Donald Trump Jr. isn't horny for drag queens, honest to god
The former president's son joins a chorus of rightwing bloviators in denouncing Nellis Air Force Base's recent drag show, because some people are joyless scolds.
“Are we freakin’ stupid?” ~ Don Jr. in the video below
“Shut up, Donny,” ~ Walter Sobchack, The Big Lebowski
“For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked.”—Revelations 3:17
I despise jingoistic bullshit almost as much as I despise wimpy rich kids trying to act tough.
So yeah, when it comes to Don Jr. I’m not a fan. He has very a punchable face. Even his beard is slimy. He ticks off all the boxes. Rich, spoiled, self-centered, dull and mean-spirited with nothing interesting or witty to say. He can’t even do cruel well. I mean, I’m no fan of former (future?) president Trump, either, but at least the dude is funny.
Trump Sr. can get away with a lot of nonsense because he has an enormous amount of charisma—whether you love him or hate him, it’s impossible to deny that the man has star appeal. He’s a celebrity who happens to have inherited a great deal of money and a politician who succeeded because of his showbiz cred.
Donald the younger lacks these qualities. And so I give unto you this tweet and the video it links to in which Don Jr. is SHOCKED that the military hosted a drag show at Nellis Air Force Base outside of Las Vegas. SHOCKED I SAY.
Smarmy Jr has a very annoying voice, but we shouldn’t make fun of him for that because he can’t help it. He was born that way. Besides, as much as we might want to tell him to shut up, mocking him is lots more fun.
Junior worries that the Air Force drag show is some kind of manifestation of wokeness because he doesn’t have any idea what he’s talking about—woke-ism to Baby Trump is just another word for “liberals/progressives/the left” and he’s almost certainly never studied up on the history of drag shows any more than he’s trained with the marines (or has he, late at night when nobody’s looking???)
There’s nothing woke about drag shows. Drag queens have a long and storied past that stretches back long before woke was even a twinkle in our collective eye. (Indeed, I sometimes wonder if eventually drag shows will come under fire from the activist crowd as drag and trans issues collide—not a crazy stretch of the imagination when you think about it).
Anyways, drag shows are fun. That’s the long and short of it. Yeah, they’re about tolerance and acceptance and letting your true colors shine and all that, but they’re mostly performative, wild, colorful celebrations designed to bring joy to people’s drab, grey lives. And they’re not even remotely new to the US military.
Actual photographic evidence that drag was a thing during the Korean War. [please don’t correct me on this]
Here’s an excellent bit of history from Rose Durand about GI drag shows during World War II—see the GI’s dancing in drag at the top of this piece—decades before anything even remotely resembling the woke politics of 2021 reared its ugly head. Read it for some perspective if you doubt me. Here’s an excerpt:
Through drag, these soldiers could often successfully walk a fine line in the military, as being discovered as gay could lead to administrative discharge. Military officials were not thrilled with the widespread existence of these drag shows due to a concern that the public may believe that they “condoned effeminacy and homosexuality.” Regardless, the shows were allowed to continue due to the profoundly positive impact that they had on soldiers’ morale, a huge benefit to the overall war effort. In fact, the military went to great lengths to ensure that some of the larger performances were quite professional, creating soldier show workshops that taught skills such as scriptwriting, costume design, and makeup for those performing in drag.
Turns out that men who are comfortable with their own sexuality can enjoy dancing in makeup and burlesque attire without worrying what other people will think. That’s true confidence, not the blustery fake confidence we see in so many overstuffed political commentators.
I’m watching Mini Trump’s video again and dear god this man is smarmy. He could be speaking a foreign language and I’d still think he was a smarmy prick. He could be reading a kids book—like Ted Cruz’s signed copy of Dr. Seuss perhaps?—to orphans he’d just fed and clothed and set up with scholarships and he’d still come off like a slime-bag. I suppose that’s talent of a kind.
Lil’ Trump, like his father, never served in any branch of the US military, but still thinks he’s more qualified to speak about what will or will not help morale than the base’s administrators. Not that he gives a damn. This is just posturing, just a way to dig at Biden. Just a way to act tough because deep down, Donald Trump Jr. is just a scared, lonely little kid still who wishes he’d had a normal life, a normal dad who hugged him and spent time with him playing catch and reading stories and all this fame and wealth is a heavy, inescapable burden crushing him, weighing him down with expectations and emptiness. Such emptiness, you can see it in his eyes. I do feel sorry for him in a way, twisted creature of a decadent, materialistic society that long ago traded whatever holy things we had left for the promise of golden calves. Maybe all the riches in the world just turn people bad and sour and rotten. Poverty is a sickness, too.
Anyways.
The whole fake drag show controversy has become fodder for rightwing talking heads, all of whom seem to think that drag shows—despite having been around since before any of us were born—are “woke.”
You really get the sense from a lot of these pieces that none of the authors have ever attended a drag show and that all of them are a little nervous that they’d enjoy it a bit too much. Well they’re probably not wrong.
I suppose this 1942 drag show was why we lost to the Nazis, right Breitbart?
Besides, drag shows were taking place during Trump’s “woke” administration also, a minor detail Don Jr. and his flunkies all fail to mention.
Live and let live, folks. That’s what I say. Be excellent to each other and party on. You know what benefits morale? People having a good time and not taking everything so damn seriously all the time. Being chill. It’s Pride month and the Air Force wants to let loose a bit. Can’t let the Navy have all the fun.
Looking for a good movie about drag queens? I recommend The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert or To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar.
And here’s Trixie Mattel covering Lana Del Rey’s Video Games:
Trixie’s great. This next video is long, but worth it. If you listen to nothing else, skip ahead to the 30 minute mark and listen to the song Gold. Really tremendous song and yes, I get a little teared up listening to it. A more beautiful thing than Don Jr. has ever created, I can say that with certainty.
Enjoy.
I don’t know about you but my morale’s improved already.
Peace and love, my droogies.
Update:
I have to say, Rudy doesn’t look bad as a blonde—might be Trump’s type, actually:
Up next: no cishet caucasian males allowed, because I mean it when I say that my politics are eclectic but consistently so and I will do my best to keep you on your toes.
See also: Episode 2 of the diabolical podcast featuring Sunless Sea developer Alexis Kennedy. I’m really excited about the podcast so please consider subscribing on iTunes or wherever you listen to podcasts. And please consider subscribing to diabolical or to my no-politics-only-fun-stuff newsletter fantastical as either a free or paid subscriber and help make this work possible. Thanks!