Even in a political era defined by demented characters and strange shit, nothing could have prepared me for this.
We live in the stupidest timeline, y’all.
Even in a political era defined by demented characters and strange shit, nothing could have prepared me for this.
We live in the stupidest timeline, y’all.
Remember when an enthusiastic scream ended a presidential campaign? Remember when “binders full of women” was a huge gaffe? Remember when misspelling a common word was indicative of idiocy not fit for the Oval Offive?
I remember. Fucking hell.
Remember when puking in a foreign delegates lap was a huge gaffe and seriously hurt a presidential reelection campaign? Now people are seriously considering testing the theory that someone can be president while in federal prison.
theres nothing saying you cant be president or run for president from prison. people have ran in the past.
however that traitorous asshat and his band of thieves should never be allowed anywhere near any lever of power ever again.
there’s also nothing saying that a (state) prison has to let their inmate go. or have internet access. or be allowed to, you know, run a government from their cell. There are some things saying that if the president is incapable, the vice president steps up.
it’s a big unknown grayzone, but the party of State’s Rights will be in a very amusing position if this should become a thing. (I doubt it will. he lost in 2020, and his support has only diminished.)
If it’s federal prison then there’s the very real chance the next test is “can he get away with pardoning himself?”
At least if it’s (hopefully also, via Georgia) state prison, that’s a higher bar to clear.
not if that state has a Republican Gov. They all seem to be on the same page that Republican crimes don’t count.
No because politics has been a fucking joke my entire lifetime. I’m 29. It’s been a long farce and it shows no signs of stopping.
As someone 10 years older than you, let me tell you: the Bill Clinton campaign was amazing. Like, completely forget whatever you think you know about him being a womanizer for a moment…
Clinton went onto a late night talk show geared to black audiences (The Arsenio Hall Show) and played jazz saxophone live like Duke Silver. Clinton, in the typical politician suit, would get on stage and rip a blue streak of reedy sex in front of the house band. In the '90s, everyone jokingly called him the first black president.
At a town hall against George Bush Sr., a black woman asked a question how national debt impacted each of them individually. GB fumbled in his response, but Clinton deftly jumped into show he wasn’t out of touch. Collective memory repaints this moment as Clinton with his steely blue eyes stepping forward and saying, “I feel your pain,” in a lilting cadence and bit his lip empathizingly. It was noteworthy that a politician was saying “I see you, I hear you” at this kind of event.
And myself being a child in the '90s, Clinton talked to young people about the role they play in democracy and the future of America in a way that had me believing that I could vote for him at the age of 10. Every other politician up to then had talked about children like they weren’t in the same room watching the same news as their parents. After becoming president, Clinton went onto Nickelodeon and did a town hall with preteens and teens about smoking that walked that line between getting lectured at and being invested in. It was hosted by a Nickelodeon journalist named Linda Ellerbee who had a show that presented the news to kids for 25 years. Clinton’s directed messaging to children probably came from his own experience of having met JFK when he was in his teens as part of a leadership program he was selected for. Shaking JFK’s hand and getting to talk with him has been described as the moment young William Jefferson Clinton knew he would one day run for president.
I’m sad we haven’t had a politician like this in a terribly long time. I will say though that from a couple of videos I’ve seen, Obama has been great with children and Biden really talks to kids in ways that show that they will one day be adults. I’ve never seen them just use kids as political props in a kiss the baby and smile for the photo, then hand over the kid back to the parent like the kid is plutonium.
I will add here that when I first wrote this up and then went to go find source links, it stood out to me how much of my memories were inaccurate compared to the videos I found. I am going to chalk part of this up to the Mandela Effect, but also part of it to remembering the impact these moments had on me and the way these moments were played up in the immediate retelling in conversations at the dining table and from the media (such as SNL who parodied Clinton for well over 10 years). It’s weird to think that my memories are wrong, but I think it speaks more to the legendary status of Clinton before his scandals broke out and he was impeached.
This isn’t really the same. RFK Jr didn’t fart, one of his supporters did during an argument with another supporter.
For his part, RFK Jr supposedly “remained stoic” throughout. That said, he is still an idiot.