After the second presidential debate, it seemed as though the attention that the media typically shifts towards a certain tiny-handed candidate instead found another face to focus on. A man named Ken Bone was crowned the unexpected winner of the debate, and has since become the Internet’s new favorite meme. His benevolent appearance had people everywhere falling in love with him in mere seconds. The fact that we have chosen a person we know absolutely nothing about to bear the title of American hero speaks volumes about the public’s desperate attempts at escaping its own election. This can only tell of a grim future for the political culture of this nation.

The American people’s desperation for a public figure to represent them in a positive light for once is understandable; the 2016 election has evolved into a never ending nightmare that is legitimately frightening other countries. Bone’s unfortunate past, however, has come back to drag both him and the public’s sensibilities to the grave. Using an alias on Reddit, Bone has admitted to committing felony insurance fraud, ogling naked pictures of actor Jennifer Lawrence and believing that Trayvon Martin’s death was justified. As if America could not have further humiliated itself this year, what with an insane candidate running rampant and needing to refute numerous claims of sexual harassment, it now must attempt to explain its perplexing obsession with yet another misogynist.

This election has become so pathetically jumbled that, with absolutely no background knowledge in regards to his history, a random white guy in a red sweater was declared an American hero. Looking back on it, Bone’s quick rise to fame and the rather awkward obsession with him that literally grew overnight was, sadly enough, almost formulaic. Americans see a funny, lighthearted man, give him power through spoken and typed words, only to see this man destroy the very foundation upon which the adoration was based. U.S. politics, aided by every ridiculous claim made by this year’s Republican candidate, only seems to keep sinking further and further into a pit of despair.

Ken Bone, like the U.S., slowly developed into one colossal internet joke with endless amounts of ugly history and, oddly enough, no punch line. It’s become difficult to take politics seriously when even the likes of Bone have turned into a distasteful and humorless gag. To allow for a man so immature and offensive to rise to power so quickly should not reflect the current status of this country’s fragile state, but has unfortunately become an eerily familiar pattern in both the U.S. and the cruel world of 21st century media.

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Email Melanie Pineda at [email protected].