

We as Americans could not stand for this cultural despoiling. Infinity wars based on faulty premises in foreign lands? Corporate greed and political corruption hastening a ruinous economic collapse? An ocean polluted with actual pollution? On September 13, 2000, before a solemn chamber of musty senators, she indicted this “new, sicker” world, an ocean with “waves polluted with sex and violence.” If we didn’t stop Eminem, more mass shootings might ensue, and our imaginations shouldn’t dare to consider what else might proceed. To Lynne Cheney, the soon-to-be second lady of the United States, Eminem embodied the decline of Western civilization. And the greatest trick that he ever pulled was convincing the world to take him at his word. Satan wasn’t a domestic terrorist, a political rival, or even an actual criminal.

His hair was bleached, his pants were baggy, and he was named after a candy-coated chocolate. Darth Vader’s wife discovered the blue-eyed devil.
