For as long as I've been aware of American politics and the differences — real and perceived — between our two major parties, I've also been aware that the GOP has been touted as the party for grown-ups. For serious (White) men and the women those serious (White) men were married to. The solid and sober and solemn oak trees of America, that stood stubbornly and valiantly steady while the winds of social change swayed anything unfortunate enough to be unsettled. No, you would not find many new ideas floating around them. Or platforms. Or concepts. Or even new types of people. In fact, not only would you not find these things, they'd be openly antagonistic towards them, regarding them as distractions. Weeds. Flotsam. But at least — at the very least — their performative grownassness was reliably reliable.
Yet, as I've watched both the RNC and the DNC over the past week and a half, listening to each party's litany of speakers and celebrities and alphas, one theme has been a bit more stark and unambiguous than the rest: The Democrats are led by grown-ups. Which is something the Republicans can no longer say about themselves after collectively deciding to rally behind a half-baked soufflé of analog cucumbers.
Regardless of what you say about Hillary Clinton — and there are many, many, many, many uncomplimentary things you could say about her (and be right) — you can not deny that she's a serious woman. With a serious career. And serious ideas. Who has devoted her life to doing serious things. And who is comfortable in a room with equally serious people. Basically, she's a fucking grown up. As is our President and Vice President. And Hillary's husband, the former President. All men who could and should be criticized and held accountable for decisions they've made. But all fucking grown ups.
Our amazing First Lady? A fucking grown up. Bernie Sanders? A fucking grown up. Jill Biden? A fucking grown up. Shit, Tim Kaine isn't just a fucking grown-up. He's a computer-generated conglomeration of every dad from an 80's teen movie. If someone today replaced Tim Kaine as Hillary Clinton's running mate with Tim Allen, I doubt we'd even notice until September. Of 2018. If Donald Trump was born on third base, Tim Kaine was born in the driver's seat of a Dodge Caravan.
This all stands in stark contrast to the cacophony of unripe fuckshit we witnessed during the RNC, which was less political convention and more post-lunch recess at a charter school with no gym. None of the tenderfoot motherfuckers they paraded in front of America could reasonably be called a "serious" person. Wicked? Perhaps. Uncouth? Maybe. A gotdamn clownfraud? Definitely. But serious? A fucking grown-up? Hell no. Forget about running a country, would you trust Donald Trump to even babysit a cashew? Are you 100% confident that if you gave Melania Trump a Starbucks order, she'd come back with actual coffee instead of a picture of someone drinking coffee? Are we certain Chris Christie lives in an actual house and not a Trump University pull-out folder or a 14-story sugar cookie?
Of course, none of this is funny. Actually, let me qualify that. It is funny. It's funny as fuck right now. It's fucking hilarious that the party which has attempted (rather successfully) to brand itself as the adults in the room has put its future in the hands of the underdeveloped Cheeto at the bottom of a bag of Cheetos. The oak trees have been uprooted and replaced with Fruit Roll-Ups. It becomes exponentially less funny, however, when you realize the cheeto is a hair away from leading the country.
Which is why, when November comes around, I implore you all to just do what your parents taught you to do when you were six years old: listen to the grown-ups. Which in 2016 just means "vote for the Democrat."