Today in people exhibiting tremendous, just absolutely off-the-charts LDE: Imp-like right-wing pundit Ben Shapiro is asking fellow patriots to go to their local Home Depot and buy a board or something to show their support for voter suppression laws.
Atlanta-headquartered Home Depot has become the target of boycott calls from Black faith leaders in Georgia, including the leader of the state’s African Methodist Episcopal churches, Bishop Reginald T. Jackson, for not joining other major corporations in protesting the GOP legislature’s efforts to shove through a blatantly undemocratic, racist law intended to suppress Democratic voters. Republicans, for their part, have long elevated screaming about any business that takes a political position to the left of Pinochet into a cringeworthy past time. (See, for example, the Keurig-smashing trend in 2017 or the recent moral panic over Hasbro’s decision to make the Potato Head line gender-neutral, thus allegedly severing Mr. Potato Head’s imaginary penis).
There’s no reason anyone should give a shit what Shapiro, who markets himself as the intellectual voice of the hard right rather than a grimy little Facebook-spamming weasel with a thesaurus, has to say about anything. That said, it’s hard not to gawk when he embarrasses himself over and over, like that time he declared war on Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion’s “WAP” but was fatally undermined by his obvious discomfort at the lyrics (“wet arse p-word,” he recited). To address the most recent boycott situation, Shapiro tweeted, “Fine, only shopping at Home Depot from now on” on Tuesday. Then he did what any genius would do to prove his point: repeatedly saying the words “Home Depot” while buying a plank.
“Here we are at Home Depot,” Shapiro intoned in a recent Instagram Story (which you can watch here). “As you know, controversy has now involved Home Depot, as people are encouraging people to boycott Home Depot because Home Depot is not getting involved in Georgia’s voter law controversy. Home Depot is doing exactly the right thing because after all, they are, in fact, Home Depot; they are not, in fact, in the business of politics. Because you should be buying from companies that are not falling to the woke left, Home Depot, so far, is one of those companies.”
Shapiro then presented his contribution to the neo-Confederate cause, complete with a redundant shopping bag and a receipt that presumably came to under ten bucks: “All right, as you can see, I just went shopping at Home Depot, you should do the same. This wood, this board, this magnificent piece of poplar, is now mine.”
So there you have it, folks: After countless years of people saying he couldn’t do it, Ben Shapiro has finally proved he can get wood. Tiny, fragile-looking wood, yes. But wood nonetheless.
Anyhow, some free advice to Home Depot: Even if you can’t scrounge up the tiniest little shred of dignity necessary to put out a statement against racist voting laws, maybe reconsider if you want.