May 19, 2023

Time Magazine’s ‘Bad Orange Man’ of the Year

While a media flagship was tearing down Ron DeSantis, Wired published a hilariously cultish profile of Pete Buttigieg.

Earlier this week, we noted that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has, through his record of accomplishments, made his case for the Republican presidential nomination even before he officially announces next week. The governor is generating a lot of interest among Republicans, which means the Leftmedia will be gearing up to tear him down. Time magazine entered the fray with a hand-wringing piece to go with its cartoon villain portrayal of the heir to the Bad Orange Man.

Literally, Time’s cover is a cartoon drawing of DeSantis scowling into the camera while peeling an orange. The message couldn’t be more obvious.

Indeed, Molly Ball’s article goes to great lengths to tie DeSantis to Donald Trump, which is ironic given how much Trump has attacked and distanced himself from DeSantis since launching his own reelection bid. For Time magazine’s audience, however, the message is clear: Be very afraid.

Time makes sure readers know that “critics see DeSantis as a would-be authoritarian,” and Ball backhands his voters by saying, “The people of Florida seem to like the steady hand — even if it’s an iron fist.” She also quotes a Democrat calling the governor a “bully,” and she finds as many people as possible to talk about the governor being mean or heavy-handed. Hint: DeSantis is just like Trump.

Democrats are the true authoritarians, of course, which Time comes close to admitting. After describing how the governor worked to build a broader coalition after his narrow election, the article moves on to COVID. “It was the pandemic, critics and supporters agree, that changed DeSantis.” He “grew frustrated” by the confusion coming out of Washington and the misinformation of the medical establishment. He hated the sheer cruelty of forcing people to die without family members being allowed by their side.

So DeSantis chose to become the face of freedom — of rebellion against the tyrannical “science” being foisted on us.

And he was right. Florida excelled economically after initially shutting down, and it didn’t suffer from disproportionate deaths as critics predicted it would. The Free State of Florida stood as a shining city on a hill when compared to disasters like New York.

Nevertheless, the clear message from Time is that DeSantis is a villain, and its “What Ron DeSantis means for America” cover title is meant to provoke fear.

The contrast couldn’t be more stark with how Wired’s Virginia Heffernan handled her interview with one of Joe Biden’s diversity hires, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.

The transportation secretary cares about transportation, the subheader assures us, “But infrastructure occupies just a sliver of his voluminous mind.”

Oh good grief.

The first sentence isn’t any better, telling readers that Buttigieg is so darn smart his “curious mind” has to hold “much of its functionality in reserve.” Heffernan’s second paragraph gushes that she only “slowly became aware that his cabinet job requires only a modest portion of his cognitive powers,” though Buttigieg happily condescended to make his “cathedral mind” somehow “intelligible to me.”

Pete Buttigieg is also gay, don’t you know, and if he wasn’t, we’d think he and Heffernan had something going on.

Another paragraph is enlightening:

Buttigieg, whose father was a renowned Marxist scholar, was himself a devotee of Senator Bernie Sanders as a young man. He now recognizes that the persistence of far-right ideology, with its masculinist and antidemocratic preoccupations, is part of the reason that neoliberalism has come undone. Not everyone, it seems, even wants a rising standard of living if it means they have to accept the greater enfranchisement of undesirables, including, of course, women, poor people, Black people, and the usual demons in the sights of the world’s Ted Cruzes and Tucker Carlsons.

Marxism is great, in other words, especially when contrasted to the racist “far-right” ideology of Republicans.

Meanwhile, the words “train” and “East Palestine” strangely never came up.

If you’d like to continue laughing at this slobbering hagiographic nonsense, Andrew Stiles of The Washington Free Beacon hilariously summarizes “The 10 Most Nauseating Lines” from this profile of “the transportation secretary best known for finishing fifth in the 2020 Democratic primary,” complete with amusing quote memes.

Likewise, National Review’s Charles C.W. Cooke expertly satirizes the story.

For our purposes, we just want to highlight once again the sheer partisanship of the mainstream media. Wired is hardly mainstream, and you might not have even heard of it before today, but Time was once the flagship magazine of what was supposed to be an objective press. That it functions as little more than a Democrat henchman conducting opposition research is a shame and a disservice to the American people.

Who We Are

The Patriot Post is a highly acclaimed weekday digest of news analysis, policy and opinion written from the heartland — as opposed to the MSM’s ubiquitous Beltway echo chambers — for grassroots leaders nationwide. More

What We Offer

On the Web

We provide solid conservative perspective on the most important issues, including analysis, opinion columns, headline summaries, memes, cartoons and much more.

Via Email

Choose our full-length Digest or our quick-reading Snapshot for a summary of important news. We also offer Cartoons & Memes on Monday and Alexander’s column on Wednesday.

Our Mission

The Patriot Post is steadfast in our mission to extend the endowment of Liberty to the next generation by advocating for individual rights and responsibilities, supporting the restoration of constitutional limits on government and the judiciary, and promoting free enterprise, national defense and traditional American values. We are a rock-solid conservative touchstone for the expanding ranks of grassroots Americans Patriots from all walks of life. Our mission and operation budgets are not financed by any political or special interest groups, and to protect our editorial integrity, we accept no advertising. We are sustained solely by you. Please support The Patriot Fund today!


The Patriot Post and Patriot Foundation Trust, in keeping with our Military Mission of Service to our uniformed service members and veterans, are proud to support and promote the National Medal of Honor Heritage Center, the Congressional Medal of Honor Society, both the Honoring the Sacrifice and Warrior Freedom Service Dogs aiding wounded veterans, the National Veterans Entrepreneurship Program, the Folds of Honor outreach, and Officer Christian Fellowship, the Air University Foundation, and Naval War College Foundation, and the Naval Aviation Museum Foundation. "Greater love has no one than this, to lay down one's life for his friends." (John 15:13)

★ PUBLIUS ★

“Our cause is noble; it is the cause of mankind!” —George Washington

Please join us in prayer for our nation — that righteous leaders would rise and prevail and we would be united as Americans. Pray also for the protection of our Military Patriots, Veterans, First Responders, and their families. Please lift up your Patriot team and our mission to support and defend our Republic's Founding Principle of Liberty, that the fires of freedom would be ignited in the hearts and minds of our countrymen.

The Patriot Post is protected speech, as enumerated in the First Amendment and enforced by the Second Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America, in accordance with the endowed and unalienable Rights of All Mankind.

Copyright © 2024 The Patriot Post. All Rights Reserved.

The Patriot Post does not support Internet Explorer. We recommend installing the latest version of Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox, or Google Chrome.