Carly Fiorina is just like Sarah Palin. Good point, New Republic.
Oh yeah, Carly Fiorina is just like Sarah Palin. Good point, New Republic. Christopher Halloran / Shutterstock.com

The New Republic just gets dumber and dumber. It's so sad to watch the "brainpower" behind Facebook destroy an old magazine that used to be capable of greatness, a magazine that used to publish Virginia Woolf.

Exhibit one million: This crazily stupid, undeniably sexist piece comparing Sarah Palin to Carly Fiorina. The headline calls Fiorina "Sarah Palin 2.0." What do Palin and Fiorina have in common? They're both Republicans with vaginas. But The New Republic doesn't just say that. They jump through all these convolutions to argue for the premise of their clickbait, which is that Palin and Fiorina are similar.

How on earth is it possible to argue that Fiorina and Palin are at all similar? With jaw-dropping stupidity like:

Though she’s committed fewer blunders than Palin, Fiorina does have some obvious similarities to the former vice-presidential candidate. Both favor words like “outsider” and “tough,” and allow themselves to be cast as a woman who does it all: They’re breadwinner moms with business savvy and enough charisma to make their raw ambition palatable. Similarly, both women’s careers have been marred by major professional failures: Fiorina’s firing from Hewlett-Packard and Palin’s "bridge to nowhere" (which, ironically, Fiorina initially defended).

1. What. The fuck. Are you talking about.

2. "Fewer blunders." Wow. That's one way of putting it. What if one person's blunders are the product of being unable to speak or think, and another person's blunders are the hazards of being the smart if strident CEO of a huge corporation? Oh who cares, doesn't matter, just call 'em all "blunders"! Then we can be done editing this article and go home and LOL at Facebook. God, this is going to get so much play on people's Facebook feeds!

3. "Both favor words like 'outsider' and 'tough.'" Okay. First of all: "favor"? Who penned this thing, anyway? Second of all, as Josh Barro sarcastically points out, "male Republican presidential candidates never call themselves tough outsiders."

4. What does "allow themselves to be cast" mean? Did anyone look at any of these sentences before this was published? Does "allow themselves to be cast" just mean "allow other people to think whatever other people are going to think because that's how people work"? How is this different than everyone else who puts on clothes and walks around? Please tell me again what you are talking about.

5. "They’re breadwinner moms with business savvy"—right, just like famous "breadwinner dad" Barack Obama, famous "breadwinner dad" George W. Bush, and famous "breadwinner dad" Winston Churchill. How come we never call any of those guys "breadwinner dads"? Oh yeah, because it's irrelevant and makes no sense and everyone who has a job and children is a "breadwinner" parent, whether they are a mom or dad. WHAT ARE YOU DOING, NEW REPUBLIC? Also, "business-savvy"? Both? Which Fortune 500 company was Sarah Palin the CEO of again? Can't remember.

6. "Similarly, both women’s careers have been marred by major professional failures"—um, yeah, just like Hillary Clinton, MLK, Ghandi, Justin Bieber, Britney Spears, and everyone else who's ever been in the public eye ever.

7. Look up "ironically."