I've been a fan of Brandon Herrera's YouTube content for years. As a gun guy, it's hard not to be. He knows firearms, shoots awesome stuff, and he's funny. The problem for him now is that his sense of humor, which I share, is the kind of thing the Left is desperate to stamp out.
Unless they can use it to try to destroy a candidate they don't like...such as Herrera.
It seems that Herrera's past humor is too much, and he should be shunned from society forever.
Brandon Herrera, the Republican nominee for a key Texas congressional district, has repeatedly made vulgar sexual statements and derogatory comments about the appearance and intelligence of women, according to a CNN review of his videos, social media, and podcasts.
Herrera downplayed his controversial comments, which he made as a right-wing online personality known as “The AK Guy,” by describing them as jokes.
But the remarks surfaced by CNN underscore the uncomfortable position top Republican leaders face as they embrace Herrera in a district where the incumbent GOP congressman resigned over sexual misconduct allegations – and where Herrera’s Democratic opponent is a woman.
In the videos and other material reviewed by CNN, Herrera compared feminists’ weight to whales and nuclear bombs, joked that he was irresistible to “fat b*tches” after rubbing ranch dressing on his body, and described liberal women discussing guns as “both fat and wrong.” He also lobbed sexually explicit insults at a gun safety advocate and her children.
Never mind that Democrats are openly supporting candidates who have sided with literal freaking terrorists for decades; Republicans are in an uncomfortable spot because Herrera makes jokes that some people on the internet don't like, including calling some people "fat."
As a plus-sized gentleman (at least for now), I'd like to explain that there's a reason Herrera does this. It's because they're "fat b*tches."
Are we clear now?
But to me, the best part is this:
Beyond the political consequences, one expert in online speech who reviewed CNN’s findings described Herrera’s statements as representative of Internet misogyny and said such content can result in real-world damage.
“I think if we want a safer society overall, we should also be worried about candidates like this who help normalize things that we know are reliable predictors of political violence,” said Cynthia Miller-Idriss, who oversees the Polarization & Extremism Research & Innovation Lab (PERIL) at American University. Miller pointed to research her lab has done suggesting that spreading misogynistic statements can fuel extremists willing to commit real-life violence.
Interesting...except there's no link to the research in question, no citation given, and it's absolutely stupid on its surface anyway.
It's interesting because, as Cam Edwards notes at our sister site, Bearing Arms, Miller-Idriss made a claim about what people will do on their own.
Notice that Miller-Idriss isn't accusing Herrera of saying anything that's actually supportive of political or "real-life violence." What she's suggesting is that Herrera's jokes might spur someone to commit an act of violence, and though she "pointed to research" CNN failed to include a link to that research so that its audience could judge for themselves how much weight (no pun intended) to give Miller-Idriss and her claims.
Miller-Idriss is particularly upset that Herrera's compared "feminists" to "killer whales" and "elephants," telling CNN that it's a way to "put women in their place, to diminish their power, their authority, to belittle or degrade," and added "If you’re referred to as an animal, you’re not actually even fully human, right?”
Honestly, I like most animals more than I like most people, so I don't really see that as a negative.
I'm the same way, and the truth is that a lot of the people Herrera is poking at are people who already didn't like him, who he didn't like, and that a lot of people already have strong opinions on one way or another. I seriously doubt a YouTuber making a joke is going to trigger a damn thing. Without the actual research in question by PERIL, it's hard to say how they reached their conclusion.
Oh, and guess who PERIL has a partnership with?
That's right, boys and girls, the same Southern Poverty Law Center that we learned has been funding the very hate they claim to be fighting. The same SPLC that has never made a thing about a single act of leftist extremism, but who are also likely to brand two guys in a Ford F150 and a Trump flag as an extremist militia.
They say you can judge someone by the company they keep, and in this case, PERIL is keeping company with absolute scumbags.
While Herrera uses edgy humor and isn't particularly kind with that humor, so what? At least he's not actively funding hate groups just so he can fundraise off of fighting them. You know, as some groups are alleged to have done.
And that relationship isn't new, either.
So I guess the real question isn't whether Herrera's humor is for everyone, but whether you want to buy into the claim that the humor causes actual violence by third parties that comes from the same people who are keeping hate groups alive.
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