"Angertainment" is an absurd talking point; and Colorado Democratic Congressional candidate Adam Frisch is at the tip of its national spear

If Representative Lauren Boebert didn't exist, the Democrats would have to invent her. And they often do.

I didn’t anticipate writing an essay today, and not simply because no one is paying me to do so. But an email I received this morning changed my mind, so watching First Amendment auditors clash with often overzealous police on YouTube is going to have to wait a bit. Though only a bit. A man has his priorities, after all.

The email I’m referring to is a rather innocuous, unsolicited email from Democrat Adam Frisch, who ran a very close campaign against Republican Representative Lauren Boebert in the 2022 House races. In it, Mr Frisch — or more likely, some member of his PR team — pretends to ask me if he should run for office again in 2024, as if he hasn’t already made that determination and is simply fishing for later donations by building email donor lists. How I came to be on one of his lists already is a puzzler, given that I’m not in Ms Boebert’s congressional district, nor have I offered any support for Mr Frisch in the past. As many of you might know, “Frisch” is something of a sore spot with me, even if, as in this case, there’s no relation.

We all know that these types of emails are quite common and quite legion, and are especially aimed at those who have shown an interest in politics or something politically adjacent. Algorithms pick up on such things, and our information is then sold off to those willing to pay for it.

So it goes.

But for whatever reason, reading the email that ostensibly came my way from Mr Frisch this morning provoked me into responding, knowing full well that my response was going to be as phatic as was the original solicitation, which only pretended to care what I think about a second Congressional run for this self-styled “centrist” Democrat. My response — just like Mr Frisch’s entreaty — will make no difference on the level of personal politics. Still, I found the exercise useful: because maybe it’s time we put away some of our cynicism long enough to take at face value what we’re being asked, and to provide honest answers to those who never anticipated getting them.

Before I post the Frisch email and my response, though, let me first address the elephant in the room, which — along with cigar smoke or Pabst breath, depending on whether we’re engaging with establicans or populists — is that hulking grey-skinned beast that sucks much of the oxygen out of spaces where Republicans tend to congregate: I understand that Representative Boebert is not every putative conservative’s cup of tea. I also recognize, though, that that fact in itself should not prevent conservative support for Ms Boebert, just as it shouldn’t lead to GOP reluctance to stand behind her, the reasons for which my response will hopefully elucidate.

So while this email exchange is on one level my response to Mr Frisch and his inevitable candidacy, it is simultaneously a response to the GOP establicans and polished “conservative” chin rubbers whose desire to appear sophisticated to the left elite serves only to strengthen the idea that politics and politicians belong to some rarefied strata that further moves us away from a government of, by, and for the people.

This classist separation is often an intentional part of what drives the left, who has always believed, despite airy protestations to the contrary, in the necessity of an especially enlightened politburo to run the State for the good of a dull proletariat. Sadly, many on the right think the same way — though they tend to want less regulation and lower taxes.

Both coteries are repulsive to our founding ideals and anathema to the pursuit of unvarnished liberty. Putting a tux on Jerry Nadler or Mitch McConnell doesn’t turn either into Fred Astaire — which should bother us even more when they begin to dance, and when we realize that it is we who are paying for both the tuxes and the painfully inelegant movements we’re forced to concede are being performed on our behalfs.

But back to the email exchange. First, here is Mr Frisch’s solicitation:

From: Adam Frisch (info@adamforcolorado.com)

Subject: Should I run against Lauren Boebert again?

Jeff,

I want to start this email by saying two simple words that not enough politicians say: Thank you.

When I decided to run against Lauren Boebert last year, I thought we’d have a good chance of winning.

I knew if we made it through the primary, ran the right campaign, and worked hard, we could beat Boebert in 2022. After all, she had only won by 5 percent in 2020.

Very few people believed we could actually win. All of the national pundits said it was a “Safe Republican” seat. But you and I… We proved them wrong.

On Election Night, the talking heads on cable news couldn’t believe the results coming in. The race went to a recount, and ultimately, after all the ballots were counted, we came up just 546 votes short. It was the closest race in the entire country.

Lots of people have asked me how we got so close. And sure, I think it has a lot to do with how fed up voters are with Lauren Boebert caring more about herself than about the district. But we also put in the work.

My family and I drove 24,000 miles in my red pickup truck to every corner of the district. We showed up, met people where they were, and spent time listening to everyone – something Rep. Boebert might consider actually doing herself from time to time.

And then, there was you. People like you volunteered, donated, made phone calls, sent postcards, knocked on doors… Our campaign was truly grassroots-powered. We couldn’t have done it without you.

So yes, it’s true. I am considering running against Lauren Boebert again in 2024. It’s not going to be easy. Her Super PACs are going to spend millions saying the nastiest things they can dream up about me on TV. That’ll be hard for my family and me – especially my two children.

But Lauren Boebert continues to be everything that’s wrong with Congress right now.

I want to hear your thoughts: Reply directly to this email, and let me know what you think. Would you be all-in to do this with me if I run again?

I’m eternally grateful for everything you did to support our team during the last campaign. It’d mean a lot to hear from you.

With gratitude -
Adam

Hear that, everyone? Adam wants to hear my thoughts! Should I be flattered? Ordained? Hired? I mean, Adam came to me! Which, I suppose that makes me a rather important fellow here in Colorado, even though I’m someone whose reach has been substantially diminished by a government-Big Tech collusive agreement that de-platformed me and cut off ties between myself and about 16K Twitter followers — all for knowing ahead of time what the CDC and the Biden Administration refused to concede were substantive concerns about a mass vaccination program into the teeth of a pandemic, especially one dealing with respiratory virus.

Still, I’m not without my ego. So here’t goes:

Dear Adam —

No, you should not run against Rep Boebert, especially if your defense of our 2A protections against government overreach is not as vigorous as hers is. This doesn’t mean you can’t run, naturally; but since you asked… 

You’re correct, sadly (and I assume such an implicit argument based upon your solicitation of my support), that what was once cowboy country has been overrun by nannystatist liberals like yourself who presume to dictate our rights to us, and who run for office with the express intention of constraining those rights under the rubric of “safety” or some other such euphemism meant to claw away at individual autonomy in the service of some self-serving appeal to “the greater good,” which — not accidentally — seems always to benefit those whose driving goal is power.

In your case, your appeal here is that you’d represent your district better than Rep Boebert. That may be true — but for it to be so, you’d have to argue that those in your district align with the governing philosophy of the party you’ll vote in lockstep with once you assume power. And yours is a party that has decided that sex is a continuum, while race is immutable, and so its essentialism dispositive of certain proper and agreed-upon social characteristics and attitudes; that some of our rights are more secure than others; that our national sovereignty must be surrendered to massive civil and societal dislocation made inevitable by the overwhelming influx of illegal aliens, which your party hopes to eventually turn into D voters, and which many Republicans — though importantly, not Rep Boebert — view as cheap labor. And on and on. 

The truth is, we need more citizen legislators like Rep Boebert, not fewer.  And your willingness to pretend that her stewardship over the rights of those in her district don’t increase their liberties lets me know everything I need to about your own plans for office. You see her as coarse, and so vulnerable: the GOP establishment whom she often attempts to hold to account don’t much care for her, either, which you understand — and your email makes this clear — leaves her vulnerable, particularly to those who peddle themselves as centrist or even conservative Democrats despite their frequent hits on MSNBC, which as a news outlet is to centrism precisely as being a nun is to bondage and assplay.

I’d suggest this points to one of two things:  either you’re a political opportunist; or you’re a leftist whose policies no one who believes in individual liberty should ever willingly promote to power. 

Unfortunately, most citizens don’t pay enough attention to who is governing them. I, however, am not among that lot. 

Regards, 

Jeff, who doesn’t wish to be on your mailing list and wonders why he’s on it in the first place:  he’s not even in your Congressional district.

In his Joy Reid appearance during the ballot counting following the 2022 race — and it doesn’t get more centrist and America-first than Joy Reid! — Mr Frisch decries what he calls “angertainment,” a clever-to-him neologism or portmanteau word he hopes will nudge those who see themselves as refined into rejecting clear expressions of anger and frustration with government incompetence or corruption as somehow untoward (see, eg., Professor Lipson’s argument for such staged civility here).

But this was not the case at the time of our founding — citizen criticism of government and government officials was both colorful and legendary, often culminating in tar and feathers — and has become something of an artificial cultural command as our politics have moved inexorably toward a neo-feudalist paradigm, one where the people’s House is fenced off, but the border signifying our national sovereignty is very intentionally and ostentatiously left wide open.

This is just another attempt to claim an appeal to unity that always seems to manifest in the condemnation of half the country. (See, eg., Biden, J., or Bulwark, The.)

I unreservedly reject such a paradigm. Not only is it classist, but it marks a lurch backward toward aristocracy. And with aristocracy comes autocracy and totalitarianism, even if it plays out benevolently: your King and the aristocracy surrounding him may love you and treat you well; but you are still his servant — and when it becomes necessary, in the view of the sovereign, to remind you of such, that’s when the facade of the benevolent King vaporizes, revealing the pure will to power that undergirds the arrangement between master and serf.

Representative Boebert is a true citizen legislator. And her willingness to speak plainly and to advocate for our rights in a way that is less polished than the ruling elite prefer, is both necessary and righteous.

While it’s true you can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar, the best option of all is to rid yourself of the flies entirely, and in that respect, both honey and vinegar should be replaced on the shelf, the house tented, and the whole thing bombed with the kind of powerful and clarifying insecticide that reminds the flies who actually owns the place.

I’ve spent my adult life waiting for the “right” — who today are a mashup of classical liberals, traditional conservatives, America-first populists, and a few erstwhile neocons who’ve come to their senses — to engage in the same kind of “angertainment” that has allowed the left to take over the vast majority of our cultural institutions, all while “our side” has decided being gauche is the far more reprehensible offense to cultural sensitivities than is the surrender of our rights, incrementally or immediately, depending upon the climate, to those whose ruthless quest for power and control over the autonomous individual never, ever, ever rests.

So when I find an elected official willing to deploy such rhetorical flourishes in furtherance of protecting my rights, I support that elected official, and I don’t waste my time critiquing the tenor or tone of his or her rhetoric, provided the rhetoric makes clear the extent of the outrage it addresses, and effectively serves the purpose it intends. There are certainly some representatives whose strength and efficacy as politicians come from creating affirming partnerships with their political opponents. And to the extent that such strengths of tactic work to better secure my rights or interests, I will readily support those representatives, as well. But the truth is, it takes many types to combat the relentless wave of leftism that wants nothing more than to resubjugate us and return us to the “proper” state of social and civil hierarchy, wherein as rulers, they are not to be seriously questioned. And too often, those who purport to be on our side — but yet who relentlessly attack those on our side whose tactics, they believe, show them in a light that clashes with their self-images as refined statesman and new-age aristocrats — institutionally empower the left by joining with them in the maintenance of an artificial paradigm wherein the people are more and more disconnected from the government they’re meant to answer to.

John McCain and Mitt Romney should have taught us that. Because lord knows, nothing else they’ve done for us amounts to much more than a soft shit that we’ve been forced to circumvent every time we try to step forward.

Almost as if by design.