Maybe it was Sarah Palin’s emergence on the national stage (Thanks, John McCain). Watching her fumble through basic questions from Katie Couric and pretty much every other journalists, reminding every smart kid in the country of the cool kid, who didn’t do their homework and was trying to wing it during their book report. Sure, in class, you might have chuckled at the person. Might even envy their personality or popularity but you didn’t want that person running your government. I know I couldn’t even imagine Sarah Palin running the PTA.
But somewhere along the line, we have developed such a disdain for government employees, for heads of agencies and for the office of our president that we really believe that anybody can do it. How else can someone with no experience as an educator, no classroom teaching experience of any kind, not even an online certificate lead our Department of Education? We have a person whose lone qualification for leading the Department of Housing and Urban Authority is that he lived in public housing. A wedding planner is head of HUD offices for New York and New Jersey. The NASA nominee isn’t even a scientist. The person we have in charge of solving the crisis in the Middle East AND the Opioid epidemic is a real estate developer. I’m waiting on Bryan Cranston, who played a drug dealer in Breaking Bad, to be nominated as the Food and Drug Administrator chief. It’s as if these people truly believe they can do any job by staying at a Holiday Inn Express.
Imagine how foolish the career federal workers must feel going into work every day reporting to people who have no idea what the agency they are leading actually does. Rick Perry had no idea what the Department of Energy was responsible for. But at least he had public sector experience. Most of these people have never even been in a public library.
This brings me to Kid Rock. That’s right, a 40+ year old guy who still calls himself Kid, is hinting that he might run for the Senate. Not a county Senate seat or a state Senate seat, nope. Kid Rock wants to run for the United States Senate. So let’s just take a look at Kid Rock’s credentials:
- High school dropout
- Never attended college
- Was in a sex tape
- Married Pamela Anderson from Baywatch on November 10, 2006 and filed for divorce on November 27, 2006
- Has misdemeanor charges stemming from alcohol related arrests
- Plead guilty to assault on Motley Crue drummer, Tommy Lee
- Involved in a brawl and charged with simple battery.
This is where we are right now as a country. Angela Merkel has a PHD in Quantum Chemistry and won prizes for her proficiency in Russian and Mathematics. And we have a guy who sold drugs out of a car wash waiting for his rap rock career to take off. Maybe you could give Kid Rock a few points for his rags to riches story except he grew up on a 6-acre estate (his dad owned multiple car dealerships). His rough and rumble look is as fake as the accents of the Duck Dynasty crew. His entire political career consists of him allowing Mitt Romney to use one of his song at campaign events. His only qualifications seem to be that he supports Donald Trump and in 2018 that may to be enough.
People tell their kids the story that they can be anything when they grow up. But it seems that people are leaving out a few chapters. If you want to govern this country, do your homework, go to school, go to college, get advance degrees, learn other languages, travel to other countries, and learn our history. We need the best and the brightest running this country. Because in a country of millions, there is no reason that a guy with a song titled Early Morning Stoned Pimp should be on the short list of candidates for Senate.