Herschel, We Hardly Knew You.

 

Yeah, I know all the bad things about Herschel Walker.  He was a violent, dishonest, unintelligent man who knew damned well he had no business in the Senate, and was willing to collaborate with the worst sort of racists to get something he didn't deserve.  The whole nation dodged a bullet when the Republican party fell just short of finding enough malicious, hate filled honkies in Georgia to put him in the Senate. And yet, as soon as he conceded, I found myself feeling what I never expected to: sympathy for this poor guy, who was mesmerized by the Republicans, and Trump in particular, into serving as their unwitting tool.


This is a guy who never had any political experience or, apparently, interest, and let's face it: he was not intelligent or informed enough to understand how he was being used.  He was induced to put a black face on the worst outbreak of white race hatred this country has known since the Civil War.  In the prospect, he has had his life damaged forever.  Instead of living out whatever years are left to him by the brain damage which he almost certainly has from his sports career, as an honored football hero, he has been reduced to a buffoon, a person who will always be remembered as a fool and a willing collaborator with people who would have treated him as little more than an animal if he had won that Senate seat.


Yeah, Lindsay Graham, Rudy Giuliani, Alan Dershowitz and dozens more took their thirty pieces of silver from Trump, and ended up being social pariahs with destroyed reputations and terminated career prospects.  But they were all people with long records of willing servitude to the worst elements of our political society.  They knew exactly what they were doing; they just thought they would never have to pay a price for their treachery.  Herschel Walker is different.  He is, I believe, a man who had no idea what he was getting into, and he was destroyed by people that sung him a siren song that he could not resist.  In the end, he is a victim of the Republicans, and I feel sorry for him.  He didn't deserve this fate the way that all the others who fell in line behind Trump did.


Live in peace, Herschel, while I at least will turn my anger back toward the miserable, corrupt criminals who deserve it.

Comments

VoenixRising said…
I immediately think of Quasimodo, also used as an unwitting tool.
Nan said…
Hmmm. I suppose that's one way of looking at it.
Green Eagle said…
Nan, I guess you disagree with me. I totally understand- I had tremendous anger at this guy who was willing to harm the country to pursue his personal gain, just like every Republican. The reaction that I had which resulted in this post really came out of nowhere- it wasn't a result of any kind of analysis. I was surprised at the way I ended up feeling about him, and thought I would write about the way I felt after it was all over. Just be assured that I have not changed one bit in my years-long belief that the Republican party is trying to destroy our country.
ozajh said…
What struck me, from here in Australia, was his concession speech. For two reasons.

Firstly, I got the impression that was HIM talking, not his speechwriters. And it was classy and respectful towards both his supporters and the system.

Secondly, if he'd spoken like that for the entire campaign, I can't help thinking he would now be Senator-elect Walker.
Green Eagle said…
Ozaji, my feeling exactly. It was his concession speech that made me feel the way I do. I truly believe that by the end, he realized that being in the Senate would be a miserable thing for him, just as I expect that having to bend to the Republicans' demands during the campaign must have been. I bet he was thrilled to be done with the whole thing, and able to go home to some peace. And it was the most classy and heartfelt concession speech I can ever remember hearing from a Republican. I do, however, wish he would have ended his concession speech with the following:

"If I can't be a Senator, I'm going back to my second ambition, and will become a werewolf. So, Reverend Warnock, if you ever run into me again, and it's the full moon, I'd run away as fast as you can."
Buttermilk Sky said…
As a resident of Georgia I felt nothing but relief on Wednesday. "He came into the orbit of that serial destroyer of other people's reputations, Donald Trump," David Von Drehle wrote in the Washington Post. But what intelligent, compassionate, decent person has ever strayed into Trump's gravitational field? Because Walker was revealed to be an abuser of women and absent father to many children, what are the consequences? He still has his records and his Heisman Trophy. Paul Robeson suffered more for his politics, being banished from the 1918 All-America team. Now he can go home to Texas and good riddance. Maybe I'm just not a football fan.
Green Eagle said…
Buttermilk Sky,

I am a sometime resident of Georgia too, having worked on several movies there. I sympathize with how you feel- the guy is a violent abuser who moreover suffers from a serious, uncurable mental illness which alone should render him absolutely ineligible for any position of responsibility; in addition the 90%+ likelihood that he suffers from CTI means his behavior is only likely to deteriorate significantly over the years he would be in the Senate. Still, I guess my point is that it is futile for us to direct our anger toward Walker, who is gone now as a political force, instead of toward the evil, corrupt Republican political machine that promoted him and will easily replace him with hundreds of others who are just as bad. It is the Republican party that we must work to destroy, not this particular spent example of their maliciousness.
Richard said…
We dodged a bullet. I hope never to hear from or about Herschel Walker again. The republican party will try this again, but they will use a Latino.
dervy scram said…
no pity. having played the bone dumb buck his whole life, this quisling knew exactly what he was doing. he is the bull in his parable, content to graze and knock up cows (white women). then one day his white male benefactors asked him to jump the fence (get in the race) and there all he found were other bulls (warnock). he ha played his role to the hilt. I'm just wondering how the Hell they kept Christian so quiet as much as they were able.
Meremark said…
A fop for racist republican-azis, as you said and in the ditto manner of RNC wha's-'is-name Steele and Clarence Toadload whose first obvious fop as EEOC director started his hick hate groveling. I've felt sorry for each of them, by turns, as wasted lives without self-respect, without pride, without honor.

But some slight pity didn't keep me from werewolf bashing. Wit:

"OH, I thought GOP was selling a chocolate bar. Some days he was a nut; some days he wasnt."
Green Eagle said…
Meremark, I have gone in for a good deal of werewolf bashing myself. I'd like to see a Saturday Night Live skit parodying the Wolf Man, where Lon Chaney transforms into Herschel Walker.

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