Reflecting on Kid Rock’s Presidency

Roland Dodds

Roland Dodds is an educator, researcher and father who writes about politics, culture and education. He spent his formative years in radical left wing politics, but now prefers the company of contrarians of all political stripes (assuming they aren't teetotalers). He is a regular inactive at Harry's Place and Ordinary Times.

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97 Responses

  1. Damon says:

    I only know this guy from Diners Drive Inns, and Dives. And he wouldn’t stand a chance against

    Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho

    Now that is speach-ifying!Report

    • fillyjonk in reply to Damon says:

      yeah, I was gonna say “‘Idiocracy’ was a comedy, not a documentary,” but some days I don’t know any more.Report

      • notme in reply to fillyjonk says:

        The way liberals like to reward the lower classes with more welfare for having more kids and importing third world immigrants it’s more of a preview of things to come.Report

      • Damon in reply to fillyjonk says:

        When it came out, I said “That’s the future of America”. I continue to stand by that statement.

        The fact that I’ve read two articles about Lena Dunham (LENA DUNHAM!!!) and her twitter posts only convinces me we’re on target for an Idiocracy society. No, not a documentary….a forecast.Report

        • fillyjonk in reply to Damon says:

          I’m nearly 50 and from long-lived stock, but I fervently hope I will be dead by the time we’re all the way there.Report

          • Kimmi in reply to fillyjonk says:

            filly,
            Too bad for you. The “unnatural selection” is in the hands of the Powers that Be, and they like folks sadistic as they are. (Well, it is unless they burn for the idiots that they are, but… there’s a reason they’re the powers that be).Report

  2. Michelle says:

    Not all that far fetched.Report

  3. Saul Degraw says:

    The sad truth is that Donald Trump’s popularity remains stubbornly high in areas where Democrats need it to drop the most:

    Here’s the bad news for Democrats: Republicans in close Republican districts remain upbeat about Trump. There, approval rates appear to have dipped from 91 to 89 percent, but it’s a difference that is too small to be statistically significant.

    Again, the phenomenon is easier to see when we look at those whose are especially enthusiastic about the president. In close Democratic districts, the percentage of Republicans who say they “strongly” approve of the president fell dramatically, from 59 percent in the first three months of his term to 51 percent in the most recent three months.

    But among Republicans living in close Republican districts, the rate of enthusiastic Trump supporters has held at around 56 percent. That contrasts with what’s happening in solid Republican districts, where the rate of Republicans who strongly approve of the president has fallen from 61 percent to 56 percent.

    One of the big fights about the 2016 election, on the left and out of the left, is how much of Trump’s victory can be blamed on racism and white resentment and how much can be blamed on HRC being a bad, uncharismatic, and too corporate candidate. Could Bernie have beaten Trump? I am doubtful that Bernie would beat Trump but he wouldn’t have performed worse than HRC. I do think white racism and resentment is a good part of Trump’s popularity and I think people ignore this at their peril.Report

  4. Saul Degraw says:

    Another good essay on the policies of white resentment from the Times:

    Part of what has been essential in this narrative of affirmative action as theft of white resources — my college acceptance, my job — is the notion of “merit,” where whites have it but others don’t. When California banned affirmative action in college admissions and relied solely on standardized test scores and grades as the definition of “qualified,” black and Latino enrollments plummeted. Whites, however, were not the beneficiaries of this “merit-based” system. Instead, Asian enrollments soared and with that came white resentment at both “the hordes of Asians” at places like the University of California, Los Angeles, and an admissions process that stressed grades over other criteria.

    That white resentment simply found a new target for its ire is no coincidence; white identity is often defined by its sense of being ever under attack, with the system stacked against it. That’s why Mr. Trump’s policies are not aimed at ameliorating white resentment, but deepening it. His agenda is not, fundamentally, about creating jobs or protecting programs that benefit everyone, including whites; it’s about creating purported enemies and then attacking them.

    In the end, white resentment is so myopic and selfish that it cannot see that when the larger nation is thriving, whites are, too. Instead, it favors policies and politicians that may make America white again, but also hobbled and weakened, a nation that has squandered its greatest assets — its people and its democracy.

    Report

    • notme in reply to Saul Degraw says:

      Ah the NYT. You can always count on them for a white folks are racist screed. Clearly you are part of their target audience.Report

    • Pinky in reply to Saul Degraw says:

      The NYT really is as screwed up as people say.Report

      • Michelle in reply to Pinky says:

        So instead of attacking the argument on the basis of (a) the NYT = fake news, and (b) the essay was written by some elite, out-of-touch professor, tell me what it gets wrong. What points do you disagree with and why?Report

        • Dan d in reply to Michelle says:

          1) That opposition to affirmative action and de facto open borders is racist.
          2) The claim that the anger is caused by unjustified racism justified anger hipsters and yuppies looking down their noses at them. I’m sick of people looking down their nose at mean making fun of me because I don’t have trendy hip taste in food and entertainment; these people are a cancer on the country they need to be dealt with.Report

          • gregiank in reply to Dan d says:

            Calling people a cancer to be dealt with may not be the best way of making the point you want to make.Report

          • Michelle in reply to Dan d says:

            Having read the article, I don’t see where the author says that opposing open borders or affirmative action is, de facto, racism. And while she does believe that a lot of the anger is unjustified, she doesn’t necessarily say it’s racist. Her argument is that the anger is not justified because it’s based on emotion rather than fact. White resentment doesn’t necessarily translate as racism.

            Are you going to tell me that Big Tweet’s embrace of birtherism wasn’t based on racism, on an attempt to delegitimize the nation’s first black president and define him as “other?” Or that Tweet didn’t play on class, race, and status anxiety to help win the presidency? Or that some of his voters weren’t stone cold racists?Report

            • Dan d in reply to Michelle says:

              Having read the article, I don’t see where the author says that opposing open borders or affirmative action is, de facto, racism

              Shy called it racial resentment another way of saying racism.

              Or that Tweet didn’t play on class, race, and status anxiety to help win the presidency? Or that some of his voters weren’t stone cold racists?

              So now class anxiety is the same as racism. You’ve demonstrated that the contemporary left doesn’t give a damn about people like me.

              Resentment is word elites use to delegitimize the grievances of the mass. It perfectly acceptable for journalists and professors to complain about the Koch brothers but as soon as a UPS driver complains about college proffers looking down their nose at him it becomes resentment.Report

            • Les Cargill in reply to Michelle says:

              This stuff doesn’t have any semantic content. Whether birtherism is racist or not really misses the point. It’s two groups flinging masses of … something smelly… at each other with siege engines. Both are quite used to the way their projectiles smell.

              If it was racist,it … “discovered’ vast troves of latent racism amongst its adherents. But since the phenomenon began with Bill Clinton, it’s pretty clear to me that race is very nearly irrelevant, or it just adds needless information. I was in this country when John Kerry, who is not very racially …interesting, was given the Swift-boat treatment to effective… effect.

              It does not matter. The message is Apocolypse-Lite, it provides a gathering-point for free-floating anxiety and the disappointment of people who are quite frequently exhausted, who’ve been whipsawed by the economy and have the nearly unfoundable belief that they’re being screwed, even as they do better materially than people ever have. Sure, there’s a flatness to the economy, a tepditiy but look around you. Everything that’s not housing. health care and education is more affordable than ever in terms of man-hours.

              IMO, we’ve sown the wind – subsidized these things – and now we reap the whirlwind – they cost, in cases, a whole lot more. Each is sort of a mania.Report

          • Boncho Villa in reply to Dan d says:

            these people are a cancer on the country they need to be dealt with.

            Okay, I’ll bite: How are you going to deal with them?Report

        • Pinky in reply to Michelle says:

          I didn’t want to elevate the piece to the point of disputing its points. There are some things that should simply be spit upon. It’s hateful and racist and transparently false. There are occasions when the benefit of correcting a viewpoint is outweighed by the cost of engaging with that viewpoint.Report

          • Michelle in reply to Pinky says:

            In other words, you’re not going to address the article on based its merits or lack thereof because you don’t want to be bothered dealing with the author’s claims rationally. You’d rather get all hissy about it and accuse the author of racism because it doesn’t suit your narrative. Got it.Report

            • Pinky in reply to Michelle says:

              Did you read the first sentence of the article? It stereotyped white people.Report

              • Michelle in reply to Pinky says:

                Yes I did. Who did it stereotype? All white people or just the angry ones. I suppose you’re going to tell me that resentment and anger had nothing whatsoever to do with Tweet’s getting elected. Instead, he eked out an electoral college victory because of his policy brilliance and his presidential personality. Tweet’s whole campaign was all about resentment, much of it justified. So no–she didn’t start her essay with a stereotype.Report

              • Pinky in reply to Michelle says:

                You’ve made four comments in this exchange. In every one of them you’ve put words into my mouth. I’m not going to engage in this.Report

              • Michelle in reply to Pinky says:

                Of course you’re not. You’d rather rant than answer legitimate questions. Then you can complain about how you tried to engage in debate, but some nasty liberal put words in your mouth. I get it.Report

              • Pinky in reply to Michelle says:

                Hey, that’s funny. You replied by putting words into my mouth.Report

              • Michelle in reply to Pinky says:

                I thought you were going to disengage.

                I’m not going to engage in this.

                Guess not.Report

              • Pinky in reply to Michelle says:

                “I thought you were going to disengage.”

                That was the plan, but your response was too funny to ignore.Report

              • Dan d in reply to Michelle says:

                Yes I did. Who did it stereotype? All white people or just the angry ones.

                She said their anger was motivated by race rather than being motive by the cultural elites like her looking down their noses at them. It allows her to look down her nose at people like me while feeling morally superior.Report

              • Michelle in reply to Dan d says:

                It can’t be motivated by both? Tweet certainly played to both resentment of elites and resentment of the other. Since his win, however, he’s filled his cabinet with a lot of the Goldman-Sachs type elites he railed against on the campaign trail and doubled down on the resentment of the other. The whole Voter Integrity Commission, for example, is an effort to crack down on voter fraud, which is basically non-existent, and is largely justification for an effort to keep the wrong people from voting–mostly because they tend to vote for Democrats.Report

            • notme in reply to Michelle says:

              Michelle:

              First the article would have to have merits that are capable of being addressed. When the first line of the piece is, “White resentment put Donald Trump in the White House” and the picture with the article is a confederate flag, I know it is liberal bullshit.

              I thought it was Russian hacking that put Trump in the white house or maybe their mind tricks which made Hillary forget where Michigan is.Report

              • Troublesome Frog in reply to notme says:

                I thought it was Russian hacking that put Trump in the white house or maybe their mind tricks which made Hillary forget where Michigan is.

                The great thing about this dumb line of argument is that in any situation where more than one thing is the cause, you can use it to completely disparage any other individual cause.

                “Health care costs are high because of heart disease? I thought health care costs are high because of diabetes!”

                10 minutes later…

                “Health care costs are high because of diabetes? I thought health care costs are high because of heart disease! Make up your mind!”

                Clearly, health care costs are high with no cause at all.Report

        • kenB in reply to Michelle says:

          The problem is that she just makes a lot of assertions with no evidence, taking tribal liberal beliefs as if they were self-evident. If her intended audience is just other tribal liberals then that’s fine, but there’s not even a whiff of a concession that people on the other side might have rational reasons for their different beliefs and choices. There’s no point in a non-liberal diving through it because there’s nothing about it that invites serious discussion.Report

          • Saul Degraw in reply to kenB says:

            @kenb

            Here is the issue. Racism is a lot more than overt actions and racism and bigotry should not need to be cartoonishly overt to be called as such. There are times when racism and bigotry can be overt and you can still find people who will shout until they are blue in the face that X is not really bigoted. Here is a good example:

            http://roguecartoonist.blogspot.com/2017/07/

            If anyone paid attention to Trump’s career, they will see it marked with incidences of racism. Trump came to the public eye in the 1970s when the Nixon admin sued his dad for refusing to rent to Black people. He called for the lynching of the Central Park 5 (falsely accused it turned out and later exonerated). He launched early unto the birther thing and seemed enraged when Obama casually dismissed him at the White House Correspondence dinner. My grand theory of Trump is that Obama’s cool attitude enraged him so that he needed revenge. His early push in the primaries was built on bashing declining illegal immigration (build the wall) and Muslim-bashing.

            Yet despite all this, it is still considered beyond the pail here by many to discuss that white resentment and/or racism played a role in Trump zooming through the GOP primary and electoral college success. This is because people either don’t want to confront their own bigotries and/or they don’t want to confront the bigotries of their friends and relatives who voted for Trump.

            I think their is a comforting lie in saying that a Bernie style candidate could have beaten Trump in the general election because it makes it about economics and economics are easy to make policies out of. Countering racism and bigotry is hard and might ultimately lead to a situation where you can’t say “But if you did this” to the opposition.Report

            • notme in reply to Saul Degraw says:

              Liberals seem to ignore the fact that Trump opened his golf club to blacks and jews. How convenient.Report

            • KenB in reply to Saul Degraw says:

              it is still considered beyond the pail [sic] here by many to discuss that white resentment and/or racism played a role in Trump zooming through the GOP primary and electoral college success.

              I doubt anyone who comments here would deny that some flavor of white identity politics “played a role”, though there’s disagreement about how significant that role was, vis-à-vis other causes; or that Trump played to those concerns, to his own benefit. But the article you linked stated boldly that “White resentment put Donald Trump in the White House”, as if that were the only cause and there was no other reason to vote for Trump, and no argument was needed to defend the proposition. Then she goes on to suggest that a whole list of other policy positions are due only to white resentment.

              If that’s the story you want to tell, you can make a plausible case for it — especially plausible to people who believe that “Republicans are racist” is correct to a first approximation. But there are other plausible cases that can be made as well, including some that aren’t nearly as comforting to you as believing that your ideological opponents are irrational and have only base motivations for their contrary beliefs.Report

            • Les Cargill in reply to Saul Degraw says:

              Saul: “My grand theory of Trump is that Obama’s cool attitude enraged him so that he needed revenge”

              That’s not just you – it’s the frontispiece of at least one Frontline docu. that explains Trump’s rise. It was something akin to an affront to .. honor … or something. Obama’s harangue was fairy lengthy. Trump’s a military school guy. It could be as simple *as* some retro 19th century sense of honor.

              Bluntly, if it really is *just racism*. then it will extend well beyond my lifespan and we’ve simply lost. I think that a collective diagnosis of “just racism” is therefore somewhat dangerous.Report

              • Saul Degraw in reply to Les Cargill says:

                @les-cargill

                His high school barely counts as a military school and there is evidence that Trump is just a vindictive person. Richard Branson had the anecdote about how Trump invited him to lunch and spent the entire time talking about how he was going to get revenge on five specific people who refused to give him money.

                It isn’t just racism but there is political payoff in making whites feel like a minority

                Did Trump promise to drain the swamp? Sure. Did he? Hell no. Who still believes Trump will? Enough people apparently. Trump also encouraged police brutality when speaking to police officers (which the departments said they would not tolerate thankfully).

                I don’t think it is all racism but I do think there is a tendency to downplay racism, bigotry, and xenophobia because those are tougher issues to deal with. I’ve seen a lot of “My friends voted for Trump and they are not racist.” This can be anecdote is not data or denial about an aspect of your friends that you (general you) don’t want to deal with or acknowledge.Report

            • LeeEsq in reply to Saul Degraw says:

              This strikes me as one of those things that is both true and unhelpful. Racism is many more things than overt actions and outright bigotry. The same is true for sexism. Most people don’t like being called racist or sexist though because most people don’t like being seen as evil. Referring to something or someone as racist can often be used to stop counter-arguments in their track. Its an annoying difficult situation to deal with.Report

    • Dan d in reply to Saul Degraw says:

      I’ll support affirmative action when Chelsea Clinton’s of the world stop benefiting from nepotism why should the proles sacrifice when the elites refuse to do so. This is how race has been dealt with since the civil war draft elite whites expect white proles to sacrifice for the benefit blacks while refusing to make any themselves.

      Carol Anderson is a professor of African-American studies at Emory University and the author of “White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide.”

      other words an elite college professor wants to rationalize the the contempt they she hold and convinces herself I’m racist in order to do so. Why is it it so hard to believe that I hate hipsters and yuppies?Report

      • Michelle in reply to Dan d says:

        Speaking of affirmative action babies, Jared Kushner had neither the grades nor the test scores to get into Harvard but his Daddy donated a cool couple million to the school and–voila–he got in. If conservatives oppose affirmative action because it’s not fair, than shouldn’t they also oppose buying your unqualified kid a place in Ivy League for the same reasons?Report

        • Jaybird in reply to Michelle says:

          Chris Arnade had a couple of good tweets about this over the weekend.

          Instead of arguing about who Harvard gets to award much higher status to, maybe we should question why they are awarding so much status

          Theorem: We over-value the education from a few places that aggressively limit admittance Corollary: There will be fights over who gets in

          Report

          • gregiank in reply to Jaybird says:

            Who is the “we” that gives Harvard status? There are plenty of veeerrrry exclusive schools that most people haven’t heard of so they have less status so it isn’t just being exclusive. But there isn’t a “we” doing any status awarding.

            To stretch out the point, “we” or “society” is a common thing to blame and is almost always lazy. SJW’s do this all the time btw. It diffuses responsibility to broadly and doesn’t account for all the many differences of how we individually experience “society.”Report

            • Jaybird in reply to gregiank says:

              Therefore we shouldn’t think that going to Harvard awards some amount of status?Report

              • gregiank in reply to Jaybird says:

                Harvard awards degrees. Status is what social animals give things. But there isn’t a “we” doing it. Some people hate hate hate Harvard….did Harvard award that? “We” is lazy, it doesn’t mean anything in this context. Harvard markets themselves, for sure, but then again so did Pets.com. There is no giant societal “we” doing things.Report

              • Jaybird in reply to gregiank says:

                Therefore we shouldn’t think that going to Harvard awards some amount of status?Report

              • Jaybird in reply to Jaybird says:

                I repeat the question because: dude, it *DOES*.

                And arguing that it shouldn’t against someone who is saying “maybe we should question whether it should” as if you were arguing against the point they were making is…

                I don’t even know what it is.Report

              • gregiank in reply to Jaybird says:

                The “we” in ‘ we give it status is a lazy abstraction. Harvard awards degrees. They try to build their status but so do lots of things. Who gives it status? Not “we.”Report

              • Jaybird in reply to gregiank says:

                “How can America be ‘racist’? America is a country!”Report

              • gregiank in reply to Jaybird says:

                Racism has a long history in America. Racism has seriously affected America. Race has had a preeminent effect on American policy and the course of our history.

                No we involved. But we didn’t do any of that. Lot’s of the people during all that history were not making it happen.

                Arande does have some points. But “we” is lazy and avoids a lot of issues that is easier to elide. And there is plenty of stuff Arande wants to avoid.Report

              • Jaybird in reply to gregiank says:

                And yet Harvard awards status.

                This is something that happens.

                You’re not even denying that this happens.

                You’re just playing games with “well, who does ‘we’ refer to?” rather than acknowledging that, yes, Harvard awards disproportionate status.Report

              • gregiank in reply to Jaybird says:

                FSM Jay. Harvard awards degrees. They try to burnish their status but so do many places. There is no “we” here. “We” don’t give Harvard status because the “we” is a meaningless abstraction. It’s like the “we” elected Trump. The people who give Harvard high status give it high status. Most of the people who do that are other Harvard or Ivy grads. Plenty of people don’t care about Harvard or think much about it all. Heck that is probably most people.Report

              • Jaybird in reply to gregiank says:

                Most of the people who do that are other Harvard or Ivy grads.

                Huh.

                Do go on.

                Are these people disproportionately powerful, would you say?

                Would they have a disproportionate amount of social capital?Report

              • gregiank in reply to Jaybird says:

                You know who else is powerful and tries to improve his reputation? Well this person had a University ( though no football team). Trump U baby. Which means of course “We” think Trump wasn’t a scam but the greatest thing ever.Report

              • Jaybird in reply to gregiank says:

                So… therefore we shouldn’t think that going to Harvard awards some amount of status?

                Open your eyes and see it.

                Compare to going to Compass Directional State.

                Compare to going to Geological Formation Community College.

                Compare to getting a GED.

                This is something that happens.

                Seriously.Report

              • gregiank in reply to Jaybird says:

                But how do “we” do that? “We” don’t. Of course it has status, i’ve never said it didn’t. But lots of things do. There is no “we’ involved though. Someone who can slice an argument in so many ways should be able to see the lazy meaning of the term. You could show me how “we” do this which would clarify everything.Report

              • Jaybird in reply to gregiank says:

                You could show me how “we” do this which would clarify everything.

                It’s hiding in your acknowledgement here:

                Of course it has status, i’ve never said it didn’t. But lots of things do.

                You know how it has status?
                That’s how.Report

              • Saul Degraw in reply to gregiank says:

                @gregiank

                I’m going to split the difference between you and Jay.

                I think you might be technically right that graduates of elite colleges and universities give status largely to themselves but that status comes with a lot of perks that graduates of just as fine but less elite universities have.

                Ivy-leaguers tend to have better access, if not exclusive access, to the brass ring jobs that offer six-figure salaries at entry level. Now a lot of people don’t want these jobs but in the age of rocketing student debt, these jobs offer the best way to pay off the debt quickly. They also have access to the positions of power more easily. You need to graduate from Harvard, Yale, or Stanford law schools to get a Supreme Court clerkship. Many of our politicians went to the elite schools as well including on the right-side of the aisle despite the howls of liberal-bias (I’m looking at you Ted Cruz and Tom Cotton).

                I suspect if a Yale Law grad got terminated, they would find a new gig easier than a University of Connecticut law grad, etc.

                Now my solution to ending the ways these universities are elite is probably very different than Dan D’s or Jaybirds or Pinky.Report

              • gregiank in reply to Saul Degraw says:

                Of course those places have status. Has anybody said they didn’t? Not I. It’s the silly “we” stuff that elides more then it illuminates. Like i said way up above SJW’s do this all the time and there was also the common refrain about how “we” all led to Trump being elected.

                There will always be some school that is considered elite in some way. It could be MIT or Caltech for specialist reasons. It could be for being a great party school. My niece and her husband are both proud U of Florida grads. They are adorable in their pride in their teams but also noting every possible school ranking and where UF stands. They also dont’ seem to take it too seriously which makes it cuter.Report

              • George Turner in reply to Jaybird says:

                But that status Harvard awards can be almost entirely yours just by hitting The Harvard Shop. Get a window sticker for your car, a hat, and a couple of sweatshirts and people will think you’re a Harvard man.Report

              • gregiank in reply to George Turner says:

                Unpossible. That must be a fake site. We all know all the lefties there hate capitalism.Report

          • fillyjonk in reply to Jaybird says:

            It’s the Cabbage Patch Kid theory of education/status.

            (I am old enough to remember the fights over those when they first came out)

            I dunno, as someone in STEM who’s been asked either “who was your major professor” or “Where have you published” well before “where did you do your degree,” I suspect the status thing is highly career-dependent and my only apply to a certain subset of law/business/politics people.Report

        • Dan d in reply to Michelle says:

          I love this argument the elites benefit from legacy admissions therefor slots proles need sacrifice the few remaining slots. legacy admissions are the main reason I oppose affirmative action the it means the sacrifice is not being equally shared,Report

        • notme in reply to Michelle says:

          I support any rich minority that wants to donate enough money to get their kid into Harvard.Report

  5. Marchmaine says:

    Wait… “Kid” Rock not “The” Rock? I’m so confused as to who my next celebrity overlord will be. Or are you just being silly?Report

  6. Jaybird says:

    There are a handful of things I noticed when I first saw that Kid Rock might have been running for the Senate (all the way back in July).

    The first was that he’d be running against Debbie Stabenow (D) in 2018.
    That his official Kid Rock for Senate webpage contains a cycling .jpg that includes the catchphrase “Pimp of the Nation”.
    That he said this in this part of his news announcement on his non-political Kid Rock webpage:

    Senator Stabenow and I do share a love of music, although probably not the same kind. I concede she is better at playing politics than I am so I’ll keep doing what I do best, which is being a voice for tax paying, hardworking AMERICANS and letting politicians like her know that We the People are sick and tired of their bullshit!

    (And, a little underneath that was a .jpeg of an empty gas tank underneath that says that it’s a rhymes-with-duck tank.)

    Somewhere in there I saw this tweet here from Michael B Dougherty (of the National Review):

    This is a necessary conversation. It’s insane that Kid Rock will get the credit for initiating it.

    His tweet contains a link to a tweet from Kid Rock that contains a .jpg that says:

    I believe if you work your butt off and pay taxes, you should be able to easily understand and navigate the laws, tax codes, health care, and anything else the government puts in place that affects us all.

    And then I watched his new music video “Po-Dunk”.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KnAzpi4avo

    If you haven’t seen it, you should watch it. Well, it’s not safe for work. There are a lot of words that rhyme-with-duck in it. Well, one in particular… but he says it a lot.

    Seeing all of those things in, more or less, the same three or four days got me to think “Holy Crap. Kid Rock could take that Senate seat away from Stabenow.”

    As it turns out, he’s only rocking the vote and getting people to register to vote at his concerts.

    For now.Report

    • Marchmaine in reply to Jaybird says:

      edit: oops… misread duck for dunk somehow.

      Though I’m probably still not the target audience for the demotic verse of Kid Rock.

      https://youtu.be/JQ_R8QBeYvs?t=27sReport

      • Jaybird in reply to Marchmaine says:

        Who is and who ain’t the target audience is probably the root of the issue.

        Who is the target audience of the Senate?Report

        • Marchmaine in reply to Jaybird says:

          Well, you know that I’ve long posited the re-alignment theory before it was fashionable… so yes, I get the audience…I’m just not sure I get Kid Rock.Report

          • Jaybird in reply to Marchmaine says:

            You know how buying a lottery ticket makes you feel rich for a minute or two?

            You know how voting makes you feel like you’re represented by the political process for a minute or two?

            Well, Bawitdaba can make you feel like a badass for a minute or two.Report

            • Marchmaine in reply to Jaybird says:

              So a sort of white hip-hop/gangsta rap without (and I can’t believe I’m writing this) their lyrical charms?

              Honest question to which I have no earthly idea… would Tupac (may he rest in peace) have gotten as many votes as Obama or either Clinton? In general or among African-Americans specifically?

              At some point, even realignments are still coalitions… when I go into the local establishments of my 70% Trump county, you’re going to hear Blake Shelton, not Kid Rock.

              But sure, if the Democrats/Republicans can’t come up with a Blake Shelton, then maybe Kid Rock is just the guy to take advantage of the changing landscape. Are we voting yet?Report

  7. Hoosegow Flask says:

    I laughed at the idea of Stuart Smalley getting elected.

    I laughed at the idea of Donald Trump getting elected.

    I’m not laughing at the idea of Kid Rock getting elected.Report

    • But can Robert Ritchie (his legal name) get elected? How many states allow you to put a stage name on the ballot?Report

      • Jaybird in reply to Michael Cain says:

        Back in 2004, Douglas “Dayhorse” Campbell ran for something or other in Colorado (Constitution Party! WOOOOOO) and I only remember because, on the ballot, that’s how they had his name.

        Douglas “Dayhorse” Campbell. Quotes and everything.

        It wouldn’t strike me as inconceivable that Robert “Kid Rock” Ritchie be on the ballot.Report

        • Kolohe in reply to Jaybird says:

          Was he related to Ben Nighthorse Cambell? (Who was both a Democratic and Republican US Senator from Colorado)Report

          • Jaybird in reply to Kolohe says:

            I don’t know?

            My assumption all these years was that he wasn’t, but merely lucked into having the same last name and decided that he’d fabricate some coattails to ride on.

            (And my googling shows me that one of Doug’s taglines was “there’s a difference between night and day!” which tells me “Yeah. No. This guy wasn’t even *CLOSE* to being related to Ben.”)Report

      • Kimmi in reply to Michael Cain says:

        Michael,
        You can change your legal name.Report

        • Michael Cain in reply to Kimmi says:

          Indeed you can. I’ll believe he’s serious when I see one of (a) a Robert Ritchie for Senate web site or (b) a lawsuit to settle that he can put a stage name as well as a legal name on the ballot (a la @jaybird ‘s comment) or (c) reports about the long, tedious process of changing from Robert Ritchie to Kid Rock in the extensive paper trail of business/contract arrangements and assault convictions.Report

  8. Kolohe says:

    He went on to win the election by a 10-point margin, only partially due to the death of Stabenow at the debate.

    ‘Alive’ is not a necessary condition to win a US Senate election.Report

    • Marchmaine in reply to Kolohe says:

      By golly, I think you might just have invented slate voting in America… just run Ronald Reagan and FDR in every senate race, and let the parties sort out the slate.Report

  9. Crprod says:

    The only reason NC Governor Pat McCrory didn’t posthumously arrest Christine Jorgensen for violating the provisions of the Bathroom Bill was that it’s hard to do that for ashes scattered in the Pacific.Report

  10. j r says:

    It was in the first and final debate with Debbie Stabenow that Rock demonstrated just how MAGA Mindset the man could be. While the Senator rambled on and on about debt ratios and financial reform…

    I dig the piece. And I get that it is exaggerated for the purposes of satire, but I do want to push back slightly against this bit here. When was the last time you heard any politician ramble on about debt ratios? I went to Stabenow’s web site and cannot find any mention of debt sustainability. Although, student loan debt seems to be one of her signature issues.

    When we are thinking about how we got here, I think it is important to acknowledge that there is/was no point at which we made a clear crossover from purely reasoned and informed consideration of policy issues to the circus of politics as raw expression of the human id. When I watched the debates last year, I kept waiting for HRC to put the policy chops that I know she has on display and make Trump look out of his depth. That never happened. Instead, her strategy was to paint Trump as dangerous and ill-suited for the office, his supporters as the wrong kind of white people, and to try to stake out some sort of populist-lite position that triangulated the space between centrist Democrats, Bernie Bros and those on the edge of falling towards Trump.

    Our politics has long been sliding towards being less and less about policy and more and more about identity-based status games. Trump and Kid Rock and whoever comes next are taking advantage of an already flailing system.Report