Shut her up already!
We have the power to stop Ann Coulter
Matt Abra, Volunteer Staff
Over the holidays I found all kinds of exciting treats waiting for me under the Christmas tree — a new digital camera, a fresh garbage receptacle for my apartment, and most notably, a copy of Ann Coulter’s newest offering to the world of books, suitably titled If Democrats Had Any Brains, They’d Be Republicans. Believe me, this book and the receptacle may as well have been the same present.
The book isn’t anything original. It is, in fact, a collection of excerpts from all of her previous work. It therefore, like her previous work, Democrats comes across less as an expression of ideas and more as a prolonged 300-page rant. It’s literally a never-ending tirade of “Liberals do this and liberals do that,” with every concept very muddled, unsupported, and of course close-minded as hell. Her books kind of remind me of the Chunnel — extremely narrow, with a very “sinking” feeling. Whether you choose to agree with her views or not, you can’t deny that the woman writes like an auctioneer with ADD.
Clearly I am no fan of Coulter. Not so much because of her tendency for very intentional offensive bombast, but because of her lack of intellect and her aggressive posturing that seems to prey on one unfortunate minority: the ignorant. It doesn’t matter which side of the political spectrum you are on, her words can be dangerous to everyone, not unlike an infectious disease. Considering Coulter herself very publicly denounces evolution, it is ironic that her agenda seems to borrow from it quite readily. When she gets going on a rant, it truly is “survival of the fittest.” The well-informed will survive; the ignorant will get caught in her trap. Simply put, the people who oppose her stand as the winners of her natural selection.
I am, however, very curious as to exactly how many Coulter supporters there are out there. As much as I love the thought, it is unrealistic to think that her bashers outnumber her proponents. I strain to understand it, but some people actually like her, and, more disturbingly, there are even people out there who agree with her. If there weren’t, she definitely would have folded when her 15 minutes of hate-mongering were up.
However, I do also cling to the belief that part of the reason she has been able to maintain a place in the public eye is because of a certain psychological fascination she creates within her opponents. You’ve probably already asked yourself why I bother to read her work when I dislike her so passionately. Well, part of it has to do with the fact that it would be very hypocritical of me to express that same dislike without first researching her content, as one of my greatest complaints with her is that she endlessly refuses to properly research her hatred for anything left-wing. But frankly, the biggest reason I read her book is because I personally find great entertainment value in such preposterousness. One can’t help but gain a certain amount of satisfaction from the antics of someone as completely off their rocker as Ann Coulter, especially when her views are so rabidly opposed to yours. I am among the naive bunch who has given in to her intentional quest for controversy, as it intrigues me enough to help her sell a book or two. In essence, I have fallen into her trap. And I think this is true of a lot of people, whether they are consciously aware of it or not.
People always ask the question, “Who cares what this woman has to say?” Personally, I think anyone who actually cares what she has to say is an idiot. There, I said it. But my problem isn’t that I care what she says, I care about the way she says it. Let’s face it, the things that pass for educated commentary these days are amazing, because Ann Coulter’s remarks come across one of two ways: either horribly offensive or extremely juvenile. Therefore I pose a new question: what’s not to love? Man, she’s got it all figured out. Coulter may not be the sharpest tool in the box, but at least she has the brains to know that her very type of idiocy can sometimes be enough to attract attention.
That’s precisely what she was doing two years ago when she claimed, in her book Godless: The Church of Liberalism, that certain widows of 9-11 victims used their husbands’ deaths as publicity fodder. Coulter was fully aware that we cravers of hullabaloo would eat that sort of thing up. Naturally she was using those women to sell books, doing to them exactly what she claimed they were doing in regards to the deaths of their husbands. But she knew it. She always knew it. Maybe she really did believe what she wrote, but that’s irrelevant. What matters is that this is a woman who cares less about her own opinion than she does about what she can gain from maliciously imposing it upon us. And in the end, that’s just what she is — malicious. It is for this reason that I must finally declare my new revelation in regards to all of it, one that I cooked up while reading her latest book: we have to stop! We, the people, the ones who feed off of her public malevolence, must move on and finally allow Ann Coulter to receive what is coming to her. She may have supporters and she may have guts, but honestly, we are the ones with the power. All we have to do is put down her books, stop watching her interviews, but most importantly, we have to refrain from endlessly plodding on about how much we hate her, much like I am in this article.
Thus, I am now announcing my retirement, and I urge the rest of you to do the same. Yes, the simple debating of ideals is healthy to society, but Coulter herself is not. She doesn’t create debate, she just creates mischief. She is a poison that must be stopped. And the best way to stop her is to simply stop listening. We are only fuelling the fire.
Matt Abra is a fourth-year arts student.
