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What Is the Purpose of Really Dumb Political Stunts?
Someone flew a giant inflatable chicken with Trump hair next to the White House.
I’m not sure why someone flew a giant inflatable chicken with Trump hair next to the White House, but apparently it made an important political statement. Perhaps something about animal rights, vegetarianism, or the importance of free-range conditions. Or that Trump is chicken for not doing something that the balloon owners want him to do. Maybe a basic cable channel is premiering a show that has something to do with flying poultry.
Regardless, the picture was passed around social media by people thinking it was a “sick burn,” as the kids liked to say a decade ago. But, as with most silly protests, I was left with a simple question: Why?
Really Dumb Political Stunts have long been a feature of the American political system. Candidates are regularly followed by sad oppo interns dressed as ducks, gorillas, or TV characters. At Barack Obama’s inauguration, someone inflated a giant George W. Bush effigy and invited attendees to toss shoes at it. But when a dedicated protestor donned a papier-mâché Dick Cheney head and a blood-spattered prison outfit with $100,000 bills falling out of its pockets, did a single undecided voter think, “that fellow makes a good point?”
Considering the cost and effort involved (custom inflatables run up to $25,000), political activists must mistakenly believe that Really Dumb Political Stunts help their cause. But will a giant inflatable chicken with Trump hair change one voter’s mind about whatever point the rogue ballooners are trying to make?
Published in Politics
Or it is a taunt, or a threat: Chicken Little is about to meet Foxey Loxey.
Mueller’s goons, or some cheerleaders for Mueller’s goons, are taunting their prey. The balloon went up right around the time of Mueller’s announcement of Grand Jury proceedings, and shortly after the predawn raid at the family home of the perfectly cooperative Manafort.
My first thought is that the best way to deal with this is to have the Secret Service shoot it down in spectacular manner. That means in the daytime with hundreds and hundreds of US military servicemen backing up the Secret Service. No drone in the middle of the night: demonstrate the support of the military for the duly-elected Executive. Heck, throw in a regiment of attorneys, as well.
This is not a silly stunt; it is a message. Silence in the face of such a message, floating over the Executive Mansion, would give a message of unseriousness, and lack of resolve to defend Constitutional order. It is not just a balloon any old where; if it were, we could all just laugh and defend freedom of political speech. But this is the legal-procedural equivalent of a zeppelin hovering over Westminster. And it hovers at the perimeter of our Executive Mansion.
My second thought is that our boys and gals should capture it and transfer it, redecorated, to some more appropriate place, in order to send a proper message in response. How about over FBI HQ? Insiders would know the correct place. What say you all?
Pyongyang?
It’s final destination is to be located at the Trump Presidential museum
The chicken has been Meme’d! Check it out:
Many more have been created, and some have been posted on Breitbart. See some of them here:
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/08/11/trump-fans-gleefully-appropriate-trump-chicken-meme-magic
Memes, the future Presidential Library, and so on! Pyongyang! What superb ideas! Thank you all for relieving my gloomy thoughts.
Wait? There’s a quiz? Stand by (I’m in Miami, I got this…).
You wouldn’t have to.
I’d volunteer you.
What’s the CoC say regrading gunplay? I know we are not supposed to cuss.
Wull, first you have to get graded at gunplay. My understanding is that you can be graded on a flat or complex range, but your evaluator must be an NRA-certified instructor. If you execute the range at least three times (but must be less than five) and feel you were not awarded the appropriate grade, then you can submit an appeal. If the appeal is approved by Blue Yeti, Max LeDoux, and the most recent member to pop on the Main Feed, then the Triumvirate (Rob, Peter, and James) regrade your gunplay. You don’t want to aspire to regraded.