Dan Crenshaw Is Cringe

While populists offer only empty slogans, the corporate puppet GOPe neocons offer real substance.

One of the zillennial generation's few worthy linguistic innovations is the transformation of the word "cringe" into a simple adjective. One no longer "cringes at" something--the sight of someone embarrassing himself in public, say. Nor is it necessary to spell out that something is "cringe-inducing." It suffices to say that something is "cringe." How else to describe Texas Rep. Dan Crenshaw's recent "Crenshaw Youth Summit"?

Crenshaw has long sought to parlay his vaguely Russell Crow-esque looks and eyepatch--the result of a roadside IED attack while deployed as a Navy SEAL in Afghanistan--into stardom. He's famous for playing the lead in expensively produced videos in which he skydives, action-hero-style, to the rescue of a nation menaced by tyrannical enemies, foreign and domestic. At his latest summit in Houston, he took this Hollywood flair to the next level.

As seen in footage of the event circulating online, video projected at the grand ballroom of the Hilton Americas in Houston showed Crenshaw and his staffers assembled in the Oval Office. An unseen Ronald Reagan is addressing the Crenshaw Crew, who have traveled in time to the 1980s to commune with the Great Right-Liberal-in-Chief.

Things were bad before Reagan arrived on the scene, the Gipper solemnly intones, "but then as now, a new generation rose up to meet the challenge of freedom, and American independence is born anew on the shoulders of the next generation of patriots."

Reagan, it should be noted, had talented speechwriters like Peggy Noonan, who unlike the Crenshaw Crew would never mix metaphors and figures of speech to create cringe-monstrosities like the notion that "independence" can be "born anew" on the "shoulders" of something or other.

The fictional Reagan asks Crenshaw, "What's on your mind, Dan?"

"Mr. President," Crenshaw replies, "how do we reach the next generation of patriots in my time, in 2022?"

"Don't you have somewhere to be?"

"Yeah, actually, I do have somewhere to be. My Youth Summit in 2022. They're waiting for me."

"Go forth, son. Remember, the future doesn't belong to the fainthearted, it belongs to the brave. We still have a chance to save America. The youth are our future."

"We won't let you down, sir. Thank you."

Crenshaw then travels back to 2022 and emerges from the DeLorean and races on foot to the podium, to scattered clapping and whooping. I didn't attend the summit, but photos and footage posted online show a painfully empty ballroom, and who can blame Lone Star State youth for steering clear of the event? The miasma of corny nostalgia and self-celebration oozing from the Hilton over the weekend must have been unbearable.

Video below.

posted by Ace at 05:24 PM

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