 |
| tfw u get 72K more votes than you're haters loll cry more, anyway sure I do solemnly swear that... |
Forewarning: this is mostly just venting.
I'm getting pretty tired of what uproariously great comedians politicians are.
A representative from the state of Georgia recently put out a 90 second video on some social media platform detailing a very real interaction he had with a worker at a hotel in Maryland that - and I must stress this - definitely happened. If you feel the need to watch the video, I implore you to disabuse yourself of that notion, as I've taken the proverbial bullet for you.
In the video, he recounts a night he spent in a "blazing hot*" hotel room in Maryland, which the hotel worker attributes to a motion-sensing air conditioning unit that is an "AOC Green New Deal thing" - the sort of thing hospitality workers are always saying to their guests. When the worker - who I assume returned to his home on 123 Fake Street after his shift to see his wife Gal Incognito and their 2.3 children - offered to switch the unit to a "VIP" mode that never shuts off, the representative says he was "offended" (snowflake) and argues his room should have been on VIP mode from the start because he is from Georgia, which "is named after George Washington, who quite literally invented freedom" and is the "birthplace of [Venezuelan-born Atlanta Braves star] Ronald Acuna Jr."
He claims Maryland just recently joined the Union and that if the University of Georgia's quarterback were born in Maryland he'd play "some fake sport like lacrosse," He correctly notes that air conditioning has saved lives (with costs) before concluding with a plea for Maryland to stop being like Europe and start doubling down on freedom and "being awesome."
Setting aside that I live in and have traveled to many of the "woke-r" areas of the country and have yet to spend a night in a hotel with this sort of room climate feature**, this little stunt has apparently suckered in the usual well-meaning but ultimately annoying flies that tend to buzz around big, ugly, obvious webs like this, people who would demand a Snopes fact check of a South Park episode if enough people posted clips from it, folks eager to point out that, um, actually, George Washington was only two months old when they named Georgia, and excuse me sir, but Maryland has been a state for 238 years, and, uh, not to be That Guy, but if Gunner Stockton were any good at football, he'd have declared for the NFL draft this year at age 23 to compete with other grown ups instead of going back to college to play against children like a coward.***
Representative Backward Hat**** may or may not have more neurons in his shoulders than any other part of his body, but it doesn't take more than a few seconds scratching at the surface of this clip to understand that it is meant to be a "joke;" the kind of joke someone might make if they had stopped reading, watching or listening to anything funny in 2006, but a joke nonetheless.
So everyone gets what they want out of this. Stodgy, center-left liberals get to tee off on the brightest, reddest target currently available to them, either unable to consider that Republicans are just as capable of vague, demeaning gestures towards comedy as they are or being willfully obtuse to it for the sake of engagement with like-minded followers. Conservatives, particularly those of the MAGA persuasion, get to crow about how this elected official was obviously joking - a very important part of the job of legislating - and that this proves once again that Democrats Just Don't Get It, whatever "it" may be at this time.
The new state representative gets the attention he was looking for while quickly and successfully moving the conversation away from the central issue, which is that the video is tripe: a short-form tall tale framed as a joke but communicated in a tone of voice better suited for an MBA student telling his buddy it's so unfair he only gets to use his father's yacht once a month when his brother Preston gets to use it twice; a minute and a half of frictionless, boneless, flavorless junk food (sorry, "content"), empty calories rammed down our gullets, costing us time (our most valuable resource) and a few brain cells (of debatable value, but still) while adding nothing to the world; a net negative for society. And I get to wonder what the point even is for a public servant to spend time and money on a video that is 98% nonsense before realizing it's to fuel all of the above, and that I should have just ignored all this like any sensible person would.
You all know we're still at war, right? People are dying daily in a unpopular act of military aggression that a President once again overstepped his actual authority to enter, in a country whose nuclear weapons-making apparatus was already purported to be "totally obliterated" ten months ago, a war that the president has declared "victory" in nearly every day since it began in March, which must come as an awful surprise to the American men and women still fighting it.
You know measles is back, right? You know the federal government is still partially shut down? You know inflation is still over 3%? You know the government killed its own citizens for exercising their first- and second-amendment rights? You know we still haven't gotten a full answer to the question of whether the government can send a U.S. citizen to a prison camp across the world forever as long as it does so quickly and then claims it was an oopsie? Fun argument about Georgia being named after George Washington, though. Good use of everyone's time and mental capital.
Because if it weren't Representative George Washington, we'd be talking about the president fighting with the Pope and publishing pictures of himself as the Son of God. Which was also a joke, of course. A critical part of being the leader of the free world is being really friggin' hilarious. I've heard for the better part of 18 years now how this president or that president or this or that politician is truly, actually, really funny, or has incredible comedic timing, which in the context of politicians is much like saying a particular balloon you're holding is the sharpest balloon you've ever touched. I suppose it's an extension of the old "guy you could get a beer with" characteristic people supposedly cherished in presidential candidates of yesteryear, people who apparently used to hit the bar with a way different crowd than I did.
Is it too much to ask for a few full-grown adults to run the country? Is it too much to ask that our public servants actually legislate instead of wasting time clapping back at their rivals in public, having one-sided arguments with their political foes on social media, putting on a gigantic goddamn show for us on our dime? Is it too much to ask for a pundit class that won't take every piece of bait tangled in front of them as if it's the tastiest bait they've ever eaten? Is it too much to ask for...more? For better?
Failing that, we plow ahead, trying to be the "more" and "better" in our little sphere of life. We keep our head down and work, control what we can control and perhaps a touch more, and hope for the best. I'd end with a joke, but I'll leave that to the professionals.*****
*The representative didn't say where in Maryland he was staying, but in one of the warmer areas of Maryland, the highest "low temperature" in the past month was 62 degrees, meaning that Mr. Georgia either can't handle the sweltering nights of, uh, Maryland, or that he's had this story in the chamber ready for whenever it was in his best interest to share it. Or, y'know, he made it all up. (I know I'm now doing what I spent a whole paragraph decrying, but permit me this one)
**Perhaps this is a feature of higher-end hotels only and they haven't trickled down to my class of lodging, which typically maxes out at "the cheapest place available with free parking and continental breakfast." Seems I'm just more a "man of the people" than Mr. Fuller.
***This is admittedly mean and unfair to the young man. Stockton should be applauded for returning to school and finishing his degree, which he is certain to need after the Miami Dolphins cut him during the 2027 preseason.
****Apropos of nothing, there are unfortunately no pictures that exist of me and my fashion choices from my early 20's, so no need to go looking for any
*****If you think this is all the ramblings of a man too fixated on national politics, it's only because I don't want to bore anyone reading this from out of state with my complaining that my town's school district is laying off teachers, cutting programs, pushing for higher taxes, and suing journalists. Rest assured, if Donald Norcross was posting Instagram videos saying we need to raise the corporate tax rate to "6-7 percent" while all this was going on, I'd have his office's phone lines blocked up every waking hour of the day.
