#bobby jindal

[living400lbs]

Two Roads to Prosperity: Huey Long Versus Bobby Jindal

The heady excitement of the fracking boom hides some deeply important—and little discussed—political choices, of course. In the last Louisiana oil boom, from 1928 to 1932, in the midst of the Great Depression, Louisiana governor Huey Long, the progressive demagogue—the Kingfish, as he was called—declared “every man a king,” taxed oil companies, using that money to put a “chicken in every pot,” give out free textbooks to schoolchildren, create evening literacy courses for adults, and build roads, bridges, hospitals, and schools. Long curbed homelessness and poverty. Before succumbing to the lure of oil money himself, Long embraced the ideal of an activist government that lifted the poor and added to the common good.

By contrast, from 2007 to 2015, as mentioned, Governor Bobby Jindal drew $1.6 billion from schools and hospitals to give to companies as “incentives.” This strategy put some chickens in some pots, of course, and indirectly took them away from others. Like nearly everyone I talk to, Mayor Hardey twice voted for Governor Jindal, as did his family. And were he alive today, very few Louisianans would vote for Huey Long.

From Strangers In Their Own Land by Arlie Russell Hochschild

[odinsblog]

Katie Britt, the junior Republican senator from Alabama, delivered the GOP’s rebuttal to President Joe Biden’s address on Thursday. Her impassioned, breathless speech — delivered at times in an ASMR-esque whisper from what appeared to be her kitchen — ended up feeling more like a rejected audition tape for a supporting role on “Grey’s Anatomy” than the hard-hitting political sparring favored by Biden’s Republican critics.

Into the late hours of the night, Rolling Stone was inundated, sometimes completely unprompted, with messages from longtime GOP operatives, right-leaning pollsters, conservative Capitol Hill staff, MAGA lawyers, and even some senior members of Trump’s own 2024 campaign absolutely torching Britt’s absurdly over-dramatic rebuttal.

“What the hell am I watching right now?” a Trump adviser asked, mid-Britt remarks.

“Creepy,” one of the Republican pollsters noted.

A lawyer working in the Trump orbit says the performance reminded them of public-access television, and a senior House congressional aide remarks that it was “cringe”-inducing to watch and likely destined to be turned into a “lame [Saturday Night Live] skit” this weekend.

“I’ll give Biden this — he at least gave a better speech than Katie Britt,” one national Republican consultant said bluntly.

(continue reading)

[imreallyloveleee]

scrolling through my old twitter, realizing i was the most annoying person in the universe circa 2012

[kutputli]

I saw a post calling Arun Armand's 'dead name' and I am just wondering what is in the water you white people are drinking.

Arun is the first name the character remembers having, a name he shared with his Black lover as a gesture of trust and intimacy, a Black lover who moreover has something of an understanding about names and the complicated histories behind them (my great grandfather the plantation owner, anyone?)

Are we going to be told we're deadnaming people if we refer to Bobby Jindal as Piyush or Tan France as Tanveer?

I know it harshes your squee to think of brown characters as having an ethnic and racial identity beyond your pretty dolls with a tan but do try to remember some of us are here with you in the fandom having to read your rubbish takes.

(Also Arun means the Sun.)

[kcyars99]

Nimarata Nikki Randhawa ran as Nikki Haley Piyush Jindal ran as Bobby Jindal Raphael Cruz ran as Ted Cruz Meanwhile—Barack Obama ran as Barack Obama & Kamala Harris is running as Kamala Harris & MAGAs accuse Dems of identity politics Every MAGA accusation is a confession

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

As President Joe Biden mingled on the House floor following his State of the Union address Thursday night, Sen. Katie Britt (R-AL) gave the official Republican response, a stern but bizarrely delivered rebuttal that focused heavily on immigration and the economy.

The freshman senator is considered a rising star in the party. But her speech’s intense tone—with an over-the-top dramatic cadence that was delivered in a kitchen—left political operatives and observers struggling to make sense of it.

The performance was so bad that some Republicans watched the high-profile speech with a grimace. A GOP strategist told The Daily Beast that Britt’s delivery quickly became a gossip item Thursday night among operatives connected to Donald Trump—something that could have potential implications for her consideration as a vice presidential pick on the 2024 ticket.

“Everyone’s fucking losing it,” this Republican said, requesting anonymity to discuss private conversations. “It’s one of our biggest disasters ever.”

Several popular social media influencers in the MAGA camp also panned the speech; the account Catturd tweeted Britt was "awful" to his 2.4 million followers.

The setting of the kitchen table—more so the kitchen than the table—for Britt’s speech also left some seasoned Republican strategists confused.

“Senator Katie Britt is a very impressive person. She ran a hell of race in [Alabama],” Alyssa Farah Griffin, a former Trump White House communications adviser and Nikki Haley supporter posted on X. “I do not understand the decision to put her in a KITCHEN for one of the most important speeches she’s ever given.”

Olivia Perez-Cubas, the former spokesperson for Haley’s 2024 presidential bid, also said in a post on X that while Britt “is incredibly impressive, unsure why she felt the need to deliver the SOTU response from a kitchen.”

Tim Miller, the former Jeb Bush aide turned ex-Republican, called the kitchen setting “creepy” and said it made former Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal’s much-maligned response to Barack Obama in 2009 “look like the Finest Hour speech.”

Brendan Buck, a former senior adviser to Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI), also acknowledged that Britt’s “delivery was unfortunate.”

“She was clearly overcoached,” Buck said on MSNBC.

Britt went for a dramatic performance with her State of the Union rebuttal, casting Biden as a failed president and arguing that the GOP was the best option for regular working families.

But the senator's delivery turned out to be so dramatic that it ended up being distracting at best and disingenuous at worst.

Allie Beth Stuckey, a conservative commentator, posted on X Friday morning that Britt had genuine appeal in coming across like "the moms at the school drop off" and praised the kitchen setting.

"But the delivery was parody-level terrible, and I promise that didn’t sway any of those suburban moms we’re trying to reach," Stuckey wrote.

State of the Union responses from rising stars in the opposing party are notorious for generating awkward, unflattering moments that can follow a politician through an otherwise solid career. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) is still remembered for awkwardly taking a sip of water during his response speech over a decade ago.

The GOP strategist who called Britt's performance a disaster likened it to Rubio’s water moment—but they said Britt was actually worse and that she “lowered her stature” in doing it.

A Britt spokesman did not respond to a request for comment.

[shituationist]

The Louisiana Democrats followed a right-tailing strategy straight to irrelevance. 8 years of a moderate conservative Democrat governor has given way to a GOP supermajority in the legislature and a Republican governor-elect. The Louisiana Democrats were more interested in policing their left flank - spending inordinate amounts of party resources to unseat the most progressive member of the Louisiana House, Rep. Landry from New Orleans, through support for a "blue dog" moderate conservative candidate - than they were in listening to their rank-and-file and defeating the GOP.

The result was predictable: 35% turnout statewide. The only candidates that got elected were the ones who enthused their base. Candidates who did not enthuse their base did not see anyone turn out for them. Rep. Landry, of course, defeated her challenger, who was endorsed by the state Democrats' central committee and Gov. John Bel Edwards.

This is all after losing Shreveport in 2021 - a majority Black city where a majority of voters are registered Democrats - to a white Republican mayoral candidate.

The Louisiana Dems spent decades tailing their right-wing opponents, hoping that by doing so they would be able to split off Republican voters from more extreme candidates. This worked in only two cases: when the GOP royally fucked up Louisiana's economy under 8 years of Piyush "Bobby" Jindal, and when the Republicans were divided in 2019 between supporters of Ralph Abraham and "Eddie" Rispone, who spent more time fighting each other than they did JBE. In both cases JBE won by a frog's hair, with turnouts around 50%.

While the "moderate conservative" leadership of the Democrats acted as a barrier to the worst inclinations of the now reactionary GOP, it did give them almost everything they wanted. Abortion was banned in the state in efforts that were led by the Democrats, including JBE. Criminal justice reform efforts were held back from what they could have been, keeping Louisiana's mass incarceration regime in place, and continuing the institutionalized cruelty against prison inmates. Pipelines were built through ecologically sensitive areas, companies continued to pollute the Mississippi river delta, nothing was done for those who live in Cancer Alley, and so on.

It is shameful that after a loss of this magnitude, with a voter turnout so low, that Democratic leadership in Louisiana has simply blamed voters for not turning out, rather than resigning in disgrace like they should have after this catastrophic electoral failure.

[politicalprof]

Whew. No longer does one have to ponder the question, “I wonder who Bobby Jindal endorses for president? I mean, as a power broker of great renown in the Republican Party, it matters! Right?”

[donaldjohntrump]

Former President Trump's Derry, New Hampshire speech is highly anticipated as his support surges in polls and garners endorsements from critics like Bobby Jindal. Expect a focus on the economy, border security, and foreign relations. #TrumpSpeech #2024Election.

[catsnuggler]

Anybody else notice a pattern of conservative Indians (as in people from India) in the West? Rishi Sunak, Bobby Jindal, Ajit Pai, Vivek Ramaswami-? Is it just that these few happened to, by virtue of their politico-economic power, become far more noticed than a silent/silenced majority of left-wing Western Indians, or are the majority right-wing, and they're merely the vanguard? Honestly, they confuse me, given India has only been independent for several decades. I would think a lot more Indians would be left-wing, due to latent anti-imperialism from the struggle against the Raj.

[woonietune]

Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated, for I was only wiping countertops with my left hand and weeping into my collagen supplements, not being dissected by first-years at the medical school

Lots of catching up to do. I haven’t posted in a while. I got sick. I mean, I know I’m always getting sick, but this time I got so sick that I lost a lot of the use of my right hand. I couldn’t pick up one of my fluffy chickens without the owies--and I have a high pain threshold. I thought maybe I was having a stroke--or a bad case of hypochodria but once those things were ruled out, no one knew what it was. It wasn’t Covid. It wasn’t some weird autoimmune thingie (as of yet--I suspected that--but it wouldn’t be that). Maybe my allergies had evolved into some Godzilla version? I couldn’t sweep a broom across the porch. The inflammation was so bad I couldn’t wear my rings, and worst of all, I couldn’t type. 

I couldn’t get an appt with my PCP for three months (because this is the way things are in the USA in a state where Bobby Fuck U Jindal let five private insurers compete for Medicaid clients and basically set into motion the now standard Republican model of Let Disabled People Die Who Needs Them). Anyway, I did see a nurse practitioner who sent me to get x-rays in one hospital and to get bloodwork in another--and the results came back that there was nothing wrong with me. I was reporting pain 8/10 but was told to take Tylenol and that the doctor would see me in three months.

That was back in December? I don’t think I’ve gone ever without writing for 3 months. I paid out of pocket for some acupuncture (never had it before--it was cool beans) and got some relief; I adjusted my diet, already vegetarian to as sanctimonious a vegan, anti-inflammatory diet as I could manage, and I felt a little better. I used Google Voice to chat with fandom friends. Google Voice told of the adventures of Dog Food, the great warrior, and Wound, the former assassin of Cooks Up a Wrong, and I was miserable. I wanted to write. Writing was my only real down time. Without it, my brain was in the wilderness.

During my no-writing period, I had two ear infections, my therapist gave leave, the family got mild Covid infections (during which time my arm felt oddly better), and I knew instinctively I had to rest. I picked up a heavy detergent bottle and got the owies bad the next day, so I let the house go to hell. I spent a lot of time lying in a dusty room I couldn’t clean (this was before the maid from Hell--I’d never hired a maid before in my life, but when I did, whoever hexed me made it so I got one that made already made beds and put the flat sheets under the fitted sheets, didn’t wash the cleaning foam out of the bath-tub, left large swaths of rug unvacuumed, broke several little minatures--I superglued them back but STILL--and left the kitchen floors grimy and put an envelope marked IMPORTANT on the kitchen in a super secret place among a bunch of bookshelves), and I let my mind wander the way it had when I was twelve or so....

Why am I trapped in this consciousness? Why can’t I be in the mind of that person or that other person? Or why can’t assume the presence of a tree or a cloud? Why am I me? And did I choose to be me? And where am I going? 

Agnosticism on any issue was the default, and if I wasn’t writing, it wasn’t only my right hand that was hurting, it was my brain. It hurt from awareness.

The maid from Hell cleared away some of the dust in the house (not much), but mostly she kicked my head out of its dusty sophomoric philosophizing. I was so mad over her bad house-keeping that I got up and started to clean my own house with one hand. I didn’t do a bad job, and my disabled family helped, even if they did turn some white clothes pink in the wash. Nobody died. The house never had a chance to grow black mold. 

When the PCP appt finally rolled around, the doctor examined my arm this way and that and guess what? I had a torn bicep! She recommended physical therapy but there was a waiting list (of course). I went on YouTube to get some practice videos, and there were all these muscle guys who lifted weights there who’d torn their biceps. I don’t know how I’d injured myself, but I’m always doing things I’m not supposed to. I mean, besides picking up 40 lbs dogs. I overestimate my strength and think I’m stretchier and younger than I am. I haven’t done yoga since before the Pandemic, so I must’ve just thought my arm was a squeegee pole or something and strained to clean a cobweb in ceiling corner, who knows.

I was prescribed super antihistamines for my allergies, given meloxicam for pain (lol), and told to rest (lol lol lol). Eventually I could type a little; then I could type a little more; before I knew it I had written more than 100K words in less than a month in a little fandom mini-arc, and my fandom wife was busy whipping my crazy manuscripts into shape because my writing was as out of shape as I was. I’d lost 10 lbs when I’d caught that nasty stomach flu everyone was getting (and I mask and take hazmat-like protocols nearly everywhere because my greatest fear is infecting someone high risk--I’m only moderate-high--and killing that person--I know all kinds of very sick people). My wife was sick too, and I don’t know how she does it, but apparently she can find a backwards quotation mark with a fever 101 and point out a paragraph that needs “more” even if she’s been puking for days and can’t stand up in the shower.

Fandom people are crazy. But we love what we love.

And we love writing for our historically inaccurate historical dramas.

I’ve actually been typing too long already.

This was supposed to be a master post of fics I haven’t uploaded in the past few months.

I’m back in bed, not sick so much this time as overwhelmed by all things overwhelming, and I want to write, but at the same time I want to just lie here and cry.

This world is a terrible place. It’s been blasted with meteors and nuked several times over, and the blood of a million wars have seeped into it, and the Ice Age has come and gone, and here I am, wondering if I’ll get a chance to swim in the ocean again before I die or maybe catch a coffee with a friend or see my dad who can’t fly here because of his bad lungs. Does it matter if I have words? Or are words the greatest illusion of meaningfulness--they’re just blabbity, and they disintegrate into cyberspace just like that stuff--remember paper?--paper used to fall apart when we picked up hundred-year-old books that had gone untouched. 

Actions matter. What we model for our children matters. Decency and kindness, compassion and persistence. Charity and hope, all those things that sound like dull bells until they are live faces with stories in front on your own.

But I don’t get out much anymore. I’m scared of the outside. I don’t march anymore, and my family needs me at home. The animals need me to refresh their water, and the old cat needs me to cut his pills twice a day, and oh, some people need to get over this “don’t enable disabled people.” It’s not enabling a disabled person who has broken legs if you hold his crutches while he sits in a car to go to a doctor’s appointment. You don’t know all the circumstances. Parents of disabled children--well, many of them, research hard and try many things, advocate hard, make phonecalls every day and we thank you for your judgement very much. We live in fear every day that our children will die in the system when we’re gone. 

Some days I feel all I have are my words. These words that are nothing. These words that are my playing around. I was diagnosed with cataracts not long ago. I am afraid of going blind now. But some surgery in a few years, they say--I’ll be fine. I hope so. I may not be fine in other ways. I knew there was something wrong with my eyes. I have optical migraines. My fingers don’t move they way they used to. My brain feels young--younger than ever, maybe twelve, the age I was wondering why I couldn’t share consciousness with a fish in a pond. Later, maybe when the bipolar was kicking in, I felt that I did share consciousness with it. And who will tell me I am wrong? The world’s great religions--not just my own with it’s Sh’ma Yisrael, the World is One, but so many others, speak of the great inter-connectedness of things.

Are the words in the way, or are they little stepping stones? Or are they both?

I don’t like to touch or hug people very much because of childhood traumas. I save my hugs for my dearest ones and my animal companions, but I throw words around freely, like chicken feed. C’mon and get it... or let it settle and rot in the earth, along with the blood and paper and other forgotten things.

My time isn’t over. This blog will last until... there are new technologies. I thought Tik Tokers would be the new talkers, but it doesn’t seem to be the place. Novelists haven’t disappeared; neither have poets. And despite Elon, Disabled Twitter is still going strong. There’s no telling.

So I’ll keep telling. I still have secrets and untold things. And many pockets full of untold stories. More later. The little fictions (oh this last one is 12k... sorry. Whoever reads it gets a cookie. A pretty Korean one from the palace).

[odinsblog]

Katie Britt is the Bobby Jindal of Michelle Bachmanns

[kcyars189]

Nimrata Bobby Jane Jidal Schmidt 🎶

🎶 That name is her name too🎶

🎶 Whenever she goes out 🎶

🎶 Wypipo always shout🎶

🗣️🎶 NIMRATA BOBBY JANE JINDAL SCHMIDT 🎶🗣️

🗣️🎶BAH DAH DAH DAH DAH DAH 🗣️

[ahol888]

Ode to Senator Katie Britt

You have to be impressed with the perseverance of Senator Katie Britt. That rebuttal speech was about a month ago, and she still hasn’t quit. When she was asked to do this speech, then she should have passed on it like Ricky Rubio Because this rebuttal was worse than the ones done by Bobby Jindal and Marco Rubio. For some strange reason, Republicans over the years have not been good at…

[thedimensionsblog]

Global Colorism in the Millennium: An Interview with Ronald E. Hall, Ph.D.

Ronald E. Hall, Ph.D.

Distinguished Scholar and the “Father of Colorism”

Friday, April 19, 2024

4:30-5:30 pm CST

Join Dr. Donnamaria Culbreth, Host of the Dimensions Podcast and distinguished scholar and the “father of colorism” Ronald E. Hall, Ph.D., Professor in the School of Social Work in the College of Social Science at Michigan State University for an interview and discussion on global colorism in the millennium. Topics will include colorism as a global issue, skin bleaching, physical and mental health, colorism in education, the workplace, and society, and the psychological, emotional, physical and social impact of colorism.  

Colorism involves distinctions based on skin color (light, medium or dark) and results in the favorable or unfavorable treatment of individuals based on the lightness or darkness of their skin color and can include other phenotypes. Colorism is complex because it occurs interracially, intraracially, consciously, unconsciously, intentionally and unintentionally.

Biography of Ronald E. Hall, Ph.D.

Before earning his doctorate, Ronald E. Hall enabled his professional career as a clinical social worker in the city of Detroit. His occupational role encompassed the practice of individual and group psychotherapy with schizophrenic and manic-depressive clients. Subsequent to numerous clinical observations, Dr. Hall advocated the notion of colorism, among people of color, as a critical dynamic relative to mental health. Having written his dissertation on colorism, Dr. Hall devised the "Bleaching Syndrome" to theoretically explain this social dynamic among people of color.

Dr. Hall’s colorism research comprises more than 300 (co)-authored publications, interviews, and presentations pertaining to the issue of colorism. Of note are commentaries on Justice Clarence Thomas and President Barack Obama via TIME magazine and Oprah Winfrey via The Color Complex. On January 19, 2015, Dr. Hall was featured in Bill Duke’s “Light Girls” hosted by the OWN. His notable book credits include The Color Complex(revised from 1992), which was published in 2013. In 2003, Dr. Hall won the Mellen Prize for Distinguished Contribution to Scholarship for publication of Skin Color as a Post-Colonial Issue Among Asian-Americans. His most recent book is titled Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Colorism: Beyond Black & White (July 2022). His forthcoming book is titled the Routledge International Handbook on Colorism: Bigotry Beyond Borders.

Dr. Hall has lectured on colorism both domestically and internationally, including by invitation Bates College (Lewiston, ME), Pennsylvania State University (State College, PA), Oxford University (Oxford, UK), U.S. Consulate (Mumbai, India) and return to the University of Faisalabad (Pakistan). As part of his worldwide research on colorism in May of 2015, Dr. Hall traveled to Johannesburg, South Africa to lecture and collect colorism data after which during the previous 14 years, he will have covered colorism per every major racial group on the planet. That includes Europeans, and a Native-American reservation in North Dakota. Among other international speaking events, also include Paramaribo, Suriname, where he was guest speaker for a medical convention convened to address skin color. Dr. Hall also lectured on skin color in India at the Jindal Global University in Delhi and the Tata Institute of Social Sciences in Mumbai. He was then invited after return to the U.S. to speak in Washington D.C. by Congressman Bobby L. Rush on issues pertaining to skin color. In addition to the local, Dr. Hall was the lead presenter at the Global Perspectives on Colorism Conference hosted by the Washington University School of Law in St. Louis, Mo. Continuing his global trek, on November 20, 2021, Dr. Hall lectured by Zoom at the 2nd International Conference on Dermal Sciences: Psychosocial Impact of Colorism at the University of Faisalabad, Faisalabad, Pakistan. Most recently on February 25, 2022, Dr. Hall was requested by the U.S. Consulate General in Mumbai, India to lecture at its conference titled: Is Colorism Only Skin Deep? Lastly, as posted by The Conversation academic website for American university professors. Dr. Hall has attracted over a million readers who follow his work.

Previously, Dr. Hall testified as an expert witness for the nation’s first African-American colorism litigation in Morrow v. IRS, Atlanta Federal District Court (1990). On select occasions since he has served as consultant for attorneys in need of colorism expertise. Two years following Morrow v. IRS he co-authored The Color Complex published in 1992 and revised for re-release in 2013. Subsequently The Color Complex maintains active book sales 30 years later in 2022. Book publications in total by Dr. Hall include 16 titles. Academic papers published by Dr. Hall existent around the world exceed 100 in total. He has designed a yet to be offered class on colorism at MSU and among its approximately 3,000 faculty/staff is ranked second most read on the Conversation website. Dr. Hall is confident about the global existence of colorism having collected both quantitative and qualitative data from humanity at-large.

In 2022, the Colorism Project, Inc. hosted the first virtual conference on colorism in the United States named after Dr. Hall in recognition of his distinguished scholarship in colorism. In addition, the Ronald E. Hall Research Colorism Research Scholarship was created in the same year and will award scholarships to graduate students pursuing colorism research at the second virtual Ronald E. Hall Conference on Colorism in August of 2024.

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

The official speech given in response to the State of the Union is usually a boring, flat, and careful speech where the politician who was suckered into delivering it gives a unifying message about their party’s alternate vision for the United States.

But that’s not what you get when you give former White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders the mic.

Sanders, who was recently sworn in as Arkansas’ Governor, refused to give the normal across-the-aisle platitudes and instead delivered a scathing speech obsessed with the Republican Party’s culture wars that showed the GOP is only becoming more furious in its politics.

She kicked off her speech by calling Biden a liar, before mocking his age and accusing him of surrendering his presidency “to a woke mob that can’t even tell you what a woman is.” “Most Americans simply want to live their lives in freedom and peace, but we are under attack in a left-wing culture war we didn’t start and never wanted to fight,” she continued. “Every day, we are told that we must partake in their rituals, salute their flags, and worship their false idols, all while big government colludes with Big Tech to strip away the most American thing there is—your freedom of speech. That’s not normal. It’s crazy, and it’s wrong.” This, to be clear, isn’t normal, even in the Trump era. Just last year, Iowa Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds gave a totally normal State of the Union response speech where she criticized Biden plenty but didn’t hit the Trump-level invective, and actually laid out a positive policy agenda. South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott did the same in his official Republican response to Biden’s joint address of Congress in 2021.

But as the 2024 presidential race heats up, it’s clear Republicans are leaning even harder into the pugilistic, near-apocalyptic rhetoric and disrespect for normal politeness that Trump proved is beloved by the GOP base.

And this isn't just a one-off. Sanders was handpicked by Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell to deliver the address. And during the State of the Union itself, it’s clear a significant number of Republican lawmakers are in her corner.

Republican House members ignored McCarthy’s request that they behave and keep quiet during the speech and repeatedly booed Biden, leading McCarthy to visibly shush them like a frustrated kindergarten teacher on a field trip. Georgia Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene repeatedly yelled out calling Biden a liar, while many others loudly interrupted to yell he was lying that some Republicans want to sunset Medicare and Social Security (that’s true) and blame him for the border. At one point, when Biden was discussing the tragedy of opiate overdoses from drugs coming over the U.S.-Mexico border, one Republican yelled “it’s your fault.”

And Sanders’ old boss, former President Donald Trump, delivered his own totally normal video response that showed this isn’t an anomaly. “His administration is waging war on free speech, they’re trying to indoctrinate and mutilate our children, he’s leading us to the brink of World War III and on top of that he’s the most corrupt president in American history, and it’s not even close,” Trump claimed about Biden. Giving the response to the State of the Union is a thankless job with little upside and a guarantee that you’ll be mocked if you screw it up. Kentucky Democratic Gov. Steve Beshear’s weird 2017 speech in a local diner was widely mocked online; Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio became late-night fodder for panickedly diving for a water bottle during his dry-mouthed speech in 2013; and Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal’s stilted 2009 speech dealt a blow to his own presidential aspirations.

While Sanders’ speech certainly drew criticism from the left and center, she was met with praise from right-wing pundits, and likely only helped her national profile—and served as a potential audition to potentially be Trump’s running-mate if he wins the GOP nomination. She and her team seemed particularly pleased with one line from the speech, retweeting clips of it numerous times afterwards: "The dividing line in America is no longer between right and left — it's between normal or crazy,” Sanders said. There was plenty of debate about which side was the normal one after her speech.