Voters should not select presidential candidates based on their race or gender. I mean, come on. Imagine if, oh, say, white men only voted for other white men for the last 44 presidencies. I KNOW. White men would NEVER do such a thing! I know it’s a stretch, but let’s also pretend, like they also enslaved an entire race of people and slaughtered another indigenous race of people, and put another race of people in internment camps, and generally were dicks to a bunch of other people just cause. Like, I KNOW I am being totally hyperbolic right now, but just imagine, WHAT IF?
And say, maybe eventually, after a lot of petty bickering and lynching, their descendants freed those people and offered a half-ass not really apology, but still left intact a society that subjugates others at every turn, and then — stay with me here — their descendants were generally less of a dumpster fire, some were even good people, except for allowing the privatized for-profit prison system to exist, and also WHAT THE FUCK they STILL kept electing more white men as president! Like, if that happened, we would all be like: “Hey Joel and Chad! That’s still racist AF, dude!” and Joel and Chad would peek out from under their fedoras sheepishly like: “U right, u right.”
And just to prove to us that they weren’t racist, Joel and his bronies would symbolically elect one extremely perfect non-threatening Black man as president and text us on his iPhone 69X “R we cool now?” And we would be like “Nah, how about you take a back seat for a sec, my broseph.” Cause, like, after decades of cis white male shenanigans, it’s going to take more than one Black dude to build up real trust, amirite?
So, let’s say that while all this was going on, those dudes were also being dicks to women too. Uh-oh. By the way, your eyes glazed over I can tell that I’ve lost you — just pretend to care about women for one second. So say, for instance, perhaps a barefoot and pregnant voice pipes up from the kitchen and says, “Hey, can we get some representation up in this bitch?” And the white dudes would be like, “Damn, you too?” And women would be like “Are you seriously complaining rn?” And Joel and Chad would throw a tantrum, pound some brews, knock over some old couple’s tacky flamingo-themed mailbox with baseball bats, and vote in YET ANOTHER white dude. And the rest of us would all be like: “BRO. R U SERIOUS?”
And then the white dudes would start trying to defend themselves, mumbling some mealy-mouthed BS about “qualifications” and “She didn’t run a good campaign.” And we’d have a mini aneurysm before reminding them that she was “LITERALLY THE MOST QUALIFIED CANDIDATE IN PRESIDENTIAL HISTORY EVER. (For clarity, no, I’m not talking about anyone in particular, this is still entirely hypothetical.) After the paramedics had revived us, we would remind the dudebros that 50% of the previous white presidents were mediocre af, and maybe 25% were above average or stellar, but the other 25% were absolute garbage, no better than murderers or rapists — and some actually were murderers and rapists because they were slave owners.
So after this verbal thrashing, white dudes, with all their infinite dispassionate and “rational” thought, would have to concede that the only LOGICAL and fair and just thing to do would be to elect a woman president at least ONCE, just so they could prove that they were willing to enthusiastically support and willingly be led by a woman without going feral.
Hahahaha, what a crazy thought. Luckily that never happened.
But after Trump, any mediocre male or female president would be a step up, amirite? I’d suggest my Aunt Ruth or Cardi B just as a joke, but they are both actually hella smart and Cardi would rewrite our national anthem overnight and make it FIRE. Like, what about Oprah? I know she might not be perfect, and yeah, she might hire that quack Dr. Oz for the Director of Health and Human Services, but legit scientists are already fucking around in labs trying to bring back dinosaurs and the bubonic plague, and Americans are literally already refusing vaccines, bringing back smallpox and washing and reusing condoms, so how much worse can it really get? The worst thing that Oprah could do would be to run up our national debt flying around like Santa delivering our tax returns like they were Her Favorite Things. Plus, it’s not like any mediocre white president has ever run up the national debt. No, that would be irresponsible.
Of course, any successful female or POC president would hypothetically have to be morally better than any white man that has come before, because women are expected to be more moral, and because white men have the absolute moral authority to judge what is moral. Wait, I’m having a little trouble remembering when exactly white men gained the moral high ground. Was it when they were enslaving people? Denying women the right to vote? Or was it just when they were apathetically ignoring systemic racism, sexism, and homophobia while playing Fortnite and passively accumulating billions in the stock market while leaving millions homeless and in poverty as the housing bubble collapsed? Idk, lolz.
So, you see, it would be absolutely ridiculous to pick a presidential candidate simply because of their race or gender, no matter how qualified they might be for the job. Despite 45 male and predominantly white presidents in a row, all things being equal, it is a terrible, bad, and awful idea to want to change things up now. Stick with the program, Americans!