SlanderLand

If the events last month in Charlottesville showed us anything, it is that there has never, in the history of the United States, been a more racially contentious time in our country. Move over Civil War. Step aside, slavery. There is a new sheriff in town, his beat is patrolling the dark web and his name is Alt Right. Make that, Sheriff Alt Right. He’s gainfully employed. 

While the rise of the Alt Right is up for discussion and has been the subject of a slew of well-intentioned but super wrong hot-take opinion pieces, at the end of the day there is only one institution that all people of every race, gender and creed can agree is to blame for the rise of this new generation of hate speech warriors: The American Gladiators.

Just look at them. Standing there, mean-mugging in their sparkling red, white and blue leotards. Every Saturday afternoon, right when the boxes of Kraft Macaroni & Cheese would slowly be digesting in the stomachs of grade school boys and girls the nation over, their television sets would project images of this assemblage of super soldiers sent to protect their great country from anything disrespecting the American name. 

But it wasn’t outside forces these hulked-out machine men and women would combat, their enemies were other Americans. 

They would just call them “Challenger,” letting kids know that anyone who doesn’t stand with you is your enemy! They are challenging your nation’s superiority and you must do all that you can to destroy them with all of your might! Also, they made them wear red. The un-American Commie color. 

The muscular warriors carried heated and controversial names like “Storm,” “Sabre" and “Blaze,” all aliases seemingly pulled directly from the annuls of 4Chan. And while meathead hosts Joe Theismann and Larry Csonka tried in vain to keep the levity and claim the entire competition was merely an athletic exhibition, all of us with our eyes open know now what they were REALLY doing: indoctrinating America’s youth to the ideals of honoring the American flag through bully, might and blunt-force racism.

They knew what they were doing. They knew that by showing kids how much adoration could be achieved by wrapping yourself in the flag and throwing anyone who opposes you from a 10-foot-tall jousting platform, they were setting the White Supremacy movement up for success in the future.

They’d dazzle young men with imagery of Diamond’s bejeweled flesh or Zap’s muscle-stacked butt-cheeks to let you know that pure, unbridled racism gets you ALL of the chicks! And dammit they were so right! ALT right, in fact. 

Look at that wardrobe? Where do you think he got the idea to sport that original color scheme? I’ll give you one hint…

That’d right. Gosh darn Malibu inspired this fanatical arm of modern day fascism.

What is hard now is the damage has already been done. We can’t go back in time and close this bottle. The tiki torches can’t be unlit and the runaway train can’t be halted. But what we can do is learn from our mistakes and never give our undying adoration to a colony of steroid-addled monster men.