Growing up in a Conservative household, I frequently heard the famous(and completely misappropriated) Winston Churchill quote: “Anyone who is not a liberal at 20 years of age has no heart, while anyone who is still a liberal at 40 has no head.”

My father seemed to especially love it as it implied the idea that to be “liberal” is to be immature and naive. Which probably shows just why this quote has gotten so much mileage over the years. It allows a Conservative to feel simultaneously empathetic and superior to their opposition. They’re just more mature than you is all.

“Mmmnyess, of course, you think that healthcare should be accessible to all. You’re but a mere ideological child. Once you grow up and see the real world, you’ll understand the value of a commodified health-care system.”

The same people that frequently trot this quote out are the same people that humble-brag about being “a tax-payer” and tell teachers that they pay their salaries. Y’know, assholes.

I bring this up for a reason. See, for years the Republican/Right-Wing/Conservatives have worked to monopolize their grip on the “responsible” party brand. The Party of “adults”. But, just like their demonstrably irrational claim to being the party of fiscal responsibility, their claim on being the “party of adults” is equally dubious.

Case in point: The right-wing’s strange and hilarious fixation with gun cosplay.

Seriously, have you ever noticed how much Conservative politicians and advocates love to pose with guns? They’re like 12-year-old boys let loose in a Bass Pro Shop with a selfie-stick and no adult supervision. I mean, I understand that they want to portray themselves as super-tough, gun-loving, 2nd amendment warriors or whatever. But c’mon. As a long-time gun-owner myself— I just find it embarrassingly dorky.

Let’s take a look at a few of my favorite examples:

Here we have the “Constitutionally Illiterate”, alleged pedophile and Judge, Roy Moore. In a classic attempt to woo Conservative voters for the vacated Senate seat in Alabama, Mr. Moore took to the stage in full Roy-Rogers-chic — an unnecessary western vest and a cowboy hat that he appeared to have stolen from a little boy’s birthday party. During his stump speech, to illustrate his dedication to the second amendment, Moore brandished what could easily be mistaken for a 19th-century prostitute’s pistol.

In his mind, I imagine, he was harkening back to the frontier days when a white-hatted cowboy would ride into a lawless town and deliver JUSTICE™! But to the casual, non-crazy observer, he simply appeared to be one step away from asking his mommy for a quarter to ride the mechanical pony outside the grocery store.

I mean, take one look at ol’ Roy up there and tell me what the difference is between his outfit and this one:

Unlike Cowboy Roy, Brayden here does not seem to appreciate a good necktie.

Unfortunately for Roy, the cowboy-schtick didn’t appear to convince enough voters to forget the whole pedophilia thing and make him their Senator — though it was nauseatingly close.

But maybe the problem was just that Roy brandished the wrong gun. Like, c’mon Roy, snub-nosed revolvers are for whores and criminals from 1970’s TV shows! Get with the times! Modern Conservatives don’t want cowboys with dainty revolvers. They want frickin’ Special Units operators with cool looking tactical machine guns. And when one thinks of special forces machismo, who doesn’t immediately turn to this doughy, vampire-potato:

Is that a grown-up Eddie Munster unloading a machine-gun for a new UPN reality show? Not at all! That’s Senator Ted Cruz of Texas (by way of Canada), dorking-out hard for a photo op to be sent around to his NRA card-carrying donors.

Now, a lot of you are probably thinking to yourself, “Damn Ted! That’s pretty cool that you know your way around Performance Fishing Gear© shirts AND machine guns. But can you do anything with that machine gun that is both ill-advised and cool in an outdated internet meme sort of way?”

“Well, f*ck yeah, I can!” Replied the weak-chinned human-like mass.

That’s right! Ted Cruz put out a video of him cooking bacon (OMG! BACON U GUYZ!!! 😋) by wrapping it around the barrel of — you guessed it — a machine gun which was then fired until the bacon (NOMNOMNOM! LOL! 😆) was cooked.

Talk about ALPHA! No way would you want to mess with ol’ Commando Cruz. Nuh uh. Hell, I wonder what his super-alpha-male response would be if you verbally trashed his wife and suggested that his father assassinated JFK? He’d probably shove that hot machine gun barrel so far up your — oh, wait. Turns out that he’d make campaign calls on your behalf and pen a gushing op-ed about what a great guy you are. Well, I thought for sure, with the machine gun and the bacon and all…

Okay, well maybe we should look to another shining GOP Senate star for our testosterone fix. I mean, if Teddy “the Zodiac Killer” Cruz doesn’t line up with your definition of total bad-ass, may I suggest a brillo-headed eye-doctor who famously got his ass beat over yard clippings?

And here he is — Senator Rand Paul — after figuratively mowing down the IRS in the form of Staples© paper box effigy. I mean, that’s practically Predator-era Schwarzenegger badassery. Beware tax collectors, Renegade Rand is coming for your spreadsheets! And this time… it’s figurative!

Okay, okay. I could do this for hours. There are hundreds of similar picture setups to make fun of. But, I’m actually getting to a larger point.

You see, the problem with all of the right-wing masturbatory gun worship is that it provides a paint-by-numbers exploitation manual for economic, political, and more nefarious opportunists.

See, the easiest way to attract attention in the conservative media world is to be a relatively attractive woman and pose with a gun… a lot. It’s worked quite well for Dana Loesch, who quickly transitioned away from Hollywood dreams of being a television star to a much easier paycheck of political bomb-throwing/gun cosplay.

What is that thumping sound? Is it a fleet of Apache Helicopters? No! That’s the sound of a hundred thousand Conservative men furiously abusing themselves.

Here we see Dana in all of her dead-eyed, special forces glory: Urban camo’d up to fight the libtards on their turf. An AR-15 (the choice firearm for any self-respecting alt-right warrior)at the ready with noticeable trigger discipline. Hnnngh! Glock© sidearm holstered but ready for quick deployment should she lose her rifle in close quarters combat. She looks off in the distance, scanning the perimeter for Antifa scum. An eagle and flag tattoo from a bubble gum dispenser lets us know that she means business.

And Dana is media-savvy, okay. She is demographic aware. She targets her cosplay to please both the younger right-wing machine gun-porn consumers and the older cowboy cosplayers. Check it out:

There’s our heroine again — on the cover of her totally not ghost-written book —dressed up in full cowgirl regalia, looking off into the distance like she’s posing for a late nineties Christian rock album.

And — speaking of Christian — don’t think for a minute that other young ladies aren’t seeing the Loesch “Guns and God” blueprint and attempting to make it work for them. Check this West Virginia ammo-sexual out:

Alt-Right Annie Oakley here miraculously manages to make Dana Loesch seem subtle in her approach.

Literally, all this chick had to do was post this picture on Twitter with a caption about it making “Liberals heads explode 😆” and she got plenty of coverage (unfortunately not just from right-wing blogs). She was well on her way to evangelical right-wing stardom when she got derailed by a self-inflicted case of hypocritical adultery. (I mean, I was absolutely shocked considering the bible in her hand and all.)

And sure, while the fame-seeking via gun cosplay efforts are undoubtedly distasteful, some would argue that it isn’t damaging to anyone other than the rubes that buy into it. But there are more devious actors utilizing the right-wing gun fetishization for far darker agendas. Take alleged Russian spy Maria Butina for example:

Seen here in an apparent cross-branding effort: NRA meets FSB meets OUTBACK Steakhouse©

Butina and her co-conspirators appear to have leveraged the right’s fixation for gun cosplay into a highly successful effort to infiltrate the GOP via the NRA. It wasn’t that hard for her fixer Alexander Torshin to figure out just how to position Butina to maximize his influence operation. Torshin explains quite clearly in a personal message to Butina:

“You have upstaged Anna Chapman. She poses with toy pistols, while you are being published with real ones.”

Anna Chapman was, of course, a proven Russian spy rounded up in a 2010 sting. And why the comparison — beyond the two red-heads with questionable Russian backgrounds? That’s right. They both loved posing with guns:

On the left, we’ve have Anna Chapman as Bond-girl villain. On the right, we have Maria Butina as… um… Molly Ringwald in the Matrix, I guess.

Look, it’s going to be a while before we fully understand how much damage Butina was able to do from an intelligence standpoint, but it seems safe to say that the answer is non-zero. And what do we have to thank for that? The right-wing’s childish fixation with gun worship.

Long story short: the rest of the country — the actual adults — need to tell the Right to grow up and quit playing cowboy/commando.

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