Don’t call it a comeback.
No, seriously, please do not allow Jim Bob Duggar’s run for Senate be a success story.
He’s hoping that everyone will ignore that the son whose past crimes he covered up is headed to trial for the unspeakable.
Jim Bob is also clearly hoping for donations … without listing any actual policies or concrete platforms.
When a millionaire is asking for donations — not for a cause, but for his own political glorification — people are often uneasy.
With big, national races, people understand — tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars can go into those.
But is Arkansas District 7 so hotly contested that a millionaire and his fundamentalist church full of fellow cultists needs to crowdsource campaign funds?
Jim Bob apparently thinks so.
Or perhaps he is so focused on continuing to use his wealth to control his children that he can’t be bothered to foot the bill.
Either way, his campaign site is an all-too-real thing that exists, and he has a lot to say.
“I’m running for State Senate because these are unprecedented times in our nation,” Jim Bob declares.
He whines: “Out-of-control bureaucrats have put politics over common-sense policy.”
Jim Bob says that they’ve done this “with government mandates that force people to choose between earning a paycheck and violating their personal rights and beliefs.”
In other words, he thinks that people have a fundamental right to spread whatever plagues upon their neighbors that they wish to.
“The foundational principles that have made our nation great are under threat like never before,” Jim Bob claims.
“Now more than ever, we need a bold voice that is pro-family, pro-business, pro-gun and pro-life,” he writes.
“It’s time for conservatives to demand courageous leadership that puts Arkansas families, jobs, and our constitutional liberties first,” Jim Bob declares.
Prematurely, he added: “I look forward to being your voice in the Arkansas State Senate.”
Well, that’s all very gross.
Years ago, internet trolls who wanted to silence and shame good, decent people came up with a term.
That term is “virtue signaling,” as if people would only do and say good things for attention.
Something that seems much realer is what I like to call malice signaling — loudly letting the world know how bad you are.
That is precisely what Jim Bob is doing here.
Just look at the term “pro family.” What does it mean? Who is “anti-family” exactly?
The term doesn’t really mean anything … and yet it always serves to signal that the speaker has malevolent intentions.
As for the rest — Jim Bob is against vaccine mandates, he’s a gun nut, and he thinks that anyone who gets pregnant should be forced to give birth.
Is any of that surprising? No.
All of that is very consistent with the Jim Bob that the world has come to know and detest over the years.
But … is he listing any actual policies or actual platforms?
Nowhere that we, or any others looking into his loathsome candidacy, can find.
What laws or policies is he proposing to proliferate firearms or criminalize reproductive healthcare or whatever sinister things “pro-family” means?
Nothing.
It’s not just that Jim Bob’s ideas are unpopular and well outside of mainstream views, let alone what’s actually right and wrong.
It’s also that he’s not proposing any “solutions” to these non-problems. He just wants cash.
Like other con men before him, Jim Bob is probably going to get that cash, too.
In fact, he could be looking at a win-win scenario.
Even if Jim Bob (hopefully) loses his political run, we all know that there are ways to funnel political donations into one’s own businesses and turn a profit.
But perhaps the most unnerving part of all of this isn’t Jim Bob’s sinister views.
As we noted, they are not surprising, and unfortunately, the political arena has no shortage of malevolence, bigotry, greed, or dishonesty.
The most twisted part might be that Jim Bob is trying to make this comeback as Josh’s trial looms.
There will be a hearing on November 18. The trial begins in earnest on November 30.
Josh is on trial for receiving and possessing photos and video of the sexual abuse of children.
Little girls’ lives were ruined by adult men, and authorities traced one of the downloads of that content to Josh’s computer.
Jim Bob’s candidacy at such an awkward time could mean that he believes Josh’s claims.
He would have to believe two absurd things: that Josh is innocent, and that the justice system works flawlessly.
If Jim Bob believed both of those things, he would fully expect Josh to be acquitted and publicly vindicated.
More realistically, Jim Bob could be planning to either ignore Josh’s trial or use it to his advantage.
The first would mean saying that Josh is a “grown man” and he can’t control what his son does.
The second could mean claiming that his family is being attacked by “leftists” or “antifa” or “the devil.”
Jim Bob is not a good person or a good father. He has not been and would not be a good politician.
But with his family’s reality career once again sabotaged by yet another Josh scandal, he’s obviously looking for a new way to make the world worse.
And clearly, lining his own pockets seems to be a bigger priority than convincing people that he has even one actual good idea.
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