We all have role models. Well, all of us except for J. Cole. In his song “No Role Modelz,” Cole points out that in this day and age, no role models exist for us to look up to anymore. The desire to live a humble lifestyle has since been replaced with the obnoxious, tacky and entirely superficial placeholders. Young people used to look up to athletes who didn’t use performance-enhancing drugs, politicians who made compromises to reach success for the betterment of this country and celebrities who engaged in philanthropic causes — not celebrities who get “Made in China” breast implants (read: a Kardashian) or “Made in Thailand” lip injections (read: a Kardashian).
Nothing has proven the decline of role models and the admiration of noble people more than the success of Donald Trump. The Don, when explaining the role of vice president to Gov. John Kasich, more or less said he would be in charge of all foreign and domestic affairs. Therefore, it is safe to assume Gov. Mike Pence will really have the power that comes with the presidency. This begs the question: What kind of president would Pence be? Whose footsteps would he follow in? Essentially, who are his role models?
The answer, dear reader, will scare you. Pence recently said that the cyborg, failed rifleman and former Vice President Dick Cheney is someone he holds in “really high regard.” This should be a massive red flag, because when Cheney left office, his approval rating was only 13 percent. What a “bold” political move to make, to adopt a role model who is arguably one of the most hated American political figures, by Americans, in the last, say, 238 years. Either Pence is a masochist, a dumb--- or a dumb--- masochist. But, for some reason, people will forget that Cheney should truly be found guilty of war crimes far worse than the ones Trump casually advocates, or the ones Hillary has already committed by not being computer savvy. For God’s sake, she’s 68 years old. Do you know any 68-year-old person who is good with computers? No s--- she can’t check her email; our opinions editor’s grandmother called him last week when she accidentally deleted her Google Chrome shortcut, thinking she “deleted the entire internet off of her computer.”
While we’re all talking about ignorance, Pence clearly takes the cake from Cheney. When Pence was running for Congress in 1990, he took political donations and spent them on his mortgage, his credit card bill, groceries, golf tournaments and his wife’s car payments. This is incredibly reminiscent to a time when Cheney, a former CEO of the Halliburton Company, decided to go to war with one of the most oil-rich countries in the world and lied to the American people about the presence of weapons there to justify it. Technically, Cheney spearheaded an unjustified war effort that killed thousands of U.S. soldiers and wasted tax dollars. And Pence has the audacity to say he admires this man? America is already great, and you’re not going to make it any better by following in the footsteps of a man who profited off the death of America’s children.
For some reason, there’s been a lot of white, Christian, conservative and presumably anti-gay males loving them some Dick. All we ask, Don (because we never advocate for violence), is that you should not go hunting with your running mate. If Pence really looks up to Cheney, it’s possible he developed his shooting form from him, and it’s probably not a good idea for a dude with a swan-like haircut to hunt with him.
