It’s the Monday proper earlier than the 2024 presidential election and Republicans can’t cease speaking concerning the state-sanctioned euthanizing of a squirrel named Peanut.
Identified colloquially to his 720,000-plus Instagram followers as P’Nut, the tiny, charismatic rodent has turn into a right-wing martyr — as has his surviving, very muscular, continuously shirtless proprietor, Mark Longo, who additionally occurs to be an OnlyFans mannequin with a major homosexual following.
Regardless of the various freedoms New Yorkers are afforded, it seems that having a squirrel as a pet isn’t authorized in New York. In a New York Division of Environmental Conservation (DEC) raid on Longo’s property in Pine Metropolis, New York, Peanut reportedly bit an officer concerned within the investigation. The squirrel and not less than one different animal (a raccoon named Fred) had been taken from the property and euthanized. What ensued was a social media frenzy that gained explicit buy in right-wing areas, with conservatives going to bat for the OnlyFans mannequin and his late pet.
How can a woodland rodent turn into Republican? Did Peanut should die? Why are Elon Musk and JD Vance speaking about this useless animal? Are squirrels good pets? Why does this often-naked man love this squirrel a lot?
The extra one discovers about Peanut, the extra questions come up. That mentioned, right here’s one try and parse the story of how an enthralling rodent by some means grew to become the one factor Republicans had been enthusiastic about lower than 24 hours earlier than Election Day.
Who was Peanut the Squirrel, and why was he killed?
For a while now, social media has paid particular consideration to conventionally engaging males with their pets. It’s not unrelated to the entire phenomenon of males on courting apps posing with their canine and cats. It wasn’t sophisticated: extraordinarily match man + lovable pet = many, many web followers.
In an easier period, earlier than Peanut and his proprietor Mark Longo had been conservative celebrities, one among my buddies despatched me a put up from Longo’s social media. It was a video of Longo, shirtless, hanging out with Peanut. The message, although unstated, was clear: Have a look at this man along with his massive muscular tissues and his little squirrel (not a euphemism).
Longo’s different movies — sporting tight pants with squirrel, sporting tiny shorts with squirrel, sporting a bulge with squirrel — made it very clear that though the TikTok account was named “Peanut the Squirrel,” his co-star was the actual draw. Longo’s OnlyFans account, “Squirrel Daddy,” appeared to substantiate that the creator was parlaying his and Peanut’s social media fame into profitable filmed intercourse work — work that, to be extraordinarily clear, didn’t function Peanut.
Whereas Longo and Peanut’s fame was ascending, nobody was asking concerning the legality of Longo’s possession of Peanut. Based on Longo in interviews with the New York Submit, he discovered Peanut seven years earlier as an orphaned equipment (the time period for child squirrels) and raised the small, charming rodent himself.
Sadly for Longo, the animal legal guidelines of New York State, the place he and Peanut lived collectively, don’t permit people to have squirrels as pets, orphaned or not. Longo and his accomplice additionally owned Fred the raccoon — one other animal that isn’t allowed to be saved as a pet. Along with Peanut and Fred, Longo and his accomplice opened P’Nuts Freedom Farm, an animal sanctuary in Pine Metropolis, in April 2023.
After fielding quite a few nameless complaints about Longo’s animals (Longo has said he believes the complaints had been from web activists), New York’s Division of Environmental Conservation mentioned it raided Longo’s residence final week. Based on official reviews, in the course of the inspection Peanut bit one of many investigating officers; the DEC, following protocol, put Peanut and Fred (the raccoon) down and examined each animals for rabies.
The New York DEC mentioned in an announcement:
On Oct. 30, DEC seized a raccoon and squirrel sharing a residence with people, creating the potential for human publicity to rabies. As well as, an individual concerned with the investigation was bitten by the squirrel. To check for rabies, each animals had been euthanized.
My colleague Keren Landman, an MD who has educated as a doctor and epidemiologist, identified that the measures might need been over-aggressive. Longo had been elevating Peanut in his dwelling for over seven years. If the squirrel had been really rabid, he would have had a brief life span. The animal was additionally captive, she identified, and will have had his blood examined with out being killed.
Within the wake of Peanut and Fred’s euthanasia, Longo has been talking at size with the New York Submit in unique interviews.
“They handled me like I used to be a terrorist. They handled this raid as if I used to be a drug vendor,” Lengthy informed the Submit, explaining that the raid was some 5 hours lengthy.
Longo additionally addressed the individuals who filed complaints towards him, Peanut, Fred, and his animal sanctuary. “To the group of people that referred to as DEC, there’s a particular place in hell for you,” Longo added.
How did Peanut turn into a right-wing martyr?
Primarily based on Peanut’s social media presence (created by Longo), there was no apparent partisan messaging on Peanut’s accounts. The closest Peanut obtained to politics was celebrating the vacations with no particular point out of Christmas. The identical goes for Longo’s social media presence, the place his grownup content material is described as “kinky” and has a homosexual following.
But, due to Longo’s interviews with the Submit, which leans conservative, right-wing personalities have picked up his and Peanut’s story. Many body Longo and Peanut for example of authorities overreach. With assistance from AI, some conservatives like Elon Musk turned Peanut right into a right-wing meme, creating photographs like a phalanx of Peanuts prepared for battle, or Peanut as a Jedi chipmunk (despite the fact that Peanut was a squirrel).
Peanut’s story of probably wrongful euthanasia has gotten so common with the Republicans that vice presidential nominee JD Vance cited the tiny mammal in a few his marketing campaign speeches.
“Have you ever seen the movies of this squirrel? He’s, like, a genius. Or he was,” Vance informed a crowd in North Carolina, assuring them that his operating mate was as heated concerning the squirrel demise as he was.
“Is it actually the case that the Democrats murdered the Elon Musk of squirrels?” Vance mentioned, recalling a dialog he had with Trump.
The declare being made right here is that the native New York State Division of Environmental Conservation, which was liable for Peanut’s demise, is synonymous with the Democratic Celebration. How, exactly, is unclear. Additionally it is unclear what the “Elon Musk of squirrels” even means. As Vance’s critics level out, he and his cohort have proven extra empathy towards a tiny rodent deemed a possible rabies danger than immigrant households or human victims of police brutality.
At this juncture, Peanut has been remodeled by the very-online proper right into a mascot to rile up engagement. Musk and right-wing influencer Ian Miles Cheong have each — maybe facetiously — linked Peanut’s demise to an eventual Republican victory, though the mathematics on that is still pretty “??? Revenue.” New York, the place Peanut resided illegally, is a solidly blue state. It’s true, nevertheless, that placing down an animal is an emotional subject for a lot of throughout occasion traces, a topic that Musk doubtless remembers from the Harambe discourse of 2016. (On the time, Trump mentioned the zoo officers who shot the gorilla “didn’t have a selection.”)
Longo, for his half, has raised over $180,000 within the wake of Peanut’s demise, funds that he says will go towards his animal sanctuary’s “mission.” A lot of these donations cite the politics that Peanut has turn into linked to. It simply goes to indicate that being on the heart of a tradition battle — even one that’s, for the big-name gamers, maybe a little bit hole — pays.
