You could be forgiven if you’re confused about whether Gerald Malloy’s Twitter feed is a maladroit attempt to articulate his views or a piece of anarchic performance art. Lately, the unsuccessful 2022 Republican candidate for U.S. Senate has been deploying a mish-mash of anodyne observations and conservative talking points with plenty of ALL CAPS thrown in for good measure.

We’ll run down some of the more entertaining examples, but first I must address the above Tweet, which prompted me to write this post. Malloy posits the late musician/composer/activist Clifford Thornton as an exemplar of THE AMERICAN DREAM, I guess? Based solely, it would seem, on the fact that Thornton titled his first album Freedom & Unity. I seriously doubt that Thornton had Vermont in mind when he made that record, and I suspect that if he knew he was being championed by Gerald Malloy, he’d be spinning in his grave.

The real Clifford Thornton was a practitioner of free jazz, the radical mix of cutting-edge art that cared not for melody or harmony or traditional structure. He was associated with avant-garde greats like Archie Shepp, Ornette Coleman, Albert Ayler, Sun Ra, and Anthony Braxton. A critic wrote that Freedom & Unity was “a natural extension of the music of Ornette Coleman.” There is precisely zero chance that Malloy has actually listened to any of Thornton’s music.

But that’s not the weird slash ironic part.

Clifford Thornton was a radical Black activist who might have been a member of the Black Panther Party, and was definitely simpatico. The opening track of Freedom & Unity is entitled “Free Huey,” in honor of the imprisoned Panther leader Huey Newton. Here’s a quote from Thornton that might inspire Malloy to delete his celebratory tweet:

“For a lot of brothers like myself, we got no choice. What else can we do in this world that’s not a slave job? Really, what are our options? We have to be creative musicians if we want to be somebody in this world.”

I do not believe that Clifford Thornton shared Malloy’s espousal of THE AMERICAN DREAM.

Anyway. Other recent Malloy tweets are less offensive than they are random. He used the flood of 2023 as a pretext to bang on about the national debt, and tried to make it all make sense by accusing Congress of putting America on “this STORM path.” He shared images of trash heaps in downtown Montpelier with a lament about the federal budget.

Last Sunday Malloy briefly mentioned the disaster and then touted his attendance at the STARS & STRIPES Parade in Lyndonville and, apropos of nothing, added “I SUPPORT TERM LIMITS.” On Wednesday July 13, he didn’t even pretend to notice the flood. Instead, he posted a Twitter poll on allowing 16- and 17-year-olds to vote, which he opposes. The result: 93.8% in favor the practice and only 6.2% in line with Malloy. Oops.

Before the storm, Malloy issued a series of food-related tweets. On July 7 he slammed Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen for deliberately causing our recent high inflation. The tweet was accompanied by a big and context-free photo of a three-scoop ice cream cone. The day before, he lamented America’s deep political divisions with an image of a dandelion in an otherwise green lawn. And on June 30, he posted a picture of radishes presumably grown in his garden, but in a nod to reaching across the aisle, he wrote “I realize not everyone likes RADISHES ! ! !”

I’ll wrap it up with a June 27 tweet reporting that he’d had a flight canceled due to weather, which he attributed to GOD (all caps) “protecting me.”

Must explain why God took his eye off the ball when it came to protecting Vermont from the flooding.

All of this kind of makes me hope that Malloy will run for office again in 2024. We can use this kind of entertainment in our politics, whether or not Malloy really intends to make us smile.

Postscript. This is a deep cut, so feel free to sign off. The day after Malloy posted his RADISHES tweet, he wrote in praise of PIE in all caps. In response, I noted his predilection toward food-related content and wondered which edible would be honored next. In response to me, Vermont Democratic Party executive director Jim Dandeneau, not in his official capacity, replied “MAYONNAISE.”

Rabbit hole warning. That was a callback to Christina Nolan, who lost the 2022 Republican primary to Malloy. The high slash low point of her campaign was a 27-second video clip of her standing in the condiments aisle of a supermarket lamenting the high cost of mayonnaise.

Now, I don’t know whether Mrs. Malloy is in on the joke or what, but apparently she saw Dandeneau’s reply and told Malloy he should tweet about mayonnaise. And so he did, complete with a truly disturbing closeup of a huge blob of mayo.

There you go. Gerald Malloy, blazing a social media trail to destinations unknown. Enjoy the ride while it lasts. Sooner or later, he’s likely to return to plain old conservative talking points without the unintended entertainment.