Believe it or not, it really isn’t that hard to get famous as a hard-right conservative. The Fox reality bubble is pretty small. If you want to appeal to that roughly one-fifth of the population, it doesn’t require much in the way of talent; just coming out and bashing famous liberals on Twitter will do it. But that can, however, a dangerous gambit, and the last laugh isn’t guaranteed if you pick the wrong target. Patton Oswalt is one such.
The D-List troll in question is one Adam Baldwin (no relation), one of a great many once-famous-now-D-list celebrities who has taken up neo-conservative trolling to get back on the map. You might not remember him from such films as Full Metal Jacket, and bit parts in several sci-fi ventures including Independence Day, Predator 2, the X-Files and Stargate SG-1. In fact, Baldwin does have something of a cult following; especially since he landed the lead role on that ultimate cult-following TV series, Firefly.
But things have been a little slow, a little D-List behind-the-scenes for Baldwin since Firefly was (unjustly) cancelled ten years ago. But like a disgraced Hollywood boxer looking to climb back up in the ranks, he’s recently taken up trolling heavyweight liberals on Twitter. Presumably, Baldwin plans to eat them to absorb their power. But he bit off more than he could chew when he decided to troll Patton Oswalt.
And no, none of those were fat jokes.
Speaking as many out-of-date D-Listers do of something that happened five years ago, Baldwin jabbed Oswalt over a bit he did in 2009. You’ve probably seen it — the one where he talks about going ten years into the past, and telling himself about iPods and a black president named Barack Hussein Obama. To be fair, Oswalt was a fairly hardcore Obama fanboy; more than half of Americans were at the time. And even in his last term, about 43 percent still are. Now 68 percent among Latinos.
However, in that sketch Oswalt was more highlighting how much the world had changed in the previous decade than stumping for Obama. Still, Baldwin must have struck a nerve after his years of trolling when he posted a “reminder” of Oswalt’s earlier enthusiasm. And Oswalt, probably having read Baldwin’s Twitter feed for the first time, lashed back.
Isn’t it fun when our guys stop being nice?
Of course, either side of this particular Twitter fight could call a win, and they are. But, let’s do a quick tally, and see who got the last laugh from this particular exchange. The Tweet above was Oswalt’s last mention of Baldwin. Since then:
Oswalt: Approximately 15 Tweets about his hit network TV show, a picture of his latest voice character on Disney, notice that there are only about a dozen tickets left for his stand-up show, and a picture of him consuming what appears to be filet mignon, caviar and Chardonnay.
Baldwin: Approximately 50 Tweets about Obama, communists and Patton Oswalt.
And the last laugh goes to…