Right-wing media figures including Turning Point USA’s Charlie Kirk melted down trying to clock Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) for appearing in a trailer for iconic queer TV show RuPaul’s Drag Race. Ocasio-Cortez, who will appear as a guest judge in the show’s upcoming 12th season, is featured in the trailer saying, “I pledge allegiance to the drag.”
Ocasio-Cortez is a frequent target of right-wing media figures, who jumped at the opportunity to imply she was unpatriotic based on her comments in the trailer for Drag Race’s new season, which will reportedly take on a patriotic theme.
Here are some of the worst failed reads from the right:
- Turning Point USA’s Charlie Kirk
Right-wing outlets such as BlazeTV, The Daily Wire, and The Daily Caller shared the video on Twitter, and The Daily Wire’s Ben Shapiro retweeted a video of it. Ocasio-Cortez responded to the attacks from right-wing media with an iconic line from the show: “They can go back to Party City."
Anti-LGBTQ figures in right-wing media have tried to drag drag queens before, in particular by fearmongering about Drag Queen Story Hour events across the country, where volunteers read books to kids. The national program aims to help children “develop empathy, learn about gender diversity and difference, and tap into their own creativity.” At one event in which Drag Race alumna Nina West participated, a little girl dressed up as her.
This kind of interaction has been ludicrously criticized by those on the right as part of the supposed “grooming” of youth by drag queens “into their unhealthy lifestyle.” They claim that such efforts are meant “to indoctrinate” and “sexualize” children “and destroy their innocence” and call them a form of “child abuse,” saying the events can turn a library into “a drag queen nightclub.” Laura Ingraham, one of Fox News’ resident anti-LGBTQ bigots, even had a guest on her show who said the parents of a young drag queen should “be arrested for child abuse.”
Despite the right’s best efforts, drag has become more mainstream and profitable than ever, and at the end of the day, anti-LGBTQ bigots look busted compared to the major success of drag.
