Sometimes a person in the political realm can become so relentlessly irksome and absurd, almost willfully self-humiliating to an impressive degree, that they end up becoming kind of cute, in a pathetic, endearing way. Mark Levin has reached that point.
In recent days, Levin, a Fox News content creator and informal White House adviser, has exhibited a series of wild public crash-outs related to Israel, the Iran war, and Vice President J.D. Vance. There was even one about his AOL email account. (Yes! Just how lovable loser Steve Urkel of Family Matters drove a comically tiny buggy car for transportation, Levin uses AOL to correspond with his friends in Israel. Aww! Haha!)
In one such outburst, Levin attempted to pre-but a coming Politico story on how attacks from himself and others on the vice president might actually benefit Vance in the 2028 election. “Now, folks, I’ve been around a few years,” wrote Levin, using the word “folks,” which he invariably uses before saying something cartoonishly corny. “I’ve seen presidents and vice presidents come and go. I’ve seen politicians come and go. I’ve also seen campaign operatives and surrogates manipulate a willing media in hopes of creating a pseudo-news story to advance an agenda.” Levin then struck a defiant pose, possibly with his chest out and his hands on his love handles. “We are not going to be played,” he declared.
You can practically hear the canned laughter and encouraging “Woo!” track played over Levin’s lines. He’s the breakout character who gets lunchbox stickers made out of his zany facial expressions and catchphrases.
The day before, Levin earnestly shared his AOL woes. “Folks,” he said (naturally), “I have spent literally the entire day trying to get someone at AOL to unlock my email. For the last eight hours, I have been told that the issue has been escalated to supervisors who would contact me. I haven’t heard a thing.”
This is the man who the president of the United States this year has urged the public and even Supreme Court justices to watch on TV. I hadn’t considered it was because he thought we’d all get a laugh out of Levin’s latest meltdown. I wish I had been watching sooner.
If it weren’t enough that Levin publicly shared his frustrations with a long-forgotten internet provider, he followed up by suggesting it must have been a plot against him by the Iranian government. “My wife and I were warned yesterday by the appropriate federal agency that we might be targeted by the Iranian regime,” he wrote on X. “Specifically, by a possible cyber attack. Well, that appears to have occurred.”
Iran can never be allowed to have a nuclear weapon. Just the same, it can never, ever again have the capability to lock a neocon out of his AOL Buddy List. Hey, Hezbollah! You’ve Got Jail! (Cue more canned laughter.)
It’s like the episode of Saved By the Bell where the beloved Screech dreams that he has transformed into “Robo Screech,” a robotic high school hall monitor, who impresses the hot girls by disrupting bullies. By the episode’s end he wakes up to find out he’s still a hapless nerd used for comic relief, just like Levin.
Trump might still take him seriously as the prolonged Iran war continues to make the president and Republicans more and more unpopular. But hopefully he’ll soon see Levin’s real purpose is to be a widely recognized, fondly welcomed joke.
