The 4 Dumbest Election Stories Of The Week (1/8)
It's January 2020, which means that election day is now bearing down on us like a flaming sewage truck. As a way of keeping everyone sane, we thought we'd start doing a weekly roundup of the dumbest, weirdest, and grossest election stories. This is that.
The Media Livened Up a Story About Fundraising With Not One, But TWO Racist Gaffes
It was recently announced that of all the Democrats vying to be nominee, Bernie Sanders had raised the most money in the final quarter of 2019 -- $34.5 million, to be precise, which roughly equates to an average donation of $18. The moment was quickly ruined, however, after media outlets such as NPR and HuffPo reported on this story by accidentally (we hope) aping far-right propaganda.
Over at CNBC, meanwhile, their rundown of how each candidate fared used a headshot of venture capitalist Geoff Yang (who isn't running for president) in place of entrepeneur Andrew Yang (who is). Woof.
If you're particularly eagle-eyed, you might've also noticed that CNBC used a headshot of Kirsten Gillibrand, who suspended her presidential run in the middle of last year, in place of Tulsi Gabbard. We'd congratulate Gillibrand on finally having generated some buzz, but all things considered, we're not sure that stealing Gabbard's identity is worth it.
Mike Bloomberg Received the Biggest Endorsement of His Campaign
Mike Bloomberg is running for president. We'd make a couple of jokes here, but his campaign is such a non-event that, as of writing, his biggest "win" is getting caught exploiting prison labor -- and we know that's not a popular policy among voters because if it was, Kamala Harris would still be in the game.
Nevertheless, this week saw Bloomberg get his first big endorsement from none other than Judy Sheindlin, aka: Judge Motherfucking Judy, on account of how he has "experience in governance second only to the President of the United States."
Okay, now that's how you make a joke about Bloomberg.
Curse the Earth Mother, Marianne WIlliamson's Campaign Isn't Over
In 2019, the country was introduced to Marianne Williamson -- new age author, philanthropist, rabid anti-vaxxer, and presidential hopeful. She quickly gained fans for being the funny, quirky, tell-it-like-it-is one, but soon enough, she lost her place at the debates and went gently into that good night.
Except, maybe not? When it was reported earlier this week that she'd laid off her entire campaign staff, she took to social media to report that the rumors about the end of her campaign "have been drastically exaggerated" -- and announced in a subsequent statement that while she "can't afford a traditional campaign it's amazing what you can do with volunteers."
Williamson is currently polling at 0.2 percent, so those better be some awesome volunteers.
A Viral Video Turned Joe Biden into Richard Spencer
Joe Biden has a reputation for speaking before thinking. So few people were shocked last week, when a thirteen second-long video emerged in which Biden started spouting off the white nationalist-adjacent talking point that America is the product of whitey (and whitey only).
"Our culture is not imported from some African nation, or some Asian nation It's our English jurisprudential culture. Our European culture."
It soon turned out, however, that the video was nothing more than deceptively-edited footage of a rally where Biden spoke for a whole ten minutes, about how rape culture in America descended from the attitudes of Americans' English forebears.
So to allay your concerns, no, Joe Biden isn't about to start proposing policy modelled after the fourteen words -- if for no other reason than his commitment to being an equal opportunities hair-sniffer.
Adam Wears is (allegedly) a comedy writer. Want to read other articles he's written for Cracked? Click here! Want to follow him on Twitter? Click here! Want to check out his website? Click here!
