05

As has been the case recently, the political forum dominated discussion over the weekend. All but two of the ten most active topics were in the political forum. The most active thread was titled, "Second Gentleman scandal" and, of course, posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. The original poster linked to an article by the Daily Mail that reported that Vice President Kamala Harris' husband, Doug Emhoff had an affair during his first marriage. The website claimed that Emhoff was involved with a woman who was a nanny for his children and a teacher at their school. Moreover, Emhoff apparently impregnated the women. The Daily Mail reported that friends of the woman said that she terminated the pregnancy but also reported on a video posted on the woman's Facebook page that showed a baby around the time she would have given birth. The result is that it is not clear whether the woman gave birth to Emhoff's child and, if so, what happened to it. In reaction to the story, Emhoff released a statement confirming the affair and saying that he had taken responsibility for the situation, though it is not clear what that entailed. Other relevant facts of this story are that the affair happend at least four years before Harris and Emhoff met each other. However, Harris was aware of the affair when they got married and the story was known by the Biden campaign when Harris was selected as his running mate. Clearly this story tarnishes Emhoff's otherwise pretty good reputation. But, as many posters in the thread were quick to point out, Emhoff is not running for anything and the affair has nothing to do with Harris. Moreover, posters who support former President, current cult leader, and convicted felon Donald Trump are not in a position to criticize Emhoff given the fact that Trump cheated on all three of his wives. in addition, according to court testimony and FBI documents, one of those wives, Marla Maples, had multiple affairs herself while married to Trump. So, if being a cheater or being married to a cheater is a problem for a presidential candidate, that's bad news for Trump. But none of this stopped the MAGA cultists who were posting in the thread. Either they were sure a child had been born and that Harris had abandoned it or they were sure that the nanny had had an abortion and that had some negative reflection on Harris. Either way, according to them, it was bad for Harris. While Trump himself seems to be fixated on Harris' race and ethnicity and his choice for Vice President, J. D. Vance, is preoccupied with Harris' not having given birth, many MAGA cultists, including several of those posting in this thread, have decided that Harris sex life — whether real or imagined — is their best issue. For instance, Valentina Gomez, a Republican candidate for Secretary of State in Missouri, recently tweeted that, "Fat & Slut shaming is how we take America Back. Kamala Harris is an Indian hoe". Many posters in this thread seemed to have signed on to this agenda with many using Emhoff's past to disparage Harris, despite her having no connection to it. Other MAGA cultists simply used the thread as an opportunity to directly attack Harris in terms similar to what Gomez tweeted. As such, I eventually locked the thread.