Against my better judgment—and because a few well-meaning friends swore it was “different now”—I waded back into social media after a four-year absence. It wasn’t. Sure, there were some bright spots: lasagna recipes, cat memes, and blues records posted like contraband relics smuggled out of Vatican City. And it was good to see old friends again—most of them just living, not preaching. But the rest of it? A no-fly zone of snark and self-importance, patrolled by ideological bombers strafing anything that drifted off the approved flight path, where even a typo could get you court-martialed.
Somewhere in the chaos, one particularly caffeinated geezer decided that Tommy Lee’s recent Twitter repost to the president was the digital equivalent of a dispatch from the beaches of Normandy. Apparently, in his mind, Lee was Churchill on the cable to FDR while the Reich marched on Downing Street.
Except Winston Churchill stared down the Luftwaffe with a cigar in one hand and the fate of Western civilization in the other. Tommy Lee simply stared at his iPhone, thumbs ablaze, and reposted an ‘open letter’ that exposed him like a drunk at a eulogy: “Dear Lunatic.” One of these men rallied a dying empire to defy tyranny with nothing but grit and deadpan prose. The other hit “share” on a digital meltdown likely drafted between bong rips and reruns of Jackass. It’s a historical juxtaposition so absurd it might break the space-time continuum if you think about it too hard.
Churchill’s courage was forged in trenches and tempered by the weight of history. His words weren’t just for Britain, but for history itself—a warning that barbarism demands mettle. Tommy Lee, by contrast, belongs to a class of minor celebrities who believe their Wi-Fi connection grants them license to bloviate as if they’d just emerged from Plato’s cave with a baggie of blunts and a moral mandate. His “bravery” consists of insulting a President from the comfort of a Malibu hot tub, flanked by inflatable swans and the last withered tendrils of relevance.
The difference, beyond the obvious gulf of intellect and impact, is that Churchill understood the stakes. When he spoke, bombs fell. When Lee speaks, he simply bombs. Tommy’s letter isn’t protest—it’s a tantrum between vapes. He’s not resisting fascism; he’s emoting for likes. His war is not against tyranny, but boredom. Churchill turned words into artillery. Lee fumbles syntax like he’s concussed and looking for the backbeat.
It’s telling that in the scroll-and-post era, we’ve learned to mistake noise for nerve. Churchill didn’t virtue signal—he signaled actual virtue. He faced annihilation and answered it with a growl and a glass of Pol Roger. Lee, on the other hand, recycles expletives from someone else’s brain-dump and fancies himself a freedom fighter. That’s not dissent; it’s pantomime. Tommy Lee is not the second coming of Thomas Paine—he’s a half-lit jukebox of tattoo ink and Twitter delirium, armed with emojis.
So let’s not make-believe these are even adjacent categories. One was a statesman who spoke in paragraphs that history etched into granite. Churchill said, “We shall never surrender.” Tommy Lee’s moment of speaking truth to power? Reposting “d__k sandwich” in Comic Sans. One is remembered for saving a nation. The other for scoring the soundtrack of Barb Wire. Call it what you will—but don’t call it heroism. Idiocy, maybe … heroism? No.
This is how far we have fallen: some people believe a recycled insult fired off between sips of Johnny Walker Red and a brunch reservation carries the weight of Magna Carta 2.0. Somewhere, that same geezer is still saluting Tommy Lee’s repost like it was strategic intel from the Somme. The old virtues—sacrifice, endurance, a spine worth breaking—have been swapped for Instagram posts and role-played fury. Every rebel comes with a merch line. Every revolution is documented in selfies, cropped and captioned for maximum moral exhibitionism. Strike a pose, tag your tribe, and vanish into the feed—just another avatar in the civil war of stupid.
I read a post where someone declared, “History is watching!”
History isn’t watching. It’s laughing.