Austin Petersen: GIFs, Tweets, and Senate Seats

Andrew Donaldson

Born and raised in West Virginia, Andrew has since lived and traveled around the world several times over. Though frequently writing about politics out of a sense of duty and love of country, most of the time he would prefer discussions on history, culture, occasionally nerding on aviation, and his amateur foodie tendencies. He can usually be found misspelling/misusing words on Twitter @four4thefire and his food writing website Yonder and Home. Andrew is the host of Heard Tell podcast. Subscribe to Andrew's Heard Tell SubStack for free here:

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22 Responses

  1. Oscar Gordon says:

    I’m usually a bit more lenient with regards to politicians on the campaign trail than I am with interview candidates, since an interview is usually, at most, a day long affair, while the campaign can run for months or years. A lot more time and stress for anger and exhaustion to get the better of a person.

    That said, when anger and exhaustion do inevitably win the moment, what comes out of a persons mouth and the actions they take is often incredibly insightful into who they really are. And honestly, with most of them, that insight is often very disturbing.Report

    • On principle I agree with you.

      That particular career field and job that I made a example of was high speed, high stress, high pressure; if you cannot keep your bearing in an office I cannot trust you when it’s total chaos and the sky is falling. I learned in the military the hard way there are guys that look great in uniform and talk a good game but when the sky’s raining fire who can keep their head is much more important. I’m applying this more and more to politics lately. Issues of course are important, but in a world that is giving more platform and volume to the crazy makers, I’m looking for leaders who tap that down, not stir it up. Buzzwords, ideology pure sentiments, all that stuff is secondary to “If I vote for you to be in office are you going to be a freakin adult about it.” I can respectfully disagree on issues and policy. If you are going to beclown yourself it doesn’t matter what issues we agree on. Power attracts a lot of people with very dark motives, better to flesh them out when flashes appear than find out later.Report

      • Oscar Gordon in reply to Andrew Donaldson says:

        The Twitter kerfuffle wouldn’t bug me, but the comment about the “pyramid pile of p**sy”, that would shut him down in my mind. That’s the ugly I don’t want to vote for. A confident, level headed male would not need to get into a pissing match with a known troll and resort to grandiose claim of sexual promiscuity.

        The Twitter kerfuffle would just be further evidence that he hasn’t “settled down”.

        I never thought I would miss the boring campaign of the likes of Mitt Romney.Report

  2. pillsy says:

    Weird. My reaction to the Stalin GIF, at least as described, was, “That’s actually a bit funny.”

    The follow-up was dumb as hell, and I’d never vote for that dude anyway, but that seems so far in obvious joke territory that it’s hard to get too fussed over it.Report

    • I saw the humor in it. Twitter, like Facebook, has really painted themselves into the corner of moderating content that they will never be able to get out off. Should he get suspended for that? probably not. But it’s educational to watch the reactions, and frankly the people who all the sudden will make alliances when a common enemy, like Twitter, becomes the focus instead of the parties themselves.Report

  3. Kolohe says:

    The classic example to me of someone who failed the interview was Sarah Palin (and it turned out, for good reason). Which is also a bit odd as I swear I recall her being interviewed on 60 Minutes well before (like at least a year before) her debut on the national stage as a VP nominee, and that interview seemed fine.Report

    • We could write books on the Palin thing. She was mayor of a city, then had barely been governor when she entered the national attention. The pattern is there; said right things, just enough bio to look right, but wasn’t ready or qualified and had some stuff in the closet that later came to light. The Couric thing, though, was just bizarre on a couple different levels. I always assumed there was some backstory we never heard about that.Report

      • Kolohe in reply to Andrew Donaldson says:

        My take is that the Couric thing was Palin getting into her own head too much. Too worried about gotcha questions, trying too hard to find the exact right soundbyte, she tripped over her own tongue answering a straightforward question. Also, “What newspapers & magazines do your read?” “All of them” is actually a fair, though obviously cryptic and strange answer, when your given something like the Early Bird* every morning.

        * which used to be a DoD produced thing, but now it looks like they’ve turned it over to Gannett, (and now looking, Military Times and Defense News are no longer owned by Gannett, which is all news to me)Report

        • Sounds about right. I’ve always wondered if it had been someone other than Couric if that would have went down like that. I don’t mean journalistically, it came off like Palin was actually a little star-struck to be sitting with her. Might be wrong just remember thinking that at the time.Report

      • greginak in reply to Andrew Donaldson says:

        Well Palin was mayor of a small town where some of her dealings caused financial problems for the town. She did some commendable anti-corruption stuff on a state board then got suuuuuper lucky in her gov race.

        In the R primary there were several contenders including the sitting gov who had been a senator for years, Frank Murkowski. Frank appointed his daughter, Lisa, to his seat when he was elected gov which was really unpopular. Also Frank was regarded as about as smart as a bag of hammers even by people who liked him. So in the R primary the sitting gov went down in flames, I think he was fourth which is astounding to have a sitting gov do so poorly. Of the various R’s vying for his spot Sarah came first. She won fair and square but that was a weird circumstance ( current R gov bombing, mult people going for his spot). Her anti-corruption stuff played well for her. Then boom she was gov, who immediately embroiled herself in scandal due to being petty and suddenly having power. She rose way above her level of incompetence fast but she looked good and said the right things so it took a while for people to pick up her that she was over her head.Report

        • To me, the interesting thing about Palin is that her big accomplishment as governor, getting more money out of the oil companies, is something she couldn’t talk about as a VP candidate, since it wasn’t politically correct for the national GOP.Report

    • Pinky in reply to Kolohe says:

      The Couric interview struck me as a perfect example of two women who hate each other pretending to be cordial. Guys don’t do that. We’re more outward. Palin and Couric were doing something that I bet every guy has witnessed and none of us has ever understood. It’s all hatred and subtext.Report

      • Maribou in reply to Pinky says:

        I’ve seen guys do that, actually. Definitely not the dominant mode, but it shows up in places where neither of them can possibly get the other one fired/demoted/etc. Decades long courteous seethe may ensueReport

  4. Chip Daniels says:

    On paper, he seemed to be a weak candidate with problematic policy positions.

    But in person, and his online demeanor, he seems to have aced the interview, and demonstrated the ability to be petty, thin skinned and petulant. To harbor grudges and ethnic resentments, and a seething scorn for those who are vulnerable.

    Watch this man- he seems like the ideal Republican candidate.

    Report

    • I only write stuff I can source, or at least source to the best of my meager ability, but there are a lot of troublesome ties with this individual that look wrong and feel wrong but lack full evidence. Plenty of alt-right within his circles and orbit, and I follow Caroline Orr pretty closely, she wouldn’t throw that tidbit out if she did suspect something. She has been very accurate and thorough on her research into online Russian machinations. It isnt’s just here, there a plenty of folks questioning the financing and online operation of this guy, including one person I trust implicitly in MO who is convinced there are financing problems if one was to look deep enough.

      I think you are right though, Chip. He isn’t going away, in fact many suspect he will run third party after he is trounced on Tuesday. He is someone to be opposed now, then, and always.Report

  5. Saul Degraw says:

    In the days following, he granted an on-air interview to InfoWars, and resorted to retweeting news stories of his twitter suspense from RT. RT — as in Russia Today, which is a neat and tidy way to tie up this tempest in a tea cup that began over offense that Russians might see his campaign as a disruption point.

    This could also be a sign that he is a nut complete off his rocker if he is willing to talk to these places.

    Report

  6. Iron Tum says:

    The bravest of men are not afraid of pig pens,

    Only if they are fools. Pigs are vicious.Report

    • If you’ve ever watched Deadwood where they dispose of all the bodies, and they are a lot of them, in Mr. Wu’s pig pen. They are indeed, especially the feral wild hogs.Report

      • jason in reply to Andrew Donaldson says:

        Or there’s this, from Snatch:

        And when you got your six pieces, you gotta get rid of them, because it’s no good leaving it in the deep freeze for your mum to discover, now is it? Then I hear the best thing to do is feed them to pigs. You got to starve the pigs for a few days, then the sight of a chopped-up body will look like curry to a pisshead. You gotta shave the heads of your victims, and pull the teeth out for the sake of the piggies’ digestion. You could do this afterwards, of course, but you don’t want to go sievin’ through pig shit, now do you? They will go through bone like butter. You need at least sixteen pigs to finish the job in one sitting, so be wary of any man who keeps a pig farm. They will go through a body that weighs 200 pounds in about eight minutes. That means that a single pig can consume two pounds of uncooked flesh every minute. Hence the expression, “as greedy as a pig”.

        Report