Newt or Schrute: the Quiz

Can you tell the difference between Dwight Schrute and Newt Gingrich? No, you probably can’t.

One of these is Newt Gingrich. Or maybe both. We just don't know.via The Other 98%

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In case you haven’t heard, in his younger days former House Speaker Newt Gingrich looked an awful lot like Dwight Schrute*.

But the eerie similarities surely end there, right? I mean, one of them is mercurial, despised by his colleagues, in love with animals, obsessed with pop culture mythology and modern warfare, and wrapped up in an endless subplot involving a blonde love interest.

And the other one is Dwight Schrute.

Take this short Mother Jones quiz to find out if you can tell the difference between Newton Leroy Gingrich and Dwight Kurt Schrute III.

For the record: While many have chimed in on the physical resemblance between Newt and Schrute—BuzzFeedThe Daily ShowCollegeHumor, the Daily MailThe Today Show, and even Rainn Wilson himself—we believe the news team here at MoJo actually started the Newt/Schrute meme. It all began with a Tumblr post on the night of a Republican presidential debate in November. The trend began catching on in December and January. (We’ll try to be modest about this, though.)

And if you need any further proof that these two men likely share DNA, check out their shared devotion to the Star Wars saga. Here’s the former House speaker gushing about how George Lucas’s series reflects the “core values in American civilization” (the video of Newt starts at 00:43):

. . . and here’s Dwight going all-out on Halloween:

Boom. Case closed.

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We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with The Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

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