EDITORS' CORNER
OPINION: Calling Trump and supporters ‘Nazis’ is OK. Calling Michelle Obama a guy is worse than Original Sin.
After over a decade, leftists still don’t get how Donald Trump managed to win the presidency not once, but twice.
Latest case in point: While at the White House last week, UFC fighter Josh Hokit made a “transphobic jab” at former first lady Michelle Obama, repeating an alleged “long-debunked far-right conspiracy theory” that she’s really a dude.
HuffPost‘s Brittany Wong, a former contributor to the UCLA student paper The Daily Bruin, noted the remark “drew cheers from some sections of the crowd,” has yet to be denounced by President Trump, and was described as “hilarious” by former FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino.
According to Wong, Hokit’s type of “’nonsense’ is nothing new for those on the far right, who have a habit of ‘transvestigating’ women in power, especially if they’re women of color.”
Wong asked University of Buffalo American Studies Professor Kari Winter, an “expert” in “gender, feminism, race, class, slavery, politics of food, [and] literature” for her opinion on the controversy (such that it is).
Calling Hokit’s comment “appalling” and “shameful,” Winter said “The question is why the world is forced to witness the most vile, infantile behavior on display in the place that was for centuries the revered heart of American democracy?”
Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology’s Jay Daniel Thompson, an expert in “the intersections of journalism, networked disinformation, digital hostility and media ethics,” said “conspiracies” like those espoused by Hokit “reflect an increasing and well-documented global hostility toward the trans and LGBTQ+ communities, as well as women.”
Thompson admits Hokit “clearly wanted a cheap laugh and he got it,” but said “it’s notable, and unsurprising” that he hasn’t offered an apology, nor has Trump.”
Off of Thompson’s analysis, Wong somehow sees “transvestigations” as “targeting” minority women, and claims they’re derived from the discredited “science” of phrenology.
An A.I.-assisted search asking if Winter and/or Thompson ever spoke up about disparaging remarks made about current first lady Melania Trump turned up zilch.
On Wednesday, Howard University’s Stacey Patton (fresh off of calling the father of murdered teenager Austin Metcalf a “failure”) chimed in on the matter, saying among other things “What I heard from Hokit was a public confession: ‘Michelle Obama is a man. I am angry because she is a Black woman who does not need me. Am I right, America? And, I miss Mammy!’”
These supposed intellectuals fail to realize that a major part of Trump’s appeal is because he doesn’t care about hypocritical nonsense like this. He simply refuses to allow the Left and the mainstream media — and academics — to call him and his supporters any and every name in the book, including “Nazi,” without pushback.
You’d think Trump coming back and winning in ’24 — despite charging him with myriad crimes, trying to blame him for an “insurrection” on par with the Big Bang for destructiveness, and raiding his home for alleged stolen documents, etc. — would knock a bit of sense into the usual purveyors of selective outrage.
The left is losing their minds because a UFC fighter called Michelle Obama a man.
— 💋Elissa4Real💋 (@EL4USA) June 17, 2026
We don’t care.
The left has been hurling derogatory comments towards the First Lady for the last 10 years. Far worse than calling someone a man. Get over it. pic.twitter.com/LoS0YTPheu
Seriously, what’s worse — saying Trump is worse than Hitler, the greatest mass murderer of the 20th century … or quipping that Michelle Obama looks like a man?
Do I wish guys like Hokit didn’t make comments like that? Of course. But the days of conservatives/Republicans unilaterally taking it on the chin are long over. Professors Winter, Thompson, et. al. play well to the progressive/Democrat base, but they’re certainly not doing any favors for the deteriorating reputation of fringe academia.
MORE: Hypocrite performative progressives say all the ‘right’ things … then do opposite when it counts
