Today in America, puritanical rituals are back with a vengeance.
Since Donald Trump floated down his golden escalator screaming about Mexican rapists, the left and right have prioritized a public pillaging of people’s histories and reputations, often with scant concern for little things like evidence, due process, truth, and reality. The left and right may not agree on any given policy, but they both have concluded that public shaming is the way to get things done.
The phrase “New Puritans” has made a few select appearances in the past 40-plus years, with its meaning and application varying. Texas senator Barbara Jordan used it while keynoting the 1976 Democratic National Convention. British trends forecaster Jim Murphy used it a decade ago to describe a shift in British young people away from hyper-consumerism and indulgence. Over at the right-wing conspiracy site Infowars, the phrase has been used to tar progressives as free-speech-hating, censorious inquisitors.
What does New Puritan mean to us? It means a person aching to brand others with a twenty-first-century scarlet letter meant to invite ridicule, hatred, and shunning. They span the ideological spectrum, these New Puritans. They might not share a common political identity, but they like to denounce. They like to punish. They slip quickly into overreaction, throttling up into hysteria. They’re intolerant. They work to incite mobs. Their angry finger-pointing can be self-interested, advancing their own agenda, building their brand. And though they’ve chosen shaming as a method, they’re often shameless themselves.
Here’s our Penthouse list of the top, most obnoxious New Puritans in America, ranked in order of power.
President Donald Trump
America’s Whiny Little Bitch-in-Chief sits in the most powerful office on the planet, yet he spends half his time crying victim because My Life on the D-List star Kathy Griffin mocked him, the “failing” New York Times exposed his tax shenanigans and multimillion-dollar handouts from his dad, and, like, five trans people wanted to serve in the military. All this from the man who coined the nicknames “Sloppy” Steve Bannon, “Crazy” Jim Acosta, “Little Rocket Man” Kim Jong Un, “Pocahontas” Elizabeth Warren, “Crooked” Hillary, “Sleepy” Joe Biden, “Fake Tears” Chuck Schumer, “Low IQ” Maxine Waters, “Low Energy” Jeb, “Horseface” Stormy Daniels, and “Dumbest Man on Television” Don “Sour” Lemon. If he didn’t remind you on a daily basis, you’d have no clue this thin-skinned bully was president.
Roger Goodell
The NFL commissioner earns over $31 million a year, fourteen times more than his players who endure lifelong injuries. You’d think Goodell would respect his meal tickets, but when Colin Kaepernick kneeled, Goodell falsely accused him of attacking the flag when the quarterback was actually protesting the oppression of black Americans. Goodell went on to paint Kaepernick as unpatriotic. But there’s a reason the First Amendment is No. 1 in the Bill of Rights before other important laws, like the right to bear arms and right to privacy: There’s nothing more patriotic than exercising your free speech.
Brett Kavanaugh
A classic pampered crybaby, the judge claimed Democratic senators investigated a sexual assault allegation against him as revenge for “the Clintons,” who are currently out of office somewhere in the woods taking old-people medicine. His language escalating, he warned that the actions of these senators would sow “the wind for decades to come,” and America would reap the whirlwind. Kavanaugh went on, like Justice Clarence Thomas, to darkly insinuate that his experience during the hearing wouldn’t be forgotten when it came time for him to rule on cases pushed by liberals in the future. Despite media revelations into his behavior, his accuser’s compelling testimony, and protests from women on the left, Kavanaugh was sworn into the Supreme Court. To quell any rumors that he would vote to overturn Roe vs. Wade, Kavanaugh did a little virtue signaling and hired four female clerks to work for him, but he remains the second whiniest little bitch in Washington, D.C.
Michael Avenatti
In the past year, Penthouse Pet of the Century Stormy Daniels’s bald, just-below-average-height attorney has complained that Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen worked to silence Daniels, complained about Fox News host Tucker Carlson nicknaming him “Creepy Porn Lawyer,” and called Trump a “bully.” He’s also blocked journalists on Twitter, threatened to sue The Daily Caller, called Carlson a “pig,” attacked female CNN journalist and author S. E. Cupp and Senator Susan Collins, and tweeted #basta at anyone he wishes would shut up and get out of his way. He says he’s running for the 2020 Democratic presidential nominee as the “liberal” Donald Trump, and he’s right: same tactics, different targets, and just as fucking annoying.
Kirsten Gillibrand
New York senator Kirsten Gillibrand has called for criminal justice reform, but she rallied other senators to demand Sen. Al Franken resign over sexual harassment allegations without an investigation of the claims, which involved kissing and touching, along with the much-seen photo of the comedian pretending to fondle the breasts of Leeann Tweeden during a 2006 USO tour they shared. In the face of the mob and public pressure, he resigned, but the questions remain unanswered. Some liberals blame Gillibrand for her undemocratic, knee-jerk reaction. Franken is now also in the woods with the Clintons.
Alex Jones
Despite having the net worth of a top-tier Victoria’s Secret model, InfoWars mogul Alex Jones is not happy with America. After years of spewing crazy conspiracy theories and so-called insider government information about chemtrails, Jones was recently booted from all social media platforms. Twitter initially let Jones stay in the game, but then big ol’ dumb-dumb flew from Texas to Washington, D.C., to scream in Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey’s face. A brilliant move that predictably backfired. Instead of admitting his own faults—and that he may, just may, have taken it a bit too far when he claimed the government was turning frogs gay from estrogen—Jones has whelped like a puppy dog. And all this has happened as he’s refused to apologize for calling the Sandy Hook mass-shooting a hoax and encouraging his fans to attack the parents of the victims. Like his daddy Donald Trump, Jones cries victim while monetizing one of the biggest bully pulpits on the web. But hey, not even Jack Dorsey can stop him from selling a Patriot Pantry Pizza Kit for $97.46!
Nicole Cliffe
A wealthy man’s born-again Christian, feminist spouse, Cliffe leads a very unchristian life. In between spending her husband’s money and taking selfies in her muumuus, this Utah writer-editor has mobilized her 100,000 Twitter followers to attack writer Katie Roiphe over an essay that Cliffe had not read, accused a stranger of being transphobic and “obsessed” with trans women, and helped convince the New York Review of Books to fire editor Ian Buruma because he published an essay by Jian Ghomeshi, a Canadian radio host who was accused of sexual assault and acquitted in court. Why does this relatively unknown former blogger have so much power in American letters? How did this mean mommy mobilize such a powerful shame mob?
Laura Loomer
You probably hadn’t heard about this rightwing pundit until she chained herself to the Twitter office doors in protest, but “Looms,” as her friends call her, has interrupted a congressional hearing while holding a pink selfie stick, run around Manhattan yelling at women in hijabs, and whined after she was banned from Lyft and Uber for tweeting, “Someone needs to create a non-Islamic form of @uber or @lyft because I never want to support another Islamic immigrant driver.” Whenever she posts a video of herself screaming at a member of the U.S. government while they’re walking to get a bagel, she hashtags the event #LOOMERED. Unfortunately, this douche is a U.S. citizen, because otherwise, we would love to get her deported. She’s officially banned from Twitter, which is basically deportation for an internet addict like her.
Rose McGowan and Asia Argento
After they both alleged they’d been sexually assaulted by Harvey Weinstein, these two 1990s actresses anointed themselves the face of #MeToo. Like Siamese twins, Rosacea—as The Stranger columnist Katie Herzog calls McGowan and Argento—posed for any photo op where they could pump their fists, denied accused men due process, and rallied their #RoseArmy to shame feminists who rejected #BelieveWomen. But this August, the New York Times dropped a bombshell revealing that Argento had allegedly sexually assaulted 17-year-old actor Jimmy Bennett and paid him $380,000 to keep his mouth shut about it. (Like Weinstein, she denied the allegations.) Feel betrayed by the revelation, McGowan issued a statement accusing Argento of having received unsolicited nude pics of Bennett since he was 12. Lawsuit threats followed, McGowan apologized and called #MeToo “bullshit,” and Rosacea was no more. Needless to say, the frenemies’ witch hunts live on. Girl power!
Art by Thomas Warming
