Editorials

What Annoyed the Internet This Week

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24 September 2018

By Bronwen

This week’s Internet feud is a tale of the most amazing sibling rivalry ever. In the fierce world of politics, one would usually expect that a politician would at least have their family on their side but in Senator Paul Gosar’s case, six of his nine siblings have made it very clear he will not be receiving their vote.

The Republican’s brothers and sisters (David, Tim, Jennifer, Gaston, Joan, and Grace) featured in a video endorsing Paul’s Democrat opponent, David Brill. The video begins with a series of professionals explaining why they believe Congressman Paul Gosar is not working for the people of rural Arizona. The unbelievable plot twist comes halfway through, as one by one, they each begin to reveal themselves to be one of his siblings. Christmas dinner is gonna be a bit uncomfortable this year in the Gosar household..

It’s the most shocking family drama of the decade and the Internet is loving it. Well, most of us are.

In case you haven’t heard of Paul Gosar, here are a few things you should know about him:

-He spoke in defence of white nationalist Tommy Robinson during Trump’s state visit to the UK.

-He criticised the Pope’s message on climate change, calling it a method “to guilt people into leftist policies”.

-He claimed the 2017 neo-Nazi rally in Charlottesville, Virginia was orchestrated by the Left.

Unfortunately, it seems that not all of the Gosar family has an issue with Paul. In response to the ad, he tweeted:

The tweets didn’t stop there. Paul went on a bit of a rant after seeing the video.

As always, the angry Republicans came out in full force to defend Paul Gosar and insult his siblings.

Some began to question the morality of publicly criticising your own brother.

After the video went viral, David Gosar and politics reporter Astead Wesley had a slight misunderstanding about the use of the word ‘petty’. To some people, petty means to seek spiteful revenge over a trivial matter but in colloquial terms, petty has a more positive connotation. Wesley tweeted:

Further down in the thread, Wesley posts that he had an email from an upset David Gosar, who had misinterpreted the tweet as a criticism. Wesley posted Gosar’s statement in the thread:

“What are we supposed to do when Paul makes excuses for the Charlottesville Nazis, goes to a march for Tommy Robinson, a despicable right-wing British thug and gives a speech, is a birther, slanders an old man, George Soros, who didn’t do anything wrong to him and then refuses to apologize, is on a mission to destroy health care coverage, denies climate change despite not having a clue of what he’s talking about, and supports a policy of kicking out DACA kids and taking babies away from parents at the border? Are we supposed to be silent? Or if we don’t, when we speak out we’re included in the term, “petty?” None of this is even close to being any kind of a joke to us.”

Wesley clarified that he had explained the different context of the word petty to Gosar:

“Programming note: I explained to him how I was not using the term petty to talk about their feelings, but in a colloquial sense to describe the advertisement and the decision by the campaign. Still wanted to share his statement, though”

 

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