Though many view Trump’s potential election as POTUS as nothing short of the apocalypse, at least he’s not a complete nutjob.
It is an undeniable fact that the truth is often very disappointing and unpleasant. That being said, we’ve had a few days to think about how Donald Trump won a decisive victory in New Hampshire, beating his closest rival by nearly 20 percent. The chance of a Trump presidency has only inched upwards ever so slightly, but even if Trump did actually become the 45th President of the United States, he wouldn’t be the first nut to ever win a role in government.
Meet Rep. Ted Yoho, a Republican Minnesotan who is a vocal critic of all things Obama. As a part of the Tea Party, it’s no surprise that Yoho is a vociferous deterrent of the Affordable Care Act, especially the extra tax on tanning beds. Despite the fact that tanning beds have the potential to cause extremely dangerous skin cancers and the tax’s purpose is to discourage consumers from using tanning beds, Yoho has publicly stated that the tanning tax is a racist tax against pale Americans. Yoho claims that the darker-skinned people don’t have a need for tanning beds and that he feels disenfranchised. Mr. Yoho, we are all very glad you are focusing on the most important issues in America.
If you thought that America was the only place in the world where strange politicians with questionable ideas or personality traits existed, then you clearly haven’t met Mark Latham of Australia.
Although the former Federal Parliamentary Australian Labor Party leader was often viewed as a politician with great potential, some of his actions and statements were rather questionable. During his tenure, he called one of his liberal opponents who suffered from a handicap “deformed” and called a female journalist a “skanky ho.” He resigned after a bit more than a year of leadership due to life-threatening issues and family matters. Little did anyone know, Latham had yet to unleash his inner monster.
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When Ross Schultz of The Daily Telegraph attempted to take a picture of Latham with his sons at a fast food joint, Latham rushed the photographer and snatched Schultz’s camera away. Despite Schultz’s protestations that he was only taking pictures of Latham and not his sons, Latham called Schultz a pedophile, punched him and took the camera home to destroy. When the camera was returned at a police station, it had been smashed repeatedly into an unrecognizable mess.
Though Latham smashed the camera into hundreds of bits, the memory card containing the pictures was unscathed, and they were published the day after the incident. The Daily Telegraph went on to seek $12,000 for the destruction of Schultz’s camera.
Australia’s former colonizer Great Britain also is not lacking in questionable politicians. One of them was Jeremy Thorpe, the leader of the Liberal Party. In the late 1970s, scandal erupted when it was discovered that Thorpe had hired a hitman to kill Norman Scott, a young man with whom Thorpe had been in a sexual relationship in the early 1960s. When the hitman arrived at Scott’s house, he shot Scott’s dog before pulling the gun on Scott. Fortunately for Scott, the gun jammed, causing the hitman to panic and run off.
This strange twisted narrative ended with Thorpe’s career in ruins. Although a criminal prosecution was held, Thorpe and the hitmen were ultimately not convicted of the attempted murder. Thorpe faded from the public consciousness as his political career collapsed.
In the case that Trump was elected president, it would be foolish to say that he was the first questionable politician elected to office. As we can see, we've had at least three wackos in the past 50 years.
Richard Hwang is a student at Athens High School. What do you know about these politicians? Email him at rhwang999@gmail.com.
