There was likely a time when “incel” just meant “involuntarily celibate,” without all of the baggage, but then two things happened together.

First, a significant number of “incels,” most notably on 4chan, fell into a specific set of essentially misogynistic coping behaviors - primarily blaming the supposed hypocrisy and shallowness of women for their own problems.

And second, a significant number of smugly self-righteous bigots saw an opportunity to hurl self-affirming hatred at an undifferentiated mass of people without suffering the backlash they’d get if it was directed at a group that essentially enjoys protected status, and leaped at the opportunity.

So now the popular conception is that all involuntarily celibate men are “incels,” with all that that implies - that they’re not just involuntarily celibate, but shallow, hateful, misogynistic losers and assholes.

It could potentially help if involuntarily celibate men who don’t share the misogyny of the “incels” had their own label, but honestly I don’t think it would make much of a difference in the long run, because there are now enough asshole bigots reveling in their hatred of “incels” that they’d refuse to let anyone get away. Just like all other more traditional bigots, they’d cling to their self-affirming conception that the mere fact that an individual is of a specific race gender sexual orientation relationship status means that they’re necessarily foul and loathsome, so their hatred of them is justified.

True, and I indeed should have said “reflex” instead.

I have no more right to interfere in someone else’s life than they have to interfere in mine.

Avoid people who don’t share that view.

People are almost more susceptible to simpler charts with race and IQ than they are to the really complicated stuff

Ironically enough, that’s because they’re stupid.

It amuses the hell out of me every time the conservatives whine about their brazen disinformation getting censored, since whenenver and wherever they get an opportunity (including, especially ironically, Facebook), they reveal themselves to be the most cowardly censorious people on the planet.

Everywhere, without exception, where conservatives have control, anything that even hints at undermining their comforting delusions is instantly censored.

But if anybody dares to censor anything they might want to say, including overt and deliberate lies, they wail and cry like the spoiled children they are.

I guarantee that the explanation for this would become very obvious if one were to simply, as the cliche has it, “follow the money.”

So the unspoken bit about RFK Jr. is that he’s a tweaker, right?

I mean, the details are all in the context of politically entitled progeny, but the underlying vibe I get from the stories about him is very reminiscent of the tweakers I’ve known over the years.

If we’re going to go all conspiratorial, here’s my theory:

Both campaigns are dealing with old men with diminished faculties.

There’s some drug cocktail(s) that both campaigns have been using to pep the doddering old farts up for public appearances.

If you’ll remember, very shortly before the debate, the accusation that “Biden’s on drugs” made the rounds, and Trump made some noises about demanding a drug test.

For some reason - possibly fear, possibly determination in the face of a challenge, possibly a subtle communication that the Trump campaign had some hard evidence they would, if pushed, release publicly - that led to the Biden team withholding his customary drug cocktail.

Trump, meanwhile, was dosed to the eyeballs.

And that was the contrast we saw - Trump was on drugs, while Biden, for whatever reason, for that night alone, was not.

Remember - for the Republicans broadly and especially for Trump, every accusation is a confession.