The Crotch Pommelling Party of the Year Just Got Underway

Why don’t the Democrats have their version of CPAC? We need a place for like-minded people to get together, yell at imaginary bogeymen, sell merch, and commit unwanted sexual advances. True, we’ve got Los Angeles, which is pretty close, but nothing that compares to the pure, unadulterated, concentrated crazy that only CPAC can provide.

This year, for example, organization’s head, Matt Schlapp (“The sound of two porkchops hitting a linoleum floor” – Simon Maloy) finds himself accused of sexual battery by Carlton Huffman, a male campaign operative for Herschel Walker’s senatorial campaign. Walker, too, was also accused of sexual impropriety, assault, and threatening to kill his former wife, which isn’t germane to the Matt Schlapp story, but what am I going to do, not mention it? C’mon, of course I am.

Lest we feel too bad for the victim here, I would point you to this equally non-germane 2023 WRAL news story about the case:

Huffman was also part of a segregationist group called the Council of Conservative Citizens. He said Thursday that he left after the group expressed openly antisemitic views. Huffman said that he “did not embrace white supremacy or bigotry” but that he was “too closely associated” with people who did.

For the record, I, too, do not embrace supremacy or bigotry. Unlike Huffman, however, I am not “closely associated” with people who do. Nor, like Huffman, did I make multiple guest appearances on a “pro white” radio show.

Pictured: Matt Schlapp

To his credit, Huffman has disavowed these associations and is now focused on electing Republicans to higher office for the the important work of enacting the Republican agenda, which, coincidentally, is also the agenda of white supremacy and bigotry.

Go figure.

Anyway, I’m not here to victim-shame Carlton Huffman. He’s been through enough. Only a couple months ago, a new detail emerged when he added the CPAC organization itself to his lawsuit, claiming, according to this Daily Beast article that, “the organization knew of another alleged sexual assault months prior to Schlapp ‘groping’ and ‘pommeling’ Huffman’s crotch against his will.” Not sure what it means to have your crotch pommeled, but when I try to picture it, I imagine a drunken Matt Schlapp, in his underwear, punching Huffman’s nuts like a speedbag.

What’s in store for this year at CPAC? Jack Posobiec, best known for inventing a sex trafficking ring in a Washington DC pizza parlor, opened his portion of the CPAC proceedings by saying, “Welcome to the end of democracy. We didn’t get all the way there on January 6^th, but we will endeavor to get rid of it and replace it with this right here.” At which point he raises his arm in a quasi-Nazi salute, except that his extended arm ends with a clenched fist instead of a flat palm. Normal stuff.

At first, I assumed he was mocking the media’s attitude towards CPAC, but nobody laughed at his remark. Instead, a male voice can be heard just off-screen responding, “Alright. Amen.”

I mean, at this point, it’s almost kind of banal to point out Republican cray-cray, but that’s only because we’ve got so used to it that it no longer feels like much of a story when the sexual allegation du jour is nothing more than a good, old-fashioned crotch pommeling.

It’s sad when once-mighty institutions like CPAC and the NRA fall on hard times. Sad, too, when the chief witness against the president is found to be a fraud in league with Russian intelligence. And it’s downright depressing when state party coffers are drained dry from mismanagement, infighting, and defending slates of fake electors.

Yet they persist.

I take no joy in reporting these facts. After all, the Dems have certainly gone through their share of past dysfunction; some would argue dysfunction is actually the Democrats’ natural state of being. It was always the buttoned-up Republican Party that had their stuff together. Remember during the W. years when they marched in goose lockstep during the multiple rounds of tax cuts for the rich and the invasion of a country that didn’t do anything to us?

Where has that uniformity of purpose gone? It used to be that the dependable, stolid blue-blazered fellows kept the party’s nutjobs in line. Now all that’s left is the nutjobs and, frankly, it’s gotten a bit stale.

There was a time when Republicans allowed themselves to get bent out of shape over a Republican candidate launched her 2010 campaign for senator with the memorable tagline: “I am not a witch.” This happened after former Klan Grand Wizard David Duke almost won his race for Senate but predates when Roy Moore came within a few points of winning his, despite being a (alleged) pedophile. Then, I don’t know if you remember this insanity, but the GOP nominated a cheesy gameshow host to be president.

Thank God he didn’t win, lol.

So of course CPAC 2024 is going to be a shitshow. With headliners like (indicted for fraud) Steve Bannon, (fired after 50 days) former British Prime Minister Liz Truss, and (currently under investigation for sex trafficking) Matt Gaetz, how could it be anything else? I mean, in comparison to these winners, pommeling somebody’s crotch sounds positively de rigueur.

Frankly, I’m jealous.