The Terrifying Rise of Herschel Walker, Politician
Republicans like to portray the Democratic Party as hopelessly in thrall to the superficial cult of celebrity. Yet Republican candidates for Senate this year include J.D Vance, who is known primarily for writing a book Ron Howard made a famously abysmal motion picture about, television personality and snake oil salesman Mehmet Oz and Herschel Walker, whose primary qualification for being one of the most powerful leaders in the country is that he was an excellent college football player.
Walker’s connection to Donald Trump goes back decades. Walker was the marquee player for the New Jersey Generals, the USFL team Trump owned, then participated in the second season of The Celebrity Apprentice.
Walker has an impressive background as a football player. But that was not enough for him. It wasn’t enough to be a Heisman Trophy winner. It wasn’t enough to be two time Pro Bowler.
the Senatorial aspirant is seated next to shock comedian Andrew “Dice” Clay.
So Walker told the world that he had worked extensively in law enforcement, with both the FBI and the Cobb County Police Department. He claimed to have graduated in the top one percent of his college class and to have been his high school valedictorian. Walker also boasted of being behind a mist that destroys COVID-19 and owning “the largest minority-owned chicken business in the United States.”
The problem is that none of these things were true. Walker didn’t graduate college, let alone finish near the very top of his class. Walker lies so extensively and reflexively that it’s entirely possible that he doesn’t even realize that he’s lying because it comes so naturally to him.
He’s like Trump or Ronald Reagan in that respect; he seems to think that what he’s saying MUST be true because he’s the one saying it whether or not it has any basis in reality.
Then there’s the matter of the three children Walker never publicly acknowledged and whose existence he denied even to his own staff.
In a pre-Donald Trump world I don’t think Walker would have even contemplated running for political office. But Trump’s 2016 election changed everything. If the pathological liar who appeared in such films as Ghosts Can’t Do It and The Little Rascals could get elected to the same office as Abraham Lincoln and George Washington, then seemingly ANYONE could not only run for office but win.
Similarly, in a world where an ostensible proponent of Christian family values can be taped bragging about grabbing women by their genitalia, and successfully dismiss it as the kind of harmless bawdy talk literally every straight man engages in constantly there’s no reason a secret child, or two, or three, should mean that you have to stop lecturing people about taking responsibility for themselves and their actions.
Walker is running against Raphael Warnock and while I’ve seen lots of anti-Warnock ads I’ve yet to see any pro-Walker ads. That’s because the strategy for getting Walker elected involves keeping him from the public and press as much as possible.
They know that Walker’s capacity for saying stupid things and lying brazenly is limitless. They don’t want voters to get to know their candidate better; they want him to hide him away so that on election day voters will think of all those negative ads against Warnock and let him slip into office.
THIS is what is meant by a Trump Republican: an arrogant narcissism high on his own fame and endless self-regard who sees being elected to high public office as another perk of fame and wealth.
Warnock has a sizable lead in the polls but the mere fact that Walker is in a position to be elected Senator says something horrifying about our culture and the unhealthy power of celebrity in the political sphere and out of it.
The Republicans may be the real star fuckers but if clowns like Oz, Vance and Walker end up in office we’re the ones who will be fucked.
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