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In there like swimwear
For any readers seeking evidence that, despite the election, we are in the heart of silly season, look no further than this week’s non-troversy concerning Republican congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna and her swimwear.
In midweek, TikTok users apparently discovered a 2016 video of APL wearing a “Make America Great Again” one-piece swimsuit. The chatter migrated to X, when a troll posted the clip with the caption, “Anna Paulina Luna should be working at my local Hooters, NOT in Congress!”
This prompted a defiant response from the Florida congresswoman. “I have a confession to make since the TikTok Democrats are onto me: I wear bikinis to the beach and mineral sunscreen… I’m confirming that I have indeed worn swimsuits and you can tell I am biologically a woman. #MAGA, she tweeted. “I was also in featured by sports illustrated and MAXIM. Designed swimsuits and women’s shirts.” Avid students of Cockburn’s writing knew this already, of course: he wrote about Luna’s past modeling for Sports Illustrated and her grandfather’s eyebrow-raising World War Two record over a year ago.
Kayfabe attacks merit kayfabe defenses, of course. “Pick-me” congresswoman Nancy Mace was among the first. “Thinking of making a swimsuit of my own! @realannapaulina,” she wrote, alongside a picture of her primary results printed on a white one-piece. “BREAKING NEWS: Conservative women wear bikinis too. I stand with the beautiful @realannapaulina,” tweeted model and One America News Network producer Peyton Drew, alongside a picture of herself in a Game of Thrones-y chainmail bikini (not that practical for the beach!)
“I support @realannapaulina In Florida we wear bikinis!” wrote Florida state representative Michelle Salzmann. “I may just be a panhandle girl, but I can be conservative, intelligent, beautiful ~ AND serve my community. #Florida #girlpower #freedom”
“I stand with @realannapaulina,” wrote Ada Lluch. “Conservative women are allowed to be hot,” she continued, as if anyone had said they weren’t, with a bikini picture of her own.
“I stand with both of these sluts,” reads one response.
Taking the cake however, is Ginger Gaetz, wife of Luna’s Florida delegation colleague Matt and sister of Oculus VR founder Palmer Luckey. Ginger is showed solidarity by blasting out even more hot pictures of Luna from her swimsuit-modeling days, writing, “APL single-handedly bringing back Women Crush Wednesday #WCW @realannapaulina.” Ginger has also been tweeting out images of other conservative women in their bikinis, among them Colorado congresswoman Lauren Boebert, and Manhattan GOP chair Andrea Catsimatidis.
The inexorable rise of the GOP swimwear models
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