The governor of Florida said the president is “a few fries short of a Happy Meal” last week.
Pretty rude, but increasingly hard to argue with, given the state of the nation and Joe Biden's angry take on people who want to make America great again.
Welcome to Election 2024, where rude talk prevails and zingers top the menu. It's a cornucopia of calumny out there, from both parties.
Have you noticed that they purposely mispronounce Ron DeSantis's name on National Public Radio? They call him “DEEESantis.” Your tax dollars at work.
Meanwhile, President Biden went to Valley Forge, Pa., to say that people like us – oddballs, smelly Walmart shoppers, rubes and stump jumpers who want to make America great again (the HORROR!)- are bent on destroying democracy and electing a dictator.
The opinion that dangerous insurrectionists like us want to “unravel democracy” was also voiced by our former Rep. Liz Cheney on the CBS Sunday Morning show last month. Talk like that got her defeated in the 2022 primary election by 37 points. So ended her rise up the House leadership ladder.
I don't recall Trump destroying democracy when he was president. He wouldn't have had time, because our Democrat friends wouldn't let Donald Trump get out of bed in the morning without launching an investigation or filing for an injunction in federal court. I keep scratching my head when Democrats insist hysterically that we were living in a gulag under Trump.
Really? I mean, Really?
(Don't they ever get tired of being hysterical? Must be exhausting.)
Also last week, DeSantis and former South Carolina Governor and UN Ambassador Nikki Haley repeatedly called each other liars on a televised town hall. But, not to worry, because every allegation was met by an indignant, figurative, “I know you are, but what am I?” from their opponent. It was like watching an old married couple argue bitterly over dinner.
Isn't this what Ronald Reagan meant with his 11th Commandment, never to speak ill of a fellow Republican? The Gipper must be rolling over in his grave.
Meanwhile, President Biden squints his eyes whenever the subject of people like us comes up. He's like the iconic bitter old man, yelling at kids to, “Get off my lawn!” when he gets cranked up about “MAGA extremists.”
(For some reason, he has an abiding disdain for people who want to make America great again.)
Author, scholar and podcaster Victor Davis Hanson was criticized for saying Biden's beady-eye look is “reptilian,” but he explained that he wasn't calling the president a reptile. Only his look. Hanson's podcast host Jack Fowler upped the ante, saying Biden's beady-eye look reminds him of the banjo-playing kid on the bridge in the movie “Deliverance.”
Then, of course, there was the key question of whether Ron DeSantis wears height-enhancing lifts in his cowboy boots. President Trump seized the opportunity, saying DeSantis walks “like he's wearing ice skates,” and got some mileage out of DeSantis being shorter than he is.
(I care more about a guy who got that bridge fixed in Florida in days rather than months, than about how tall he is. But, catchy insults are the coin of the realm on the campaign trail. Actual results? Eyes tend to glaze over.)
On the Megyn Kelly podcast, comedian Adam Corolla said on Nov. 3rd that guys who wear cowboy boots probably have height issues – Napoleon complexes - unless they're “in Wyoming talking to ranchers,” or “participants in a gay pride parade.” (Talk like that will get you punched in any bar in Wyoming.)
Some voters say they want to vote for a candidate they'd like to drink beer with, but Trump doesn't drink, and who wants to down suds with Asa Hutchinson?
Chris Christie dropped out last week, but got caught saying Nikki Haley is “not up to this” and she'll get “smoked.” And Trump consistently got consistent laughs on the campaign trail asking supporters not to call Christie fat.
And so it goes.
Try not to get depressed that we elect presidents this way, saying rude things we probably wouldn't want our kids to say.
Maybe we'll miss this when it's over.
But, I doubt it.
Dave Simpson can be reached at: DaveSimpson145@hotmail.com
