After losing his book deal and Breitbart job for appearing to condone pedophilia, Milo Yiannopoulos continued to try to peddle his alt-white propaganda anywhere he could, including at speaking engagements that were canceled before he even arrived. But despite recently losing the support of his longtime backer, billionaire Robert Mercer, Yiannopoulous hasn’t exactly been persona non grata in all circles. Case in point: his shortlived gig with The Daily Caller.
According to ThinkProgress, Yiannopoulos was courted by The Daily Caller for his thoughts on Kevin Spacey’s alleged history of sexual assault and harassment, which the House Of Cards star tried to ameliorate by coming out last week. When Yiannopoulos pitched a weekly column, editor in chief Geoffrey Ingersoll agreed, even though the first post quickly resulted in a backlash. Then, just as outlets were reporting on Yiannopoulos’ hiring as a columnist, they had to update with the news that he’d already been let go. Let’s have a look and see if we can’t figure out where Yiannopoulous went wrong again.
Yiannopoulos starts off by agreeing that Spacey’s attempt to conflate pedophilia and homosexuality is bullshit, which is bare minimum stuff, really. But oh, then he invokes equally specious respectability politics, suggesting that part of the reason the Spacey revelations are so disturbing is because “left-wing blogs” promote this image that “gay people are perfect paragons of upstanding moral rectitude and the worst thing a black person has done in the last 50 years is break wind at the DMV.” (Way to attempt to justify racial disparity in the criminal justice system while also shaming fellow gays.) And, while crowing that the Spacey scandal has “devastated identity politics,” Yiannopoulos expresses his desire to see the actor punished “in the most obscenely painful ways imaginable at the hands of LeRoy from Cell Block E.” Rational discourse, indeed.
The Washington Times’ Andrew Blake noticed the change in Yiannopoulos’ byline, which went from referring to his “new weekly column” to ending with “New York Times best selling author.”
The Daily Caller’s co-founder Neil Patel then followed up with ThinkProgress to deny that Yiannopoulos had ever actually been hired. Yiannopoulos has responded to the dismissal by posting emails that indicate he did in fact have a proper, unpaid job with the Daily Caller. The site has not commented on Yiannopoulos’ volley, but the opinions editor he’d exchanged emails with, Rob Mariani, has also been let go.