“Pushing us around” in this case means annoying Hogg by taunting him for not getting into the colleges of his choice, a fact he himself revealed to the media. The great gun-control movement of 2018 is momentarily about avenging his personal butthurt at Laura Ingraham for behaving like a nasty juvenile herself.

We’re like a week away from being told that Harvard refusing to admit him is proof that the baby-killers at the NRA have won.

Asked by CNN’s Alisyn Camerota whether he accepts the apology from Ingraham, who tweeted to more than 2 million followers, Hogg said simply, “No.”…

“I think it’s great that corporate America is standing with me and the rest of my friends,” Hogg said on CNN. “Because when you come against any one of us, whether it be me or anybody else, you’re coming against all of us. And I think it’s important that we stand together as both corporate and civic America to take action against these people and show them that they cannot push us around, especially when all we’re trying to do here is save lives.”

He’s only asking his supporters, especially in the media and the corporate class, to do for him what he’s spent six weeks doing for them. He’s on camera 24/7 because he’s a perfect vessel for vengeance against their political enemies: He’ll call the gun lobby murderers, he’ll whack away at Republicans like Marco Rubio, and he can’t be fairly criticized for it in polite political debate because he’s both a child and a victim. (“We can’t have animals on the air attacking children!”) All he’s asking for in return right now is to have the favor returned. Ingraham was mean to him. Avenge him.

He does his best in the second half of the interview to make this about something larger than his wounded pride and to position himself and the Parkland students as more moderate in their demands than they really are. We have to reach across the aisle and come together on a gun solution, he says, ignoring the penchant for throwing “child-murderer” haymakers at opponents that’s made him famous. He doesn’t want to meet with Ingraham to discuss solutions, not because she made fun of him, supposedly, but because she doesn’t cover “inner-city violence,” which feels like woke Mad Libs when he says it. I expected him to say “because she’s not open-minded on regulating guns” or “because Fox News isn’t fair to liberals.” How much does CNN cover “inner-city violence”?

His insistence that he and his friends don’t want to ban broad classes of weapons, just keep them out of the hands of dangerous people, was the biggest surprise, though. Six days ago, before the Washington march, NPR asked him what he was hoping for in terms of gun regulations:

[HOGG:] The universal background checks so that we can close the gun show loophole because right now you can purchase a firearm even in Florida at the age of 18 still, if it’s private. And you don’t need a background check for that.

SIMON: Despite the law that just passed?

HOGG: Yeah, exactly. It’s one of the loopholes, and we have to address those – a ban on high-capacity magazines and an assault weapons ban. In all of these things have over a super majority support by most constituents. And I think it’s something that if any politicians pushed in general – they would really have an easy time getting re-elected because they would be – they would show that they are practicing what they preach and that they’re trying to be leaders in their own right. But right now, I think, in Washington, we’re not seeing that. And that’s something that has to change.

Today, speaking with CNN, it sounds like he’s aiming for something more like “gun-violence restraining orders,” which would target unstable gun owners rather than banning any particular class of weapon. If so, I have good news for him: His old friend Marco Rubio has been pushing a bill like that for weeks. But Hogg sneers whenever Rubio’s name is mentioned. Maybe Rubio doesn’t cover inner-city violence enough either.

The best part here is Alisyn Camerota pandering to him at the end about his rejections from “dumbass” colleges. CNN was sufficiently proud of that moment to have tweeted it out on the network account.

https://twitter.com/redsteeze/status/979722942060867584

I look forward to the media publicly lobbying outside institutions for positions for its favorite people. Jeff Zucker will write Hogg a letter of recommendation, I’m sure.

One last thing about this. Whether it’s a conscious strategy by Hogg himself or the adult liberals advising him, it’s very, very savvy to seize on a boycott opportunity against Fox News. Ingraham handed him one on a silver platter and he pounced. It’s unlikely that the boycott will drive her from the air, if only because Fox viewers would explode upon seeing the network cave to Hogg and Media Matters, but he doesn’t need to push her off the air here to “win.” All he needs to do is bloody her nose. Doing so would flex his and his allies’ political muscles and further endear him to left-wingers by scoring a point on one of their least favorite right-wing outfits. Revenge on the NRA and the likes of Rubio is fine but revenge on Fox News would light up Democrat lizard brains like few things would. He’ll be a figure of some renown to them for a good long while if he pulls it off.