The 411 Dumpster Fire of the Week: Beto O’Rourke

The 411mania Dumpster Fire of the Week

Hello, everyone, and welcome to The 411 Dumpster Fire of the Week. I’m Bryan Kristopowitz.

Thankfully, the Fox portion of the NASCAR schedule is over and the NBC portion has begun. Since February NASCAR Cup fans have had to endure Darrell Waltrip and his “Boogity Boogity Boogity” nonsense, not to mention Larry MAC Reynolds saying “hisself” at least once per race, but now that shit is over. Granted, 2019 was the last year anyone will have to hear DW and his pseudo hayseed bullshit as he has retired from broadcasting (Fox Sports, as far as I know, hasn’t announced who will be replacing Waltrip in the booth for 2020. I’m pulling for Andy Petree, the former crew chief who did a terrific job back when ESPN had NASCAR. Petree never said hisself), but still, when it’s over and coverage shifts to another network it’s always like the start of a new season. Yes, Kyle Petty is a part of the NBC Sports NASCAR crew and is terrible, but he’s there for pre-race shows and post-race shows and crap like that. He isn’t doing color commentary every week.

So far in 2019, Joe Gibbs Racing and Team Penske have dominated the Cup series, winning 15 of 16 races so far (I’m writing this in the middle of the rain delay at Chicagoland Speedway, race 17 on the schedule), with Gibbs winning ten races and Penske five. Hendrick is the only other team to get a win, Chase Elliott winning at Talladega. What the heck is going on with Stewart-Haas? That team hasn’t been close to winning anything all season. Is the new rules package, which is all anyone seems to talk about, really the thing keeping Stewart-Haas from winning?

Kyle Busch, a Gibbs driver, is once again the driver to beat for the season. He’s won four races so far and always seems to be in the mix at the end regardless of the type of track. Will he be able to keep that pace up through the “Regular” season and into the Chase portion of the season? Will his Gibbs teammate Martin Truex, Jr., who has also won four times this season, be just as good as Busch? Last year’s champion, Team Penske’s Joey Logano, has won twice, while his teammate Brad Keselowski has won three times. Will Ryan Blaney, the third Team Penske car, get on the winner’s list soon?

And what other team will start to break out? Will Roush Fenway Racing and Ryan Newman win a few? Will Kyle Larson or Kurt Busch winy anything for Chip Ganassi’s team? I don’t know. I’d imagine some other team will come to life and join the winners, but who knows? I know I’ll be watching as often as I can.

I’m just glad I won’t have to listen to any of that fake southern fried crap from the team at Fox. I don’t know how Mike Joy has managed to put up with it for so long.

And now onto this week’s Dumpster Fire of the Week.

This week, the 411 Dumpster Fire of the Week goes to former Democratic Congressperson, failed 2018 U.S Senate candidate, and, likely, soon to be failed 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke, for his disastrous performance in the recent NBC News debate for 2020 Democratic Presidential hopefuls. O’Rourke, who was considered one of the “top tier” Democratic candidates going into the two night debate show, the first for the 2020 Democratic candidates, appeared as part of the first group of ten candidates, alongside fellow “front runners” Senator Corey Booker, Senator Elizabeth Warren, and former Secretary Julian Castro, and was expected to go after not only Republican President Trump, but also former Vice-President Joe Biden and some of his fellow front runners. Various pundits said that O’Rourke needed to differentiate himself from the pack and show potential Democratic voters that he is the Democratic candidate to win back the White House in 2020. If he could almost win a Senate seat from “deeply red” Texas, perhaps he has the necessary skills to somehow get independents and “squishy” Republicans to vote for him and beat Trump. Plus, O’Rourke is young, and politics these days is all about finding a way to get young people interested in voting. O’Rourke needed to have a big night.

And O’Rourke did have a big night, but for all the wrong reasons. O’Rourke’s performance was a complete fucking disaster. O’Rourke spent the entire night as though he was just about to barf his guts out and was trying his hardest to hold back that barf as he answered questions from the debate moderators. And when he wasn’t doing that, he seemed distracted and just not with it. And then there was that moment where, right in the middle of answering a question in English, he started speaking in Spanish for no discernible reason. It was likely meant to be a moment where O’Rourke showed Hispanic voters that he could speak Spanish and, I guess, understood their issues. Instead, his “moment of Spanish” was just super awkward and made the audience go “What the fuck was that?”

I mean, that’s what I said when it happened. Forget the whole pandering thing, which is what it was, but think about it as simply a moment in the debate. Why would anyone do that? Why would anyone, even if it was a question that dealt with “Hispanic issues,” start answering a question in English and then, right in the middle, start speaking Spanish? If you’re going to do the “speaking Spanish” thing, why not just answer the whole question in Spanish? Wouldn’t that have been more impressive/made more sense/still looked like pandering but at least wasn’t mega awkward?

Yes, Cory Booker also did the “speaking Spanish” thing and was horrendous at it, but perhaps Booker did it to draw attention away from his apparent inability to blink (Ohio Congressperson Tim Ryan also had that “perpetually wired” look all night and seemed to have trouble blinking). I doubt O’Rourke’s “speaking Spanish” moment was all about holding back the barf. How would that even work?

So now O’Rourke is in serious trouble. He’s probably still considered a part of the “upper tier” of candidates, but he must have been knocked down a peg after this past Wednesday. Will he still be considered a big deal/top tier candidate come the end of July, when CNN hosts a two night debate show? I doubt it. O’Rourke probably isn’t done yet, but he’s closer than ever to it. If he has another disastrous showing, he will be fighting for air time alongside Marianne Williamson and poor John Hickenlooper (did that guy age like fifteen years from the start of night two to the end?).

You knew someone was probably going to go down at the end of the first debate show. I don’t think anyone thought it was going to be O’Rourke. Who will be the next Democratic candidate to crash and burn?

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And now for this week’s honorable mentions…

– Dumpster Fire Hall of Famer, 2018 Dumpster Fire of the Year, and (Jesus Christ) 45th President of the United States Donald Trump, for his performance during the G-20 summit in Japan. I don’t think anyone can be that surprised that, once again, President Trump embarrassed himself and his country in front of the entire world, but it really is getting boring. Can the President engage in one summit meeting, one state visit, one anything where the biggest story coming out of it is the U.S. President attended the event and didn’t cause a distraction? I’d like to see happen just once. It probably won’t, but I can hope for it. Jesus Christ.

-NBC News Political Director and Meet the Press host Chuck Todd, for being a terrible moderator both nights of the recent 2020 Democratic debate show. Just go ahead and rewatch his performance both nights and ask yourself, like I did, how the fuck is this guy still the Political Director of NBC News? It makes no sense. He’s absolutely horrible at this kind of thing. NBC should have just stuck with Lester Holt, Savanah Guthrie, and Jose Diaz-Balart for the entire two hour block. They actually asked good questions. And while I thought Rachel Maddow did okay, I’d much rather see her do the post-debate show as opposed to Chis Mathews, who, just like Todd, is terrible at his job.

-“Businessperson” and ultra-right wing celebrity Donald Trump, Jr., for his recent racist retweet regarding Kamala Harris. People make mistakes on social media all of the time, sure, but when you’re the son of the President of the United States, you should probably do a better job of making sure what you put out there into the social media world isn’t racist bullshit. Maybe Junior will figure this out for the future?

And why is Donald Trump, Jr. even in the political discussion at all? Shouldn’t he be running the family company? I thought that was what he was going to do when his father became President. Did something change that I’m unaware of?

-Fox News personality and professional ultra-right wing weasel Tucker Carlson, for his recent claim that the Democrats could make speaking English in America illegal. It’s bullshit, of course, but Carlson is in the business of bullshit, so I guess we shouldn’t be all that surprised. Why do people listen to this guy?

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