Some people seem to want The Rock to run for president. But what about the people who aren’t buying Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s liberal agenda? Folks who want to elect an unqualified celebrity who’s named after an inanimate object but would prefer someone a little more juvenile, preferably someone who’s shot at foreign-made grills with a gun while screaming, “In your face, China!?” Why vote for The Rock when you could vote for Kid Rock—a man with a plan, a fedora, and one good song.
Kid Rock might not be America’s best country music star, but he’s not Toby Keith. And, most importantly, he has a sense of self/Southern cowboy brand that’s completely at odds with his actual upbringing. Because if deluding yourself in the hopes of deluding others isn’t enough to get you elected president, then how do you explain the mediocre businessman currently running the country?
After rumors spread that Kid Rock was considering a Senate run in his home state of Michigan, the dreadful rapper turned semi-successful country rocker appeared to confirm the gossip by launching a campaign website. He also tweeted, “I have had a ton of emails and texts asking me if this website is real…The answer is an absolute YES.”
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Reader: The website is not real. Or at least it isn’t real yet—so far, the site just links to a Warner Brothers Records domain, suggesting that Kid Rock is either doing promo for new music or just attempting to make some extra money off of fake campaign swag.
According to the Associated Press, the Michigan Republican Party Chairman has not heard anything from Rock’s people, meaning that Robert James Ritchie may not be bringing his political acumen to the Michigan Senate race after all. Other speculation suggests that Kid Rock’s new website might be part of the rollout for his upcoming restaurant, “Kid Rock’s Made in Detroit Bar & Grill.” A follow-up blog post by the product of Romeo, Michigan, suggests that the whole thing may be nothing more than an elaborate troll, with Kid writing, “Senator Stabenow and I do share a love of music, although probably not the same kind. I concede she is better at playing politics than I am so I’ll keep doing what I do best, which is being a voice for tax paying, hardworking AMERICANS and letting politicians like her know that We the People are sick and tired of their bullshit!”
Of course, in 2017, we have to take these so-called publicity stunts seriously. Because one day you think Kid Rock is just trying to promote his new album, and the next every school cafeteria in Michigan has been replaced by a “Kid Rock’s Made in Detroit Bar & Grill” (and the steak is not government subsidized).
Like so many political developments these days, Kid Rock’s threatened Senate run leaves us wondering what we possibly did to deserve this. While Ritchie endorsed Mitt Romney in 2012 and threw his support behind Trump as early as February 2016, this is more or less the first we’ve heard of his own political aspirations. If you’re trying to get a sense of this future politician’s personal politics, look no further than songs like “Black Chick, White Guy” and “Ain’t Enough Whiskey,” amongst his more “socially concerned” offerings. In the past, the singer’s pet causes have included laws that affected his ticket prices and telling people who protested his use of the Confederate flag to “kiss my ass.”
If we want to blame someone for Kid Rock’s new direction, it’s Sarah Palin, who brought the singer along on a visit to the Trump White House back in April. Kid Rock clearly took a liking to the opulent digs, becoming the first in what will likely be a long line of dudes in cowboy hats taking rude pictures in front of Hillary Clinton’s portrait. Instead of just finding a quiet spot in the Oval Office to wait out the remainder of the Trump administration, Ritchie appears to be chasing his political aspirations the old-fashioned way.
The only thing standing in Kid Rock’s way is his personal history and also his personality.
To start at the very beginning, Kid Rock is something of a hypocrite. Despite boasting a Southern affect and a clothing company called “Made in Detroit,” the singer’s background is at odds with the working-class ethos he associates with. In 2008, he described his childhood home as, “A beautiful, very middle-class American colonial house. It was set over six acres of land and there was an apple orchard out the back. My dad got me selling the apples to our neighbors at an early age.” So, more Johnny Appleseed than self-described “redneck.” And in keeping with his image as a gun-toting, whiskey-drinking womanizer, Kid Rock has made a whole bunch of decisions that might not sit well with Christian conservatives.
By far his most impressive display of poor taste was his 1999 sex tape, which co-stars Creed’s Scott Stapp—the Creed/Kid Rock collaboration you always knew you never wanted. In addition to filming himself receiving oral sex while the lead singer of Creed yells things like “I’m the king!”, Kid Rock has made numerous other bad calls, including that one time when he said that Oprah Winfrey “rubs me up the wrong way,” and that other time when he insulted Beyoncé.
“Beyoncé, to me, doesn’t have a fucking ‘Purple Rain,’ but she’s the biggest thing on Earth,” he told Rolling Stone in 2015. “How can you be that big without at least one ‘Sweet Home Alabama’ or ‘Old Time Rock & Roll?’…People are like, ‘Beyoncé’s hot. Got a nice fucking ass.’ I’m like, ‘Cool, I like skinny white chicks with big tits.’ Doesn’t really fucking do much for me.”
So if you’ve been racking your brain for a candidate who could score an even smaller percentage of the black female vote than Donald Trump, look no further than Kid Rock, a failed rapper who prefers random skinny white chicks to freaking Beyoncé.
