Beto O’Rourke

Beto O’Rourke, the Irish playboy who tried passing himself off as a Mexican in his run against Ted Cruz in 2018, has declared for President. The boomers in the Progressive commentariat are rushing to their fainting couches, as they are sure he is the Hispanic-ish John F. Kennedy or Robert F. Kennedy, depending upon which end of the 60’s they remember best. Watching a geriatric old fool like Chris Mathews fawn over O’Rourke is a reminder why the Germans gave the world the word fremdschämen.

It’s a good reminder that the Left is more burdened with yesterday men than right-side of the political divide. Even the cuckiest conservative is not comparing a guy like Ben Sasse to Reagan, Goldwater or Eisenhower. Progressive boomers still have a bust of JFK in their house and talk about where they were when he was shot. They are a walking, talking museum displays of a bygone era. That’s why they are gushing over O’Rourke. He’s the last white man of any standing in the Democrat Party.

The funny thing is though, the comparison between O’Rourke and the Kennedy brothers is useful in understanding the current age. John F. Kennedy was, despite lots of revisionism, a man’s man who lived a full live. He served in the war, liked adventure, enjoyed a drink under extreme social pressure and liked women. He was like an Irish version of Theodore Roosevelt. RFK never saw action, but he served and like his brother, he was a man who lived to the fullest. Whatever you may think of their politics or ethics, they were men.

Beto O’Rourke, in contrast, is a bum. His family never had Kennedy money, but they were well-enough-off to send him to a boarding school in Virginia. According to his bio, he was a slacker with a taste for murder porn. He headed off to Columbia to major in English, as that required the least amount of effort. After college, he remained a bum, drinking and working as a live-in caretaker and art mover. Then he got a job working for an ISP, after which is family apparently set him up in his own business in Texas.

That’s hardly a heroic back story. His father was deep into Texas politics, so he got him into the business. His first office was a spot on the El Paso City Council then after a few years he upgraded to the US House of Representatives. Like most of this generation’s political class, Beto O’Rourke ran for office because he was unqualified to do anything useful in the private sector. Rather than go on welfare or resort to a life of crime, he rents himself out as a spokesmodel for whatever political interests will hire him.

The difference between art and ornamentation is that art seeks to imitate life, while ornamentation seeks to decorate life. The great artist works to capture the spirit of his age or if he is really ambitious, the spirit of God. It’s an effort to reach for that which is unattainable, representing the same yearning in the culture of the artist. The guy making pretty pictures, on the other hand, is not trying to capture anything. His sole purpose, his reason to exist, is to make something someone thinks will look cool in the den.

That same comparison works for Kennedy and his brother’s doppelganger, Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke. Again, whatever you may think of their politics, the Kennedy brothers had a reason to reach for the top. They were young men in a young culture, seeking the absolute limit of itself. They were the expression of a triumphant and confident America, breathing in life as it stood atop the world it had just conquered. The Kennedy brothers represented that culture. They were Faustian men.

O’Rourke, in contrast, represents a dying culture of old men, whose best days are long in the past, but still trying to maintain appearances. Unlike those young men from the young culture trying to live life to the fullest, Beto has always been an old man, just trying to avoid doing anything that requires risk or effort. If the Kennedy boys were the marble statue of the idealized man of their age, Beto is the decorative codpiece that a feminist uses in her installation art, which will be thrown away when the exhibit closes.

This decorative quality probably explains the soy face so common with the Gen-X politician on both sides of the political class. The old guys can still work up a good snarl or even a confident smile on occasion. Guys like Beto O’Rourke and Ben Sasse always look like they just got wind of a bad smell. They have the look, because for them, life is never going to be a great adventure full of risk taking. Instead, their lives are an inconvenience, something they just tolerate, because they lack the courage to swallow their gun.

That said, Beto is the last white man of the Left. The Democratic field is women and non-whites. If Biden runs he’ll be the second white man in the field, a nice bookend to O’Rourke. On the one end you have an old man inspired into politics by a culture that was full of life. At the other end, you have a man who got into politics because he needed work and his dad had some connections. One is a vague memory of the confident young man with swagger, while the other, the younger one, is the old man in the winter of his life.

75 thoughts on “Beto O’Rourke

  1. What’s this guy’s name again? Beat-off? Beat-off is everything I hate about my own generation, which came of age in first term Clinton. I always found Beat-off to be trying to imitate that Bill Clinton ’92 energy. The hand gestures, the jeans with the business casual shirt, the cocaine, likely mostly crushed Adderall….etc. In many ways he’s a sell out to Gen X. He’s aping a boomer who was aping JFK. He’s like a copy of a copy, fuzzier, unclear, just sort of a figurative version of an impressionist version of the JFK era politician. The murder porn is a… Read more »

  2. He’s also a traitor, a collaborator with invaders. He knows that his party uses his white face as a cover for country-destroying immigration. And he’s willing to do that.

    His last campaign was run by Latinos, and got caught on camera illegally using campaign funds to help people illegally enter the country. And probably vote, as well.

    (That’s from the O’Keefe sting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJCG_JckSF8)

    Not to mention crudely pretending to be the race of the invaders.

    Think about how a real country would deal with someone like that.

  3. This reminds me of the contrast between Justin Trudeau and his father. Pierre Trudeau had terrible politics and helped turn Canada into what it has become. That said, he was a chad. He was grudgingly admired for his panache, balls and intelligence even by the people who hated him. His son Justin is a trust fund baby who was a ski instructor and part time drama teacher. He has none of his fathers personal charisma, wit or talent.

  4. Chilling in its accuracy, An epitaph and a warning, given the fact that this fool (O’Beto) might actually end up in some high office.Some truly great lines in this article, for ex: “..Beto is the decorative codpiece that a feminist uses in her installation art, which will be thrown away when the exhibit closes.” Sputtered in my coffee at that one.

  5. He’s the classic soyboy betacuck. Some of my female friends from high school and college (I’m a Gen Xer) in Texas that are of the leftist persuasion went all in for Beto during his race against Cruz for Senate. It was sickening. I wanted to tell them that he, like so many politicians today, was a former criminal and a layabout who never had to work a day in his life and is working hard with his open borders buddies to ensure that this nation implodes socially and economically under the weight of the invasion of foreigners. They deny his… Read more »

  6. He also said about being president that he was born to do this. Yeah, he really did.

    A democrat he could be more accurately compared to would be John Kerry, and a few other political gigalos. Marrying into money to finance his political ambitions. Come to think of it, the late great John McCain did that.

    Are we to be spared nothing?

  7. He’s the classic soyboy betacuck. Some of my female friends from high school and college (I’m a Gen Xer) in Texas that are of the leftist persuasion went all in for Beto during his race against Cruz for Senate. It was sickening. I wanted to tell them that he, like so many politicians today, was a former criminal and a layabout who never had to work a day in his life and is working hard with his open borders buddies to ensure that this nation implodes socially and economically under the weight of the invasion of foreigners. I knew it’d… Read more »

    • In spite of his personal failings, we have a normal looking white guy with a normal looking white family deciding his path forward is to pretend he’s a wetback?

      There’s more than opportunism at work here.

  8. Z-man, you’ve struck a bittersweet poetic note with that last paragraph. It would make a suitable elegy for a once-great nation.

  9. All points on Beto are accurate … the one point that hasn’t yet been made is that the guy is completely inarticulate. Listen to this rascal – He’s an absolute bumbling, stuttering, thoughtless imbecile. And apparently he’s considered attractive to the gals, which is boggling to the mind when you couple his idiocy with skinny jeans and hollow chest. You can look at the guy and just KNOW he’s never had a callous on his delicate, dainty hands. I’m no Kennedy fan, but if I were I’d consider an obscenity to mention JFK & Beat-Off in the same sentence.

  10. A pale shadow of John Kerry.

    I think one interesting aspect of the politics of the next generation is going to be the lack of military background worship. Nobody’s going to give a crap about whether someone served in Desert Storm or Afghanistan. It’s going to be a bit like the later years of the nineteenth century in that regard.

    • I’m not so sure that people won’t care about military service.
      The Dems recently chose two ex-military to run for Congress …
      Mikie Sherrill is an ex Navy helicopter pilot;
      Max Rose served as a platoon leader in Afghanistan.
      She represents New Jersey, he represents Brooklyn and Staten Island.
      Obviously the Dem party handlers “give a crap about military service”, as they see it still has some appeal to the mass of voters, even here in the very Liberal NYC region. It was a very savvy, perhaps cynical, ploy by the Dem Party.

    • “I think one interesting aspect of the politics of the next generation is going to be the lack of military background worship.”

      Thant would be a great step forward.

      The willingness to kill strangers for the political filth should be a disqualification for everything but jail.

    • Hmm. Thinking over your comment and that of Capt S., Beto does not appear inarticulate; quite the contrary, he seems downright eloquent in his choice of words, even if his delivery is a little flat of voice and spastic of gesture. He oozes reassurance, empathy, respectfulness, sweet reasonableness and I’m Okay, You’re Okay therapeutics. So yes, that aspect is probably generally appealing to women. It even tugs at my hardened heartstrings. Can’t we all just get along? On the other hand, his beta persona cannot be denied. See him at work here: https://youtu.be/SGWmh-maevk. The questioner is most likely a plant,… Read more »

      • The campaign announcement video with his wife made me laugh. While he went through all of his histrionics, she sat there like the cat that ate the canary. The message I got from her was, “He’s mine, ladies, and a billion dollars of family money will keep him here, so watch this and weep”.

        • Chateau Heartiste awarded the Shiv of the Week to one of his commenters who said, “The reason Beto is popular with middle aged women, is because he is a guy that looks like someone who will take care of another man’s children.”

  11. Excellent critique of the life and times of yet another plastic politician.

    But is it just Da Booby, or could one have almost as easily removed the name “Beto O’Rourke” from this piece and replaced it with “George W. Bush” and the article would have still read just as accurately?

  12. It really is an embarrassment for our entire nation that we have to take the likes of Beto and AOC seriously. Back when there really was late night comedy, these two would be orgasmic gifts for the writers.

  13. JFK would be shunned today much like President Trump. Growing up as a kid every house had JFK’s picture along with the Pope and/or Bobby Orr 🙂

    Real men will never attain the White House because real men have been outlawed.

  14. One of things that has fascinated me about recent Presidents is how small and insignificant they are and how incredibly undistinguished their lives have been. “Beto” is the epitome of the modern political class of empty suits. At least Mitt Romney pretended to be a corporate raider for a while, Beta hasn’t done anything in his life to qualify for a job more important than greeter at Wal-Mart.

  15. You’re not counting (((Sanders))) as a white guy Dem because (a) he’s a Socialist not a Dem, or (b) he’s not white?

    • The Jews don’t consider themselves white. But their own ‘special’ mix of their own race and their own religion.

      Plus you are right. He’s not a Democrat. He switches parties at a whim to serve his purpose of the moment.

      • Jews are quantum crackers, both white and non-white in superposition until the intersectional wave function is collapsed.

  16. Beware Hickenlooper (another white guy) out of Colorado. He’s competent, cunning, and ruthless (the anti-Beto). As for Beto himself, do not look at him as a potential President. See him as an archetype of the leadership of the Left. Would you follow him into battle? Would you fear him and his army standing against you on the opposite side of the battlefield? Men like him can’t engage in a fistfight, but will use goons in their stead. The sooner it gets real, the sooner these morons disappear.

    • Quite right. Lickenpooper has done a lot of damage in Colorado, smiling all the way. He might just manage to slime his way thru the primaries while the others eat each other.

  17. Good god, I don’t think we want him anywhere near public office, after reading the murderbpost. you know, I was thinking, the way all these Democratic politicians try to align themselves with people of color by claiming some identity like Elizabeth Warren with the Indians and now Beto with hispanics reminds me of this elite urban high school I went to where the kids who had vaguely Spanish sounding names would put themselves for the national hispanic scholar on the national merit exam (psat) when they were obviously high European in appearance and social class. The democrats are only now… Read more »

  18. “That said, Beto is the last white man of the Left. The Democratic field is women and non-whites.”
    ——————————————–

    Correct. And for that reason – that wretched collection of muds and angry vaginas in the Democrat party will tear him to shreds for us. Rest assured, Mathews will be called into an office soon and be corrected by his superiors soon. The future of the democrat party is definitely female.

  19. The dems would nominate Bonzo the chimp if they believed it would be president. The dems are all about power, that’s all they care about. Beto’s knowledge, background, experience are irrelevant; if he can win, he will be supported by the demokrat/communist party. It makes no difference at all that he is a clueless parasitic bum living off his wife’s family’s millions. The ONLY reason the dems are somewhat hesitant about the communist parasite, Bernie-3 homes -$75,000 Mustang -Sanders , is they fear he is un-electable. If they thought he would win, they would be tossing a billion $$ at… Read more »

  20. The soyaginous beta O’Rourke!
    Just as solid and sure as a quark.
    Of the turncoat persuasion
    That promotes immivasion —
    He’s a Mork who pretends to be Orc.

  21. Beto is a narcissist megalomaniac.

    He is deceitful, tyrannical, ruthless, and immoral.

    In short, BETO is the perfect presidential candidate for the DemonicRat Party !!

  22. “The difference between art and …. ” – very nice line! … very fine last 3 sentences as well – tho, overly kind, for sure, to Biden and to the culture of the 1970s, as well

  23. It doubt anyone listen’s to the Ricochet Flagship podcast but Peter Robinson and Rob long opine that he is a formidable candidate. I don’t see it. He is so obviously shallow and I’m sorry but running a good race against Ted Cruz, not the most likeable politician, does not impress me. I can just see Trump nicknaming him Beta

  24. Z; What you say about the contrast between Beto’s and JFK’s manly affect is true. But JFK was in number of ways just as much of a manufactured candidate as Beto (McCain too). Connections and fawning publicity overcame youthful misconduct. JFK’s dad was a macher in FDR New Deal World. He got his boy what should have been a safe spot in DC as an officer in Naval Intelligence. But JFK got himself sent to the S Pacific by thinking with his little head. He actively pursued and got busy with a likely German female agent. Incredibly poor judgement for… Read more »

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