Sorry, Trump and Pence, this one isn’t going away
Dan Quayle was a worthless politician who had a number of major failings. His “potatoe” incident wasn’t one of them. But wow did it ever stick, to the point that it ended up being the first thing most people thought of when they heard his name, because it was just too perfectly on the nose. Quayle was already widely seen as a dummy, and then he went and did that, and it cemented it.
This brings us to Donald Trump. He’s a monster. He’s murdered sixty thousand Americans this month alone. He’s also committed treason. When Trump told people to drink bleach to cure coronavirus, it was really bad, but it was far from the worst thing he’s ever done. Yet it stuck, because Trump was already widely perceived as an inept snake oil salesman who peddles simplistic false promises, and then he went and did that. The “disinfectant” thing isn’t going away, because it perfectly encapsulated everything that was already seen as being wrong with the guy.
Then there’s Mike Pence. He’s a deranged extremist, and he’s always corruptly been on the take. From his lies about the AIDS crisis, to his lies about tobacco, to his lies about the coronavirus crisis, Pence has murdered a lot of people over the years. When he visited a hospital this week and refused to wear a mask, he may have murdered a few more people – but he’s done even worse things. Yet because he’s already widely perceived as an arrogant prick, and then he went and did that of all things, and now he’s forever the guy who refused to wear a mask.
Trump and Pence seem to get that they’re in real danger of being permanently tagged with these incidents, in a way that defines them going forward. This kind of embarrassing incident can even cause a politician’s supporters too be too embarrassed to bother defending the politician over the incident, thus helping to cement it. Trump is still going on and on about how he somehow didn’t tell people to ingest disinfectants. Pence had his wife go on TV today to try to put the mask scandal to bed. Neither is going away any time soon.
