Subject: And here I thought
Author:
Posted on: 2020-01-29 19:17:38 UTC
Gategate would be a budget scandal, probably with the military: "They paid how much to repaint those gates?". This is likely to be some combination of contractor-related bloat people should be unhappy about and the general public not realizing that you can't just have random people do certain painting jobs.
English (at least the flavor of US English I've picked up) has "-gate" as a reasonably general suffix for scandals,or at least in cases where it doesn't sound really dumb. So you get things like "Bridgegate", an affair out in New Jersey where someone set up some pointless "traffic studies" in order to massively slow traffic to ad from a place that didn't vote for them (IIRC).
This all seems to be by generalization from "Watergate", where Nixon had some people break into a hotel to get info on his rival's campaign, and also seems to require a capital letter on the words.
So, while "tailgate" has a few meanings (the bit at the back of a pickup truck that folds down, teating and drinking in a parking lot that often involves a truck's tailgate, or, unrelatedly, getting into places by following someone through a security thing they can open but you can't), what sort of ridiculous things could "Tailgate" be? Or "Tailgategate"?
Tailgate is the inevitable scandal in which a congressperson is discovered to have attended a furry convetion. (in my state, this scandal already happened).
Talegate will be the scandal over children's fiction authors conspiring with publishers to promote The Gay Agenda in their work. Much like Pizzagate, it won't actually be happening because the Gay Agenda isn't real thing. But that's never stopped them before.
Telltalegate is just the controversy over Telltale Games's poor treatment of its employees prior to its bankruptcy. That one's real, albeit not named *gate.
Retailgate is the conspiracy between large chain stores to band together and form a committee to develop a method to assassinate Jeff Bezos. Unfortunately for them, Bezos will buy a Tesla Cybertruck two months later, which will halt any and all assassination attempts because no assassin wants to associated with something that ugly.
Stargate is the conspiracy theory that Goa'uld are actually real and in control of the government.
Gategate is the public outcry over the press naming every single conspiracy, outrage, outcry, or anything else "somethinggate", followed by the discovery that there's actually a committee to decide on the best "gatename" for a given event.
Oddly enough, one of my guesses for Tailgate, was some drama about a tail vendor at a furry con being blown way out of proportion.
Or a sexual harassment scandal involving a bunch of messages about "getting some tail".
A state senator (in the state congress) got spotted at a furry convention and wound up stepping down.
When the gates meant to hold back an army break due to improper maintenance in a time of peace, and the overseers are thrown into controversy about doing their jobs properly.
I'd like to add one more to this growing list of memes.
MoonMoonGate. The growing trend of "find your wolf name" memes on the internet can be used as a way of harvesting personal data about people, like names, ages, addresses, and potential answers to security questions. The scandal which people haven't really realized is something scandalous.
Gategate would be a budget scandal, probably with the military: "They paid how much to repaint those gates?". This is likely to be some combination of contractor-related bloat people should be unhappy about and the general public not realizing that you can't just have random people do certain painting jobs.
Tailgategate: British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is caught on a traffic camera driving less than one car length behind a little old lady in a Morris Mini Minor (known as tailgating in the UK, at least). The Liberal Democrats try to make this A Big Thing, and use it to indicate that Boris is A Threat To Our Safety. Then a photo emerges of former Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg doing the same thing (back in 2014)... The Tailgategate scandal rocks the British Parliament as more and more MPs are accused of tailgating, and a string of high profile resignations follow.
Talegate: French President Emmanuel Macron undertakes a tour of the nation, reading stories to school children as part of his L'ecole, c'est moi education platform. When it emerges that Macron was actually in Andorra, engaged in secret negotiations with his co-prince the Bishop of Urgell, and had sent a professional impersonator out to read tales to the kiddies, the media goes wild. There's probably a riot or three before it dies down.
Watergategate: Conclusive evidence emerges that US Twitter personality and President Donald Trump had a string of "assignations" with women from the Russian embassy. Since the affairs took place in one of the apartments of the Watergate complex in DC, a totally clueless political editor unironically dubs it the "Watergate-gate" scandal. The Republican party completely ignores and/or praises it by turn, the Democratic party use it to argue that the real threat here is other Democrats, and Vladimir Putin is photographed with a secret smile on his face.
hS