You just can't make this stupid crap up.
Not a joke: Fortune names David Hogg and cohorts the world's greatest leaders of 2018
By Monica Showalter
It has a whiff of classic fake news: David Hogg and all his foul-mouthed little high school buddies who made headlines and raked cash from their calls for gun control in the wake of the Parkland shooting have been elevated to the number-one spot in Fortune magazine's annual list of the World's 50 Greatest Leaders.
Mike Allen at Axios got a sneak peek of the upcoming issue and reported it in his Vitals column this morning:
FORTUNE editor-in-chief Clifton Leaf: "If 2018 becomes the year that the United States finally begins to tackle its disease of gun violence ... it will be due not to the good sense of elected officials, but rather to the courage, tenacity, and sheer eloquence of students."
From the magazine's annual list of the World's 50 Greatest Leaders:
The students of Marjory Stoneman Douglas and other schools
Bill and Melinda Gates, cofounders, The Gates Foundation
The #MeToo Movement
South Korea President Moon Jae-in
Ken Frazier, Merck CEO
Seriously? Of all the world leaders on the global stage, they went for one famous for his petulance, immaturity, and string of losing causes? Hogg and his buddies certainly knew how to make headlines for their gun control cause in the wake of the Parkland shooting, but cripes, this is a guy whose brand of "leadership" is to refuse to accept a gracious apology from radio host Laura Ingraham and instead called for a nationwide boycott of her show over his...hurt feelings about not being able to get into a good college.
His other leadership achievement is basically to have drawn a lot of celebrity money to his protests, which in turn drew a lot of people, before the issue dropped like a stone as other news stories drew attention. Why are media darlings now seen as more worthy of the title of "leader" (seriously, would you follow this guy?) than the real leaders our military is turning out, and others who have overcome obstacles and drawn the inspiration of many? The Parkland David Hogg is nothing comparable to the North Carolina David Hogg of far higher achievements, for one, or the other students who don't see things Hogg's way and got ignored in the press.
Does Hogg have any prospects of moving the needle on gun control itself, given the public's long history of opposing it? Nope. He's just turning his newfound fame into a money-making opportunity and a bid to stay in the spotlight with a book coming out, called Never Again. The Parkland shooting has been very good for his bankbook.
What Fortune is guilty of here is having fallen for infatuation with youth and mistaken it for leadership. Hogg knows this, which is why he is being so manipulative.
Fortune's entire list is composed of leftists, as if lefties are desperate to have people to look up to in these long dark days of Trump. They can call it what they want, but the rest of us see it as a hagiography of the left's favorite leftists. How far this once distinguished magazine has fallen if it can substitute the Parkland gun-controllers' activism for actual leadership that matters.
