After USA Today named Rachel Levine, the male head of the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, one of its “Women of the Year,” Twitter suspended popular satire site The Babylon Bee for bestowing a similar award on Levine: Man of the Year.
The Babylon Bee’s Man Of The Year Is Rachel Levine https://t.co/mZdcXbUnmf
— The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) March 15, 2022
Twitter threatened to keep the account locked until the Bee deletes the satirical tweet, something CEO Seth Dillon has pledged not to do.
We’re not deleting anything. Truth is not hate speech. If the cost of telling the truth is the loss of our Twitter account, then so be it.
— Seth Dillon (@SethDillon) March 20, 2022
While Twitter struts its bully power to shut down free speech and keeps us all from our favorite source of satire accurate predictions of insanity, it’s a good time to reflect on all the times the Bee has proven a more reliable source of news than corporate outlets like The Washington Post and CNN. Here are a few of the most memorable times the Bee’s satirists predicted history before it was written.
1. Biden Briefs TikTokers on Foreign Wars
On August 16, 2021, the Bee wrote the satirical headline: “Biden Administration Deploys Elite Squad Of TikTok Influencers To Stop Taliban.”
As the Bee joked: “‘I’m sorry it has come to this, but I’m left with no other choice,’ said Biden to a chocolate eclair in the Camp David situation room as beloved TikTok star Benny Drama and others parachuted from a C-130 into Kabul. ‘If anyone can influence those Gen Z Taliban youth, it’s those flamboyant youngsters.’”
But truth is stranger than satire, and seven months later after Russia invaded Ukraine, the Biden administration actually did call in a TikTok brigade.
2. Make Your Groceries Stretch Further, You Poors
Just two weeks ago, the Bee took aim at the Biden administration’s tone-deaf suggestions that rising gas prices and inflation create a great opportunity for Americans to cut back on our “dependence on fossil fuels” and buy expensive electric cars. “Biden Admin Suggests Adding More Water To Your Instant Ramen To Feel More Full,” the Bee headlined.
Someone at Bloomberg News’ opinion desk must have been reading the Bee, because three days later Bloomberg published Teresa Ghilarducci’s tone-deaf piece “Inflation Stings Most If You Earn Less Than $300K. Here’s How to Deal.”
While she didn’t mention ramen, Ghilarducci suggested Americans swap out eating meat in favor of lentils and beans. “Though your palate may not be used to it, tasty meat substitutes include vegetables (where prices are up a little over 4%, or lentils and beans, which are up about 9%),” she wrote, alongside recommendations like letting your pet die of cancer and selling your car.
3. Kamala Harris Goes to Hillary Clinton Charm School
After six months of Vice President Kamala Harris snipping at reporters and laughing awkwardly at all the wrong times (plus all of her cringy campaign trail moments), the Bee wrote a July 2021 piece entitled “To Improve Public Perception, Kamala Harris Taking Likability Lessons From Hillary Clinton.”
The Bee’s satirists wrote: “‘First things first Kamala,’ explained Clinton. ‘Next time you’re tempted to cackle uncontrollably, just call half of the U.S. ‘a basket of deplorables’ instead.’”
But in December, it came out that Kamala actually was turning to Hillary for advice on how to be more popular. “Faced with declining approval ratings, a series of staff departures and a drumbeat of criticism from Republicans and the conservative news media, she has turned to powerful confidantes, including Hillary Clinton, to help plot a path forward,” The New York Times reported. “The two speak every few months on the phone; in November, Mrs. Clinton visited Ms. Harris in her West Wing office.”
4. California Lets Men into Women’s Prisons
All the way back in 2017, the Bee wrote the headline “Inclusivity Win: State Of California To Make All Prisons Gender-Neutral.”
“I promise you that felt outlandish in 2017,” the Bee’s Editor in Chief Kyle Mann said in a video last year.
But sure enough, in September 2020, California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a law to let “transgender, non-binary and intersex” inmates pick which sex to identify with and be housed accordingly. In the first few months after the law went into effect, the state received hundreds of transfer requests, mostly from men hoping to be moved to women’s prisons.
After fears and reports of rape, California’s solution was to pass out condoms to female inmates. Just in January, a leaked memo from Biden’s Department of Health and Human Services indicated the administration’s plans to follow suit in federal prisons as well.
5. People Who Thought 2016 Election Was Rigged Say 2020 Was Foolproof
“Study Finds Connection Between Believing Russia Rigged 2016 Election And Believing 2020 Election Was Foolproof,” the Bee wrote in mid-November 2020. “If you believed that Vladimir Putin somehow hacked voting machines, purchased a bunch of memes, and raised an army of millions of Russian bots to disrupt the election and get Donald Trump elected, you certainly now believe that our elections are completely safe and secure,” the Bee said, citing a pretend researcher.
Just days later, a poll reported that 91 percent of Democrats believed Biden’s election was “free and fair,” compared with 43 percent who said the 2016 election of Donald Trump was trustworthy.
6. Sources Say Trump Attacks Babies
A month before the 2020 presidential election, the Bee published “Anonymous White House Source Claims Trump Punched A Baby,” writing “The media has reached out to the baby, who chooses to remain anonymous. According to media investigators, the baby, in his first words, has anonymously endorsed Biden for president.”
But Mediaite apparently couldn’t take the joke about the insane, baseless attacks that corporate outlets and anonymous “sources” have ginned up about the former president. Four days later, Mediaite’s Tommy Christopher published a video and an accompanying article titled “WATCH: 98 Times Trump Disparaged Babies By Using Them as an Insult” and going to bat for the sensitivities of “infanto-Americans.”
“In the interest of posterity, especially all the babies who are currently too stupid or busy ruining America to understand them right now, we’ve compiled examples, which you can watch above,” he wrote in a piece that wasn’t satire (but should have been).
7. Anything Leftists Disagree with Is Violence (And Will Get You Deplatformed)
Way back in 2018, the Bee joked “Violence Officially Redefined As ‘Literally Anything At All That Makes You Feel The Slightest Discomfort.’” That was before the 2020 summer of rage, of course, when even literal silence was deemed “violence” while scenes of burning cities were described moronically by corporate journalists as “mostly peaceful.”
But Twitter’s own actions against the Bee have helped cement this once-comedic headline into reality. In its message threatening to keep the Bee’s account locked until its satirical-but-actually-factual story about Rachel Levine is taken down, Twitter invoked its rules against “hateful conduct.”
“You may not promote violence against, threaten, or harass other people on the basis of … gender identity,” the rules note, despite no indication that the Bee’s article did anything remotely resembling violence, threats, or harassment. “We applaud this precious and perfectly made child of God for all his accomplishments and hope he stays true to who God made him to be,” the piece noted.
The joke is on Twitter. Not only is the Big Tech bully showing its ridiculous vendetta and giving the Bee a lot of publicity, it’s also helping the Bee’s prophesies come true.
Authored by Elle Reynolds via The Federalist
The Federalist is an online magazine that covers politics, policy, culture, and religion.
