Dumb of the week — extended edition

By Ben Olson
Reader Staff

There is an entire corner of the internet dedicated to the art of the self-own. It seems we all can’t get enough of seeing someone unload a shovelful of embarrassment onto themselves, usually while trying to show how smart or capable they think they are. Call it the “Dunning-Kruger Zone.”

Most are mild and quickly forgotten. 

One famous example is a post by an internet user named Lara Witt, writing about the concept of a female “sex strike” — suggested by actress Alyssa Milano in response to anti-abortion legislation around the country: “This idea frames sex as something that hetero women are subjected to rather than enthusiastic participants in.”

A smiling dork named Brad Anderson responded, “I get the point you’re trying to make, but I have yet to meet a hetero woman who enthusiastically participates in sex.” 

Zing, Brad. 

Or how about when Republican Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz, when he said he opposed an active shooter alert system because it would, “Bombard your phone 24 hours a day.”

Then there is “America’s Mayor” Rudy Guiliani, who represented Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election in one of the saddest publicly performed downward spirals in history. Appearing on a talk show, he attempted to explain why he hadn’t produced any evidence of mass voter fraud during the 2020 election. 

“Do you think we’re stupid? Do you think we’re fools?” he screamed like Nosferatu after stubbing his toe. 

This is the same guy who accidentally booked a press conference at the Four Seasons Landscaping right next to a sex shop instead of the Four Seasons Hotel. This is the guy who put his hand down his pants in Borat Subsequent Moviefilm (2020) in an apparent and bungled attempt to seduce a female actress playing the title character’s 15-year-old daughter (Rudy was unaware that there were cameras in the room and he was appearing in a mockumentary). This is the guy who leaked what appeared to be motor oil from his temples during a press conference and has been permanently disbarred from practicing law in D.C. for ethics violations while representing Trump in court. Also, same guy who was just ordered to turn over his New York apartment and luxury assets to two Georgia election workers who won a $148 million defamation judgment against him. 

Yes, Rudy, we think you’re stupid. Yes, Rudy, we think you’re a fool.

Or how about Lin Wood? He was one of the dozens of hanger-on lawyers who Trump employed from time to time. Wood has spoken favorably about the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol, called for former-Vice President Mike Pence to be subjected to a firing squad and claimed all along that he had evidence of fraud during the 2020 election. 

One motion that Wood filed seemed to contain a Freudian self-own that still makes me chuckle: He filed a motion in court alleging election fraud “under plenty of perjury.” 

I’ll say. 

Wood has since been disbarred in Colorado federal court and also found liable for defamation to the tune of $4.5 million.

All of those examples are whimsical, but lack the panache to really own the self-own market.

Enter: Donald J. Trump.

He’s got a Taylor Swift problem and it’s entirely of his own making.

In August, Trump’s campaign posted a bunch of A.I.-generated images of Swift and her fans vowing they would vote for Trump. It was obviously fake, but packaged as if it were real. Like the goon he is, Trump even wrote, “I accept!” on one of the posts. One of the fake posts, that his campaign created.Give me a break.

His campaign even styled a line of T-shirts in a very similar way to Swift’s “Eras” tour design, with pleas like, “Calling all Swifties for Trump,” attached to the images.

Who knows if Swift would’ve endorsed Kamala Harris if Trump’s campaign didn’t feel the need to lie and force her hand. What we do know is that right after Harris debated Trump (cue the clip of Trump shouting, “They’re eating the pets!”), Swift took to Instagram and posted a photo of her and her cat, writing that the A.I. fakery “brought me to the conclusion that I need to be very transparent about my actual plans for this election as a voter. The simplest way to combat misinformation is with the truth.” She then endorsed Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, articulating why their campaign aligns with her personal beliefs.

“Who cares about Taylor Swift?” one might ask. Clearly you’ve never met a Swiftie. They are fiercely loyal to the biggest pop star in the world. That one Instagram post drove 405,999 visitors to vote.gov to register to vote in just 24 hours after it was published. Who knows how many of her fans have registered to vote since then, too. 

That was a pretty big self-own. But I’m not finished.

A few days later, like a toddler angry at someone for stealing his pudding pop, Trump thumbed out the following in all caps on his social network: “I HATE TAYLOR SWIFT!” No further context or explanation.

That was another self-own. It’s so childish it doesn’t deserve commentary.

Finally, we fast forward to last week, when a Trump supporter decided to keep prodding Swift and her billions of fans. As thousands of Swifties descended on Miami for the “Eras” Tour, a lone plane flew overhead towing a banner that read, “TRUMP 2024 — READY FOR IT CAT LADY? MAGA!”

Look, I know young voters aren’t always the most reliable demographic. It’s hard to pay attention to politics even as a grown-ass adult. But this election could not be any closer. It could very well be decided by people voting for their first or second time ever. 

A recent poll by the Institute of Politics at the Harvard Kennedy School indicates that Harris holds a 31-point lead over Trump among those 18 to 29 years old. Furthermore, since Biden dropped out of the race, a significant enthusiasm gap has widened, with 74% of young Democrats saying they would “definitely” vote compared to 60% of young Republicans saying they would “definitely” vote.

The most damning statistic of all shows that Harris leads Trump 70% to 23% among likely female voters… which is an appreciable portion of Taylor Swift’s fan base.

To thumb your nose at this potential voting demographic is akin to a bad ’80s movie villain providing the conditions for a hero’s origin story. Young people could well be the voting bloc that pushes one candidate over the other in this all-too-important election just a matter of days from now. 

For his final push in the campaign, Trump worked a fake shift at McDonald’s to somehow prove that Harris never did when she was younger. He then held a rally at Madison Square Garden filled with toxic bro culture and racist rhetoric, like a right-wing comedian calling Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage,” which inspired Puerto Rican pop stars like Ricky Martin, Jennifer Lopez and Bad Bunny to post messages of support for Kamala Harris to their tens of millions of followers. 

One especially vile moment was when Trump claimed he would deport somewhere between 2 and 20 million people on day one. He also claimed there were “200,000” people in attendance. The Madison Square Garden has a capacity of 19,500, about 180,500 people short of Trump’s crowd estimate.

It never ends with this guy.

Of course, the really funny part about all of this is that Trump may be elected president again in a matter of days, and this entire column will be a self-own of its own. 

But I suspect if Trump is elected on Nov. 5, I’ll have more important things to fear than looking like a fool in this newspaper. I might just be one of the many people Trump believes is an “enemy within,” just for being a journalist who reports the news and has an opinion different than his.

See you on the other side.