissy islands, he went off to seek fame in America, where people confuse our accents for wit and our humdrum sex lives for personality. It’s why he won’t stop running up and down in front of the world, screaming “look at me!” He needs to keep it up forever, because as soon as he stops, people will realise there’s nothing to see.

    Listen to what Milo actually says, beyond all the teenage showiness about how many cocks he’s sucked and how great his clothes are. He thinks Islam is “sinister”, feminism is stupid and the world revolves around him. He’s someone’s Home Counties dad, a spluttering retired colonel full of gravy and defeat, spraying little specks of Brussels sprouts from his mouth as he drones on about immigrants at the dinner table, while the kids roll their eyes and push their peas forlornly from one side of the plate to the other.

    The reason Milo’s comments on paedophilia have done him so much damage is that they’re the only opinions he holds – including those that are outrightly fascist – that wouldn’t also be held by any ordinary middle-aged pub bore. He’s built an entire career on claiming to be a “dangerous faggot”, the supervillain of the internet, a man who says the things that people aren’t meant to say – but speaking the forbidden truth will only get you on all the TV channels if your forbidden truth is actually just the boring old conventional wisdom.

    I have never understood why homocons became so enthralled with Yappiopolous. He added nothing to the conservative discussion, had nothing to say that wasn’t already being better articulated by others. Was it nothing more than the fact that homocons, seemingly condemned to endlessly polish their tassel-loafers in a temporal version of Hell, were thrilled by a “provocateur” who dared talk about sucking “black cock”? Was it that thrilling?

    Yappiopolous is most likely, now, to be condemned to living in the real world, not the fantasy world in which is a “dangerous faggot”. So be it. I hope we’ve seen the backside of him.

    • posted by Houndentenor on

      A couple of weeks ago there was a story of a homocon (as conservative) coming out after interviewing Milo. It’s clear that the underlying theme of the Milo crowd is “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.” Milo was a useful idiot. A gay man attacking gays on gay rights. It was the perfect way to play the leftist gay. Milo attacks women but then uses being gay to deflect legitimate complaints about what he said. Never mind that this is the very sort of tactic that Milo claims leftists use (and shouldn’t get away with). Even his current excuse of being molested so of course he’s shitty to everyone else is textbook victim weaseling that his crowd claims to deplore. Oh well. He was fine for an underground fringe movement but the moment he was starting to appear in the mainstream (the book deal and then Real Time) the right took him down. It was swift and easy. They’ve had that clip for a year sitting on it waiting to deploy whenever he became an embarrassment for them. They used him and spit him out. If he wasn’t such a little shit I might feel bad for him but this was inevitable. He played with fire and got burned. The only thing surprising in this is that he hasn’t already checked himself into a fake rehab facility like Promises.

  2. posted by Jorge on

    People who achieve power too quickly, whether in work, family, or politics, have a way of falling quickly. To me the signs read that Milo is an evil person who is of a type that includes at least some poor judgment. There is a ferocious anger to him, and he has alluded in the past to his growing up or family (I think) experiences being very negative.

    “remarks of him making light of pedophilia” is about as generous as it gets on this one, although he vehemently denied in the video it was pedophilia he was talking about. The real problem is that he never condemned it. I’ve read at least two mentions that part of the problem was that his remarks might be interpreted as promoting the myth that gay men are dangerous to boys. I am a little worried that my community’s local homophobe will pick up on that. His remarks reminded me of the controversy around NAMBLA. Dare I consider such an association useful? That cannot be. Societies have allowed man-girl marriage; western society has long recognized that as very problematic.

    I do think Milo alluded to one very important thing. Unlike young women, gay (male) youth do not have social institutions that protect them and promote their well-being when they come to sexual maturity. Straight women have their mothers as their mentors, their mothers-in-law as their tyrants, and their peers as their rivals–that promotes the type of learning that creates stronger women. Milo placed the older lover in this role, not just a conflict of interest, but the very person who mentors are supposed to protect against.

    • posted by Throbert McGee on

      gay (male) youth do not have social institutions that protect them and promote their well-being when they come to sexual maturity. […] Milo placed the older lover in this role, not just a conflict of interest, but the very person who mentors are supposed to protect against.

      According to Plato (in Symposium), older gay male Socrates repeatedly turned down the sexual advances of handsome twink Alcibiades, when the younger guy wanted to add Socrates to his scorecard. Socrates knew that Alcibiades needed “mentoring” in areas like philosophical wisdom, humility, and self-restraint, not oral-sex techniques.

      “Gay conservatives” who are really concerned about living conservatively with respect to their gayness should maybe look to Plato, not Milo.

      P.S. Sparknotes has a good one-page summary of this section from Symposium.

  3. posted by Houndentenor on

    Oh wow. Conservative meetings actually let gays have a booth? Only 40 years behind liberals allow gays to speak and participate. With gains like that the GOP should be for gay rights about 20 years after I’m dead. Woo-hoo!

    • posted by Tom Scharbach on

      Interesting that LCR’s “sell” is for 2nd Amendment rights, not gay rights. Helps to explain why the Republican Party has remained solidly against equality.

      • posted by JIm R. on

        Intersectionality!

        Obviously, they are reaching out to CPAC conservatives as gay conservatives with whom others can align, which is smart politics in furthering LGBT inclusion and defusing homophobia.

        No different from the LGBT left taking all of its stands on non-LGBT issues as part of the Democratic/progressive alliance,

        • posted by Doug on

          Big difference is that LGBT folks are already accepted and welcomed in the Democratic Party while LGBT are apparently only accepted at CPAC and GOP in general if they support wacko gun rights.

      • posted by Tom Scharbach on

        Obviously, they are reaching out to CPAC conservatives as gay conservatives with whom others can align, which is smart politics in furthering LGBT inclusion and defusing homophobia.

        I understand the concept, but I don’t recall a time in Democratic Party politics (and I go back to the mid-1970’s) that those of us pushing for a change in the party’s position on LGBT issues didn’t push those issues while supporting the party on other issues.

        Our message to unions, to African-Americans, to Hispanics, to women and other “intersectional” groups ran along the lines of “Our struggle is like your struggle …”, identifying the commonalities without holding back on LGBT issues. Ours wasn’t always (or even often) a popular message, but it was an honest, open message.

        LCR’s booth is reminiscent of Peter Thiel’s five minutes before the convention. While that was a breakthrough for the Republican Party, it was striking that Thiel didn’t touch on any LGBT issues at all. LCR’s booth shouts out “Gays for Guns” but doesn’t seem to have any message at all about LGBT issues.

        I hope the time will come when LCR and other gay/lesbian Republicans can speak out openly about LGBT issues, as we did throughout the three decades that we worked to bring the Democratic Party around.

        I understand that the Republican Party is a different animal than the Democratic Party, and that what worked for us might not work for LCR. I can’t help but think, though, that the “Republican gays/lesbians are trusted, orthodox conservatives foremost and always …” message will have to give way to “It is long since time that the Republican Party came around to reality.”

        We moved our party by pushing, not playing nice and hoping for change.

        • posted by JohnInCA on

          But pushing causes backlash! You have to go slow!

          At least, that’s the excuse conservative/Republican gays have been making for as long as I can remember.

      • posted by JohnInCA on

        IIRC, they’ve been appearing at CPAC in different capacities, but were prohibited from talking about gay issues. So yeah actually, “gays for guns” *is* an improvement.

        • posted by TJ on

          BTW. Gun laws are not going to substantily change anytime soon. Its pretty easy to get one or more guns. So, “gays for guns” is both useless and unusual.

          • posted by JohnInCA on

            You mistake me.

            The reason it’s an improvement is because they were actually allowed to say “gay for guns”. Previously they haven’t really acknowledged being a gay group at all.

  4. posted by TJ on

    The guy was gleefully defending child sexual abuse/abuse of trust on an atheist Internet series.

    An Internet series where the “Amazing Atheist” likes to cater to wannabe libertarians and stick bannanas up his you-know-what.

  5. posted by Jorge on

    CPAC is minus Milo…

    (Oh, puke!) Why am I watching CPAC? Fox News has Mike Pence speaking. “And President Ronald Reagan inspired me to join conservatism XX years ago.”

    Yappiopolous is the feminine of Coulter’s masculine, every bit as much of a contentless drone.

    Among many of the CPACers sticking their tongues at Milo on the way down, that Jimmy LaSavila of the former GOProud was by far the most faithless. Guy had no problem inviting Ann Coulter to his org’s inaugural event. However right he is (I do think he’s right), he is not qualified to speak with such certainty.

    Unlike the accounts of Yiannopoulos’s recent guest appearance on Bill Maher’s show, Coulter did not cheapen the invitation she was given.

    I have never understood why homocons became so enthralled with Yappiopolous. He added nothing to the conservative discussion, had nothing to say that wasn’t already being better articulated by others. Was it nothing more than the fact that homocons, seemingly condemned to endlessly polish their tassel-loafers in a temporal version of Hell, were thrilled by a “provocateur” who dared talk about sucking “black cock”? Was it that thrilling?

    People see what they want to see. You say something that makes sense to people with a bit of pizzaz, they’ll overlook your faults. In politics we mostly judge people based on the content of their ideas or their persona rather than the content of their character, thus it becomes very difficult to recognize evil in individuals. It is almost as if it has a smell–there’s no blueprint to it. You can’t tell a lot of people that–they want a litmus test. You could seriously conduct a poll of educated LGBT people on whether Donald Trump and Mike Pence is more evil and I would seriously predict Mike Pence would come out on top. The lies, the verbal misogyny, his brutal retaliation, the sexual harassment–nuh uh: “Mike Pence promoted conversion therapy.”

    …It’s clear that the underlying theme of the Milo crowd is “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.” Milo was a useful idiot.

    Yes, I agree. Unlike you, I am concerned about the possibility he does not recognize he has been used. But if you’ve read that Out Magazine article, you need not feel guilty. Not everyone around him is a parasite.

  6. posted by Tom Scharbach on

    But pushing causes backlash! You have to go slow! At least, that’s the excuse conservative/Republican gays have been making for as long as I can remember.

    I think that’s a mask — a smokescreen, if you will — for the fact that homocon priorities do not align with mainstream LGBT thinking.

    You’ll recall that GOProud’s platform did not mention marriage equality as an issue until 2013 (shortly before the group imploded), and never included employment non-discrimination, school bullying, or domestic violence against gays and lesbians as issues.

    Similarly, LCR’s priorities (as expressed by Gregory Angelo in a Quartz Q&A two days ago) focus elsewhere:

    Q: What are your priorities now under Trump?

    A: Obamacare, tax reform, death tax repeal, preservation of the second amendment, fighting radical Islamic terrorism. There’s more to being LGBT “than marriage equality and non-discrimination.” For too long in this country, the issues that were important for LGBT Americans were defined almost exclusively by the left, and the gay left in particular; and that was on marriage equality and federal non-discrimination. But there’s more to being LGBT than those two issues. We have a tremendous opportunity right now to show the country that LGBT people by and large are not, or do not have to be, single issue voters.

    I suspect that LCR has never pushed to change the Republican Party in the way that Democratic gays and lesbians pushed the Democratic Party because the issues on which we pushed the Democratic Party are not important to LCR.

    LCR priorities — Obamacare, tax reform, death tax repeal, preservation of the second amendment, fighting radical Islamic terrorism — can and do coexist with the social and religious conservative goals of beating back “equal means equal”. I suspect that’s the reason why LCR never pushed the party.

  7. posted by TJ on

    Gay Tories in the U.K. actually pushed their party to change. The result is that all three main parties now back marriage equality and civil rights legislation.

    Gay Republicans – with few exceptions – let their party know that they dont really care about LGBT rights.

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