Whitmer's Social Media Guru Is EXACTLY Who You Think

AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite

The Democrats have recently leaned heavily into the TikTok social media style. It is weird, cringy, very effeminately gay, and only appeals to a segment of flighty Gen Z insecure boys and girls. 

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This is the TikTok of Dylan Mulvaney, drag queens, gender ideology, and immature girls who are in desperate need of identity and affirmation. People who have been shaped and infantilized by a social media virus that turns brains to mush. 

Kamala launched her campaign with a TikTok theme: "Brat Summer," and for a moment, it worked. Not because ordinary people respond to the moronic TikTok meme, but rather because it was so out of left field that it helped reset the race by making people talk about Kamala Harris in a new way. The confusing nature of the pitch was actually genius because otherwise, we would be talking about what a moron she had always been. It set up the JOY! meme and stretched out the introduction. 

The problem, of course, is that TikTok and the real world are fundamentally different. The currency of TikTok is being weird and mentally ill. It is the natural home of alphabet ideology, and weird memes come to life. It is about celebrating mental illness. It is where people show off their "top surgery," their drag outfits, and play out fake Tourettes' Syndrome. 

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This gets us to Gretchen Whitmer, who has been leaning heavily toward building a TikTok personality to appeal to Generation Z. 

Being Gen X, Governor Whitmer obviously doesn't have the mental vocabulary to "get" TikTok, so she relies on a young, hip, and, of course, very queer social media advisor. The kind of person who thinks miming communion with a Dorito and pretending to be a dominatrix priestess is kinda cool. 

A "queer content creator" knows nothing about what ordinary people think is sacred except in terms of mocking such things. Ordinary life is the opposite of TikTok, and mocking it is the height of TikTokiness. Weirdness is sacred on TikTok, and believing in the incarnation of Christ is eminently mockable to such people

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has elicited eye rolls from some and allegations of religious bigotry from others in response to her social media antics in recent years.

Most recently, the Michigan Catholic Conference cited a Whitmer post on X featuring the governor feeding a Dorito to a left-wing influencer as “an all-too-familiar example of an elected official mocking religious persons and their practices.”


“The skit goes further than the viral online trend that inspired it, specifically imitating the posture and gestures of Catholics receiving the Holy Eucharist, in which we believe that Jesus Christ is truly present,” MCC President Paul Long said.

The Dorito “communion” post follows others that have leveraged Gen Z slang, social media trends, profanity, LGBT themes and 90s hip-hop to help “Big Gretch” pursue social media fame and promote her new book.

They’re mostly designed to portray Whitmer as a leading figure in pop culture, and they’re mostly designed by Whitmer’s senior photographer Julia Pickett.

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Pickett is "queer," and hence the perfect person to help you gain fame on TikTok. And if Gretchen Whitmer wants to be a TikTok star it makes sense to trust her. 

The only problem is that TikTok is, and is meant to be, a rejection of ordinary life. It is an escape from a mundane world in which people have families, go to church, and deal with challenges and opportunities as adults. It is not, in other words, a world in which you would want a governor or President of the United States to shine. 

It’s Pickett, according to the site, who “is tasked with the monumental task of figuring out which issues to highlight and how to position them in a way that resonates with citizens and Whitmer’s political stances.”

Pickett’s X page says she is “Digital and Creative Director, Photographer/Videographer for @GovWhitmer.”

It seems clear Pickett’s sexuality and relentless focus on riding social media trends has a strong influence, and it’s undoubtedly sending the message the governor is unserious about addressing a mounting list of pressing issues impacting Michiganders.

There was Whitmer’s “pronoun jacket” designed by Pickett last year that spawned from “the governor and I … brainstorming ideas for Pride,” she told Pride Source.

“It took me a couple of days to figure out what I wanted the message to be,” she said, noting Whitmer never saw the jacket until it was showtime. “Once I had the concept down, I played around with the design and fonts on the computer before finally painting on the jacket.”

The response as Whitmer donned the jacket at Motor City Pride was “so amazing,” Pickett said.

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If you follow the Democrats as closely as I do on social media, what pops out is how much farther they have separated themselves from ordinary people than one would imagine. This has obviously bled into their public personas in the real world--the embrace of gender ideology, the love of drag queens, and the increasingly feminine approach to everything. 

It explains why the Harris campaign thinks that this was a good idea:

No heterosexual male is attracted by this portrayal of masculinity. I am hardly a "manly man," but I found this repulsive, and as far as I can tell, no other straight male would be anything but repulsed. Matt Taibbi mercilessly mocks the ad, which comes off as a parody but is real. 

Queer isn't so much about sexuality--although that is an aspect of the identity--but rather a rejection of societal norms. That is what makes it "queer" instead of L,G, B, or T. The "Q" is all about mocking ordinary people. 

Democrats have embraced the Q, as it were, and it is alienating people at an increasing rate. Not because people hate the LGBTQ "community" per se, but because the Q and T parts of that "community" define themselves as anti-ordinary. Lesbians and gays wanted to be seen as normal, and finally achieved that goal. The alphabet people outright hate you, and say so. 

This is the natural constituency of Democrats these days. It is who they want to appeal to. Perhaps they think it is the way to stay au courant, but it is devastating to them if they keep it up. 

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HotAir Staff 7:00 PM | November 05, 2024
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