This. Except… kind of the opposite of this.
The University of Connecticut Federalist Society had an idea while sitting around drinking the blood of poor children and eating Chick-fil-A, and rather than keep that idea to themselves like literally everyone would have preferred, they decided to make a poster out of it and force everyone to deal with their douchebaggery.
Are you ready for October 23? Because October 23 is “Federalist Society Pride Day,” y’all!
Yes, next Wednesday, every FedSoc twerp will don their “Future ABA Not Qualified Federal Judge” pullover and try to incite a backlash from a student body that will almost assuredly eye them with more pity than rage. Is the “Violet” cut off the rainbow because that was Tinky-Winky’s color? So many questions.
For more on the event:
To some extent, this whole affair is another snowflake moment, with FedSoc kids complaining that no one likes them just because they’re morally bankrupt. There’s also a dash of Ben Shapiro-inspired “debate me, bro” — which is really less debate than “let me yell empty sophistry, bro” — in there as they so desperately want the other students to call them out so they can feel some sense of satisfaction in their own entirely self-imposed martyrdom.
But it’s also the natural consequence of outrage junkies upping the stakes to get another fix. MAGA hats aren’t doing it anymore… maybe we mock Pride by coopting it to complain that our struggle to defend the rights of rich white people is exactly like getting denied jobs and kicked in the face by homophobes. The only question is whether they plan to turn February into “Why Isn’t There A White History Month?” or “Actually, Martin Luther King Was A More Like Clarence Thomas Than You All Think Month.” Maybe both!
The Federalist Society writ large will passively distance themselves from this by pointing out that every chapter is its own entity that they can’t possibly control. It’s exactly what they said when every chapter in the country started catering all events with the same chicken menu to own the libs. Whatever the national organization wants to claim, it sits atop a collection of clubs that march in goose-step.
But, one may argue, Ted Olson argued for gay marriage and has rolled as a member of the Federalist Society Board of Visitors for years. Surely that’s proof that these students don’t represent the organization as a whole!
One may argue that, but they would be wrong. Because Federalist Society chapters are just troll farms where the conservative legal establishment feigns embarrassment before handing over federal clerkships to the most aggressive loud-mouth bigot they can find — the one who they can identify because they’re undoubtedly elected to a leadership position.
To rise above the din to become the candidate they hose down and turn into another Deputy White House Counsel, the FedSoc powers-that-be encourage, in both word and deed, students to be ever more confrontational to prove just how much they’re ready to be ideological warriors before the thin cloak of respectability gets draped upon them. When Leonard Leo is compiling lists of objectively acceptable (or not, sometimes!) nominees he’s looking for someone whose soul he knows outstrips their otherwise passively bland résumé.
They want David Souter in the streets and Sam Alito in the sheets, after all.
Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.