It's the second one that got me going. "[A]nyone making fun of his name will be called a homophobe, like anyone calling attention to Clinton's atrocious record was called a sexist." So, let's see what's on the slab. The first clause is exactly what one hears from bigots who've been called out for their expressed bigotry: Just because I called him 'Martin Luther Coon,' that doesn't make me a racist! You're taking it out of context! Your Politically Correct purity tests are destroying civil discourse!
In fact, you're not likely to be called a homophobe for mocking Buttigieg's name if you work from the similarity in sound to "Buddha." Call him "Buddha-judge," say, and you will probably not be accused of homophobia. Or you can do something with his first name, like this one, which I approve. But if you work with "Butt," as so many do ... well, you may just be betraying the straight-boy panic/obsession with buttsex that is endemic in this kind of discourse, and symptomatic of homophobia. It's been entertaining to see so many people protesting that straight people do anal sex too, so it's totally not homophobic to bring it into a discussion of a gay politician.
What's downright hilarious is Yusuf's equation of making fun of Buttigieg's name with criticizing Hillary Clinton's policies. Jon Schwarz has claimed that conservatives, as against liberals and progressives, can't do good analogies; I say that liberals and conservatives can't do them either, and Yusuf's tweet is evidence for my position. I noticed, and disparaged, the Clintonite habit of accusing critics of Her policies of sexism, just as Obama cultists accused critics of his policies of racism, whether or not sexism and racism were actually evident. But a name is not a policy. If you have objections to Pete Buttigieg's policies -- and many people do -- then state them, and be prepared to defend them. If you can't do so without referring to him as Buttchug, Buttface, etc., then you are not in control of your own discourse. If homophobic epithets just naturally burst to the surface when you're talking about politics, then it's probably accurate to say that you have some unresolved issues about gay men.
Twitter is the home of quick, relatively thought-free writing. Donald Trump's fondness for abusive schoolyard-style nicknames has often been deplored and mocked by his opponents. It's okay when they do it, of course, because Trump Is Worse; letting him be the benchmark is the very emblem of liberal/progressive moral and intellectual bankruptcy. If you're working in a longer-form medium and you can't edit out these little blorts of revelatory anxiety, then get someone to do it for you. If nothing else, you're putting in a distraction that will allow your opponents to discredit you without answering your well-considered policy criticisms -- and you don't want to do that, do you? (Or do you?)
