By Jonah Goldberg
Wednesday, October 21, 2026
Jonah walks into a Gay Jokes Anonymous meeting.
Hi. My name is Jonah.
A half dozen middle-aged men and one big-haired woman
on folding chairs say in unison: “Hi, Jonah.”
It’s been one month since I made a gay joke.
Smattering of applause. “Way to go, Jonah!”
Many of you know that I’m a writer and a pundit. That’s
why I started attending these meetings. I mean, I have friends who work on Wall
Street, and they say they can still use Andrew Dice Clay material …
“Dice! Yeah!”
Settle down, Phil … But in my line of work, falling off
the wagon even once can cost you everything.
Nods all around.
When I was younger, I made a lot of gay jokes. I was
never “anti-gay,” I just thought the jokes were funny. I mean, some of the best
gay-joke tellers are gay themselves. That seemed unfair. But the rules are the
rules. And besides, we still had schlong jokes.
But here’s the thing. Donald Trump is making it really
hard.
“That’s what he said!” Phil
yells, turning left and right for an unrequited high-five.
I mean, it was bad enough when he made “Y.M.C.A.” by the
Village People his campaign anthem and started dancing like he was making the
“middle-out” scene from Silicon Valley into a musical. I mean,
what is that? I half expected them to come out with a MAGA-branded Shake-Weight.
“So ghey!”
Sam!
“What? I did it with the gh- spelling!”
Anyway, if you follow politics, you’ve probably seen how
Trump is out there almost every day talking about men’s asses, especially this
Ohio senator, Jon Husted. I mean, last night he said … here, I have it on my phone:
But I looked at
his ass, and then I looked at his legs. I said, “His ass, s–t, it’s like, it’s
like a pile of muscle.” Then I looked at his legs, and I said, “Man, his feet
are big.” Then I looked at his shoulders, and I tapped him on the shoulder, and
it actually hurt my hand. He’s like a piece of steel. I said, “This guy’s a
monster!”
Several men in the group clench their teeth. One bites
a knuckle. Another mutters, “Don’t drop the soap, Senator!” The big-haired lady
can’t stop laughing.
This guy is killing me. And this is like the third or
fourth time he has talked about this Husted guy. Get a room already, you know?
And it’s not just him. At a Coast Guard Academy graduation, Trump talked about
one graduate who attracted his presidential gaze to the point where I thought
he might invite him to Netflix and chill while watching a Judy Garland
documentary.
Crap, I’m gonna lose my one-month chip for that.
“It’s OK, Jonah. This is a safe place.”
I mean, even the New York Times is like, “What the hell?”
I guess my real problem is, I don’t know what the rules
are anymore. Is it like the Michael Scott rule? You can call lame stuff gay but
can’t call “gay-gay” dudes gay? I mean, speaking of lame, the other week,
someone at a J.D. Vance rally shouted he loved the vice president. Vance responded, “I love you too, sir. In a totally
platonic way, to be clear. I’m the vice president, not James Talarico.”
“Hey, how do you tell Vance and Talarico apart? Vance
is the one who leaves eyeliner smudges on your hotel pillow!”
Phil, come on.
I was watching Jesse Watters explain that Trump can get
away with sounding “a little gay” because he’s straight. Yeah, okay, maybe. Is
that the rule now? I mean, I’m not allowed to tell gay jokes, but Trump can
spend all his time obsessing over interior decorating, putting on lavish
gladiatorial shows, planning a fancy ballroom …
Phil: *snicker* “‘Ballroom.’ You know what he… ”
Phil, sit out a few plays. Meanwhile, Watters and that
crowd think it’s fine to switch back to all this “Talafreako” gay stuff.
They’re like Roger Stone; they swing both ways.
Look, what am I supposed to do? I mean, Trump has a bunch
of openly gay dudes working for him. Scott Bessent is gay. He’s a billionaire
but calls himself a “soybean farmer.” There’s nothing homosexual about
that, but man, I could work with it. Ric Grenell is super gay, though in that
weird Weimar Germany private-cabaret kind of way. Trump’s mentor, Roy Cohn, was
one of those gay guys who hated gay guys.
Peter Thiel? He’s Vance’s mentor. He’s choreographed
J.D.’s political career like a child-beauty-pageant-obsessed gay dad, but Vance
wants people not to vote for Talarico because Talarico is gay? I mean, Talarico
isn’t the kind of dude who attracts long-lingering looks from President Trump.
But Talarico’s not actually gay. I get that Talarico looks like he
rollerblades, but he keeps challenging Ken Paxton to debate, and Paxton is too
much of a wuss to do it.
Brandon Gill, a Texas congressman, calls Talarico a
“barely straight version of Pete Buttigieg.” What does that even mean?
Buttigieg is openly gay, a fact the RNC is eager to remind voters of. I mean, Bessent supposedly wants to run
for president as America’s first gay soybean-farmer commander in chief (that we
know of—there are rumors that James Buchanan planted soybeans in his backyard).
Would that be okay?
MAGA world is constantly talking about things like
“globohomo,” which always sounded like a convention that Trump would be happy
to host at Mar-a-Lago if the check cleared and the security staff had Grade-A
Husted asses. Remember to buy Trump Baby Oil! Some of the Christian nationalist
types are all freaked out about “gay
race
communism,”
but a bunch of them rushed to catch Thiel talking about the Antichrist. I
wouldn’t have been shocked if they showed up at the midterm convention dressed
in Village People outfits doing the Shake Weight dance. These guys have sunk so
low, I don’t know where the bottom is. Shut up, Phil.
I really don’t care who is gay and who isn’t. But, no
offense, the coffee here sucks and, frankly, I sometimes think you guys are in
the wrong room, if you know what I mean. So, just tell me. What are the rules?
Because this is too damn hard.
“Thanks for sharing, Jonah. Good share. That’s all the
time we have. The Recovering Antipedophile group needs the room.”
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