John Kelly is an Ankle-Biting Little Worm

Yvonne Owens, Ph.D.
Sep 9, 2018 · 2 min read

“Bill Maher Believes John Kelly Wrote the Trump-Bashing New York Times Op-Ed reads the headline in the Daily Beast.” This was my first thought, one I documented with Kristin Sweetland, whose first thought it was also. Kelly is always self-justifying, even while he is a racist, xenophobic, misogynist immigrant-hating cur, with no discernible sense of true honour, who sees himself as the hero who is saving America and running the White House. He is a coward in the sense that he won’t stand up and publicly denounce the man he despises and pretends to serve, and in the sense that he is one of those backbiting authoritarian males who will always defer to, if not cower before, a higher ranking male, even while he resents the dominant male, works to undermine him, and believes himself to be superior. He is delusional in the worst way — the sanctimonious self-righteous way.

This is the man who said of the separated, grievously traumatized children at the border: “They’ll be put in foster care or whatever…” [exact quote]

I watched him at John McCain’s funeral. Saw him realize how resoundingly on the wrong side of history he was. Saw him tally the fact that literally EVERYONE who was ANYONE in the D.C. power elite was there except Trump, could not help but see how disastrously he’d backed the wrong horse. Could almost hear the wheels turning in his head, feverishly calculating: how to get on the right side of this, for posterity’s sake and the annals of Time?

Give it up, man. Your name, along with those of the assholes you abetted and enabled, will live on only in infamy. You’re fucked.

Yvonne Owens, Ph.D.

Written by

I'm a writer/researcher/arts educator on Vancouver Island and all round global citizen who loves humans even though we're such a phenomenal pain-in-the-ass.

Welcome to a place where words matter. On Medium, smart voices and original ideas take center stage - with no ads in sight. Watch
Follow all the topics you care about, and we’ll deliver the best stories for you to your homepage and inbox. Explore
Get unlimited access to the best stories on Medium — and support writers while you’re at it. Just $5/month. Upgrade