Summer is holding on for dear life and the sweat under my boobs wishes it would end. It’s been a pretty fast paced few weeks around these parts and I won’t be able to limit this column to just one topic. So here we go:
*The Olympics coverage has been strange this year given the time zone that the games are in, but mostly due to the offensive Republican primary ads that have carpet bombed coverage of the games. I think I can go to an urgent care to be treated for whiplash after watching Simone Biles vault three feet up in the air only to land and cut to a Chinese cow holding an AR-15 threatening all the “illegals” flooding over the Missouri border from Mexico. By the time this goes to press, hopefully all those running for the primary will have suffocated each other with Donald Trump’s laundry – or have been buried deep within JD Vance’s couch. But something tells me it’s going to be quite the landmine zone on TV until November.
*The formula for any Republican running for office seems to be the following: 1) Say how much you LOVE Donald Trump. 2) Fire a gun. 3) Tell people how scared they should be of Mexicans – bonus points if you say they’re going to kill your kids with fentanyl. 4) Talk about “Missouri values” and then wink at the camera to let them know you’re talking about banning books. 5) Repeat how much you love Donald Trump.
Aaaaaand cut. Print. I wish I could tell you that the electorate isn’t dumb enough to fall for this, but here we are.
*Last week, I spoke about the proliferation of the term “weird” when talking about the Republican party over the past several years. Well, don’t worry, we can also add “crazy” to the list as well. And Independent candidate Robert Kennedy Jr. is making a run for the title. Earlier this week, he announced (himself!) that he moved, then dumped a road kill bear carcass in Central Park in New York, staging it to look like a bicyclist had killed the bear. This is some crazy, crazy stuff. And, for some reason, Roseanne Barr was there when he was giving this testimonial? Just, like, hanging out. Weird might have not truly done these people justice. The whole lot of them are unhinged.
*The bear-dumping incident caused national attention at the time and in New York tied up resources trying to find the cause of the bear’s death and who might’ve dumped it in the park. I guess they wouldn’t have thought of fingering a future presidential candidate, but that’s where we are.
*Listen, I get that it seems that every year the political season gets more and more unhinged. Mudslinging has been a part of politics since there was mud. But certainly these are all crossing lines we didn’t think we ever had to mark, right? Oh, he’s the “fire a gun and make a racist comment about immigrants” candidate. Oh yeah? Well, did he dump some roadkill at a local park? I sure know who I am voting for!!
I think it’s safe to say you can launch all of them into the sun and we’d be better off.
(Get more thoughts on politics and bears and whatnot from Chris Kamler on Twitter, where he is known as @TheFakeNed)
