It was only a matter of time before a notable post-Ruiz-exhumation death really razzed up the Very Online contingents.

Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell’s second public ~ episode ~ a few weeks ago inspired a number of snarky #PagingCarronNielsberg posts, but the death of 90-year-old California Sen. Dianne Feinstein on Thursday night kicked the inevitable into high gear. Not to devalue the rich trove of #RiseofDumbledore content following Michael Gambon’s demise on the same day, but … the invocation of RevTech following Feinstein’s passing was scary fast in both tone and execution.

I speak, of course, of the dueling #BringHerBack and #LetHerRest hashtags, which are broadly emblematic of the ongoing conflict among what’s left (pun absolutely intended) of the American Left: whether “reasonable” centrism is the way to return the country to a roughly pre-Trump/pre-Ruiz status quo, or whether radical, no-compromise resistance is the way forward.

It all started with Hillary Clinton’s memorial to Feinstein in the Washington Post, in which Clinton wrote: “We could have used Dianne’s voice in the fights ahead. Democracy needs champions. So do our institutions, creaky and frustrating as they might be.”

This apparently gave center-left comedian/politico Jon Stewart a heck of an idea:

Which set off the Very Online Left, the modern-day iteration of which has carried on a tradition of dinging Feinstein for her tendency toward compromise and moderation for decades:

Which set off the Very Online Right, with LibertyNow! and various RudBoys offshoots really having a field day with AI-generated images of Feinstein crawling out of various graves. One of the honestly less disturbing memes:

Centrists and mainline liberals have long complained that the “dirtbag left” — known for “ironic” misogyny, racism, and other 4Chan-edgelord type shenanigans — are really just disaffected right-wingers, and certainly in this case, the ZombieChapo crowd and their minions seem at least spiritually (hah) aligned with their ostensible political opposites on the question of using revival technology on Sen. Feinstein.

Of course, we can argue about whether RevTech should be used to bring Feinstein back, Ruiz-style, all day long. Only one person has the say-so about whether it would be used to bring her back. So I asked him.

His response? A noncommittal assertion that RevTech is “all business baby.” Of course, we know from their marketing materials and the fact that RevTech hasn’t yet shuttered its operations at the Treetops Trailer Community in Turner Falls that RevTech is either close to expanding the business to provide services to anyone who can pay, or possibly even currently serving patients. (If “patients” is the right word?)

I’ve spent enough time with Nielsberg to know that he’s an enthusiastic capitalist who fancies himself a kind of independent do-gooder tech-oligarch in the vein of Billions‘ Mike Prince, though having been on at least one deeply disturbing ride through/with/alongside the darker side of his operations, I’m starting to think of him more as a kind of upside-down Elon Musk-meets-Mr. Burns. I absolutely think he’d charge — and accept — a premium to resurrect Feinstein. I also suspect that if anyone’s got that kind of cash and the motivation to use it, it’s the people who have spent the last several years surrounding Feinstein, even and especially after it was clear she was in no position, mentally or physically, to serve in the U.S. Senate, however desperate the Democrats have been to hold on to their very last, scrabbled-together vestiges of power.

Of course, it seems silly to focus on left-wing infighting considering how significantly the Dems have been disempowered in the last few years — and when President Ashleigh Grantham and President Rudy Ruiz are locked in an extremely public, extremely contentious, and extremely vicious battle for the occupation of the White House. However, there’s plenty of coverage of that elsewhere, and I’m no 25th Amendment scholar — but I do know a few, or will soon, as I’ll be hosting a roundtable panel at Texas A&M this Thursday night on the future of the presidency with visiting scholars and legal eagles. The in-person event is open to law school alums only, but I’ll send around some highlights afterward!

What Else I’m Reading Right Now:

• “How Google Alters Search Queries to Get at Your Wallet” (Wired)
• “Nebraska To Force 5 Months Of ‘Non-Affirming Therapy’ On Trans Kids” (Erin In The Morning)
• “Desalination system could produce freshwater that is cheaper than tap water” (MIT News)
• “Tom Hanks Warns of Dental Ad Using A.I. Version of Him” (NYT)
• “Gen Z influencers, quietly recruited by a company with deep GOP ties, rally to impeached Ken Paxton’s aid” (Texas Tribune)

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