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A few thoughts on Denise and what happened this weekend: First of all, I am conservative and I was one of the many people who took issue with her original tweet (which did not applaud masculinity, but instead an incredibly subservience nobody should expect of a woman).
It is not manly to not want to get off your ass during a sports game or have a conversation with your spouse. Being impolite to your spouse is not something we should applaud in men OR women. It does not make you a good spouse, it makes you an asshole.
Denise fancies herself an advice columnist and until recently, had work placed in some of most prominent places in conservative media. Yes, we clearly witnessed a meltdown but it was important, ESPECIALLY as a conservative woman, to make clear that her views are not mainstream.
In a screenshot that was very mild @yashar commented on her tweet; which is exactly what she wanted to happen, it's why she tweeted it. She wants attention, she wants people talking about her. I was one of the many who RTed Yashar's comments, because he was right, it was sad.
Her response was very textbook if you know her: She went to 11 and went on the attack, taking it nasty and personal. I saw a thread @rebecca_cusey wrote about her experience with Denise while she was at the Federalist, and that was my experience as well.
When someone disagrees with Denise she has an MO: She gets nasty, she gets personal, and she plays the victim. I've seen it 1,000x and I saw it again this weekend directed at Yashar.
She did it at my husband last year, and her behavior led to my resignation as a Senior Contributor from the site. Denise is a toxic person, and she has been a liability for anywhere that publishes her for a long, long time.
Her behavior in public and on the listserv for Federalist writers made it clear she was not mentally stable. She expressed some really not okay viewpoints that I was increasingly uncomfortable associating myself with. Her attack on my husband was a final straw.
This is something I struggle with as a writer for publications that publish things I viscerally disagree with. But the line for me was a personal, sexualized attack on my husband (that Denise waged in a way to make clear she was calling my husband gay, & that that was an insult).
I expect a certain degree of professionalism from colleagues, and tweeting that my husband is giving out blow jobs to prominent men in government is a red line. Call me crazy.
This was not the first time Denise used "gay" as an insult that I've witnessed or heard about. So yes, I am confident in saying Denise is a homophobe, even before her tweets this weekend, which were so intensely homophobic I can't even with you if you disagree. Because
So was there a mob on Saturday night? I have written and tweeted a great deal about the mob, and yet, I was one of the voices (which were EXTREMELY bipartisan) decrying the hate she was spewing.
Someone that unbalanced, that hateful, should not have a platform. To be clear, this is something everyone familiar with her work and her tweets have known for A LONG TIME. She attempted to doxx @beyondreasdoubt & her attacks on @BridgetPhetasy were the cruelest I have ever seen.
There was nothing righteous in her anger. There was nothing justified. She tweeted something stupid for attention and she was dunked on. This is the nature of Twitter. She responded in an unbalanced and cruel manner, and she was justifiably put in her place.
She was a liability for anywhere who publish her and became too toxic for anyone to associate with. She made herself a liability. Nobody else did that. I hope she seeks help. She very clearly needs to work through her issues offline.
Just want to clarify myself a tiny bit: She should not have a platform among mainstream conservative websites. She can and should keep tweeting if that's what she wants. But nobody is entitled to publish whatever they want wherever they want. That's up to those sites and editors.
When you behave in the manner that she did, you become a liability for the brand. How you act in public reflects on your workplace. That is part of being an adult.
