For one beautiful night, #fartgate actually united all of Twitter

There is so much that divides us. Science has somehow become partisan; truth itself is up for debate; America is split down the middle when it comes to deciding whether or not literally asking a foreign leader to interfere in an election is an impeachable offense.

But there is one thing we can all agree on: Farts are funny.

And on Monday night, Twitter users from every point on the political spectrum were delighted to find themselves engrossed in #fartgate.

During a live cross on MSNBC's Hardball, where host Chris Matthews was discussing the latest impeachment hearing developments with Rep. Eric Swalwell, a Democratic congressman and briefly a presidential candidate who made so little impact on the race that I typed his name as Tim even though I've been watching this video of him for the last 45 minutes.

As Swalwell was mid-sentence, there was a noise.

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That kind of noise is usually followed by someone saying "Excuse me" or "That was the chair" or "Nice, bro" or "Babe, did you buy the wet food again? You knowwhat the vet said."

Yes, it sounded very much like a fart.

The response to the above video was nearly instantaneous. Within an hour #fartgate trended #1 on Twitter, with people at first assuming it was Swalwell, but then pivoting to pointing the (pulled) finger at Matthews.

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The Hardballsocial media team had a weird night — at first reportedly tweeting, then deleting, the perfect response:

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And then offering an official explanation (and merch) that absolutely nobody was buying:

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Whether Swalwell heard it or dealt it or neither, he barely missed a beat, but there certainly seemed to some like there was a distinct beat.

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A journalist from BuzzFeed, who has no doubt been nominated for several Pulitzers already, slid into Swalwell's DM to ask for comment, and was richly rewarded.

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"It was not me!!!!!" Salwell wrote back. "And I didn't hear it when I was speaking."

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The camera was off Matthews, so we don't have his reaction — but there are those who are firmly in the Matthews camp.

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Truly, this is the Yanny/Laurel of televised flatulence.

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And of course, there are the party poopers who insisted no cheese was cut at all:

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But in a way, it matters not at all who actually dealt it, or if it was dealt at all. Because the jokes are good either way.

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It is as simple as this: If it's a fart, it's a really great fart. Fat, noisy, satisfying; it sounds like it took a bit of effort, but only enough to make the final product all the more satisfying.

The beauty of #fartgate is in the perfectly bipartisan way the internet leapt and grabbed this moment with both hands. It's something everyone could enjoy in a week, month, year, administration, of division and sniping. It is as pure as it is puerile.

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I mean, what else could get Ben Shapiro and Alyssa Milano on the same page?

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Like the impeachment hearings themselves, we may never uncover the full truth — all we know is there is left, right, and a noisy asshole at the center of it all.

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