Image created by the author’s father.
In a recent Amazon Kindle Singles interview, President Obama blamed Kim Kardashian and Kanye West for the death of the American dream. “[In the past] kids weren’t monitoring every day what Kim Kardashian was wearing or where Kanye West was going on vacation and thinking that somehow that was the mark of success,” he said.
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You don’t need to be an underemployed college graduate to know this comment is ludicrous—Kimye has nothing to do with America’s massive inequality. Kanye West grew up with a single mother in urban Chicago, toiled at the mall for years while tirelessly writing beats, and eventually became a superstar, creating some of the decades most loved and iconic albums in the process. And like me, Kim is the descendent of survivors of the Armenian genocide. If you haven’t heard about this genocide, it’s because Obama and past presidents have refused to acknowledge this horror story, because they worry they might damage diplomatic ties with Turkey. Basically, in 1915 the Ottoman government took it upon themselves to exterminate the Armenian ethnic minority that made its home in modern-day Turkey; over a million Armenians were killed, and Hitler went on to use the genocide as a model and inspiration for the Holocaust.
Obama says Kim’s booty clapped the American dream into submission, but Kim is a targeted ethnic group’s descendent who went on to capitalize on what God gave her (namely, her big butt), make a name for herself, and start her own family with a rich rapper who also has humble roots. Call me crazy, but that sounds like the American dream to me.
And besides that, Kim and Kanye are pop culture icons who have nothing to do with the fact that that I am one of many over-educated college graduates saddled with student debt wondering when I’ll be able to move out of my childhood bedroom. To solve the game of Clue that is “Who ruined America?,” Obama should probably look past the relatively harmless world of reality-television materialism and examine his administration and the leaders that have come before him. You know, dream-crushers like these motherfuckers:
Image via Wiki Commons.
THE SUPREME COURT
These conservative farts reversed the Voting Rights Act, because they believe you can use The Secret to wish away racism. But it’s hard to live the American dream when you can’t vote, and countless backwards states have trampled to pass restrictive voting laws with the enthusiasm of Black Friday shoppers stampeding for a flat screen TV. Oh. Also, I don’t know if you’ve heard, but it’s pretty much legal to kill black teens in Florida now.
Image by Flickr user DonkeyHotey.
THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION
I don’t need to tell you how much George W. Bush sucked. Just go look at the pins on your old middle school backpack.
Image via Wiki Commons.
THE NRA
Part of living the American dream means feeling safe, and yet I can probably find more people on the internet willing to defend George Zimmerman than Kris Jenner’s new talk show. For instance, the NRA treasures their right to shoot at shit more than human life. Even worse than these weird man-babies is the terrified congress that supports them against the wishes of 86 percent of the public. My uncle is a former felon who rides a Harley and owns a shitload of handguns and a petting zoo of rottweilers, and even he thinks that automatic weapons are stupid and unnecessary. His motto is “If you can’t kill it with six bullets, you have bigger problems on your hands.”
Screenshot of the Animaniacs theme song.
BILL CLINTON
Even Bill Clinton, the saxophonist for the Animaniacs, fucked with the possibility of obtaining the American dream. Yeah, Billy Boy presided over an era of serenity and economic prosperity—one that is referenced over and over again when we discuss how fucked the state of our country is—but he also passed the Defense of Marriage Act (screwing the homosexuals who voted for him up the ass) and reversed the Glass-Stegall legislation passed during the Great Depression, which regulated commercial banks to prevent another Great Depression. “The Glass–Steagall law is no longer appropriate,” he said, staring suggestively at a cigar. And ten years later the American economy deflated like Anna Nicole’s first boob job. If you want to believe that Kim buying a house full of gold toilets contributes to American decay, you have to admit that Clinton was a pretty strong dream killer.
Image via Wiki Commons.
BABY BOOMERS
These are the baby boomers. They wear organic deodorant and bloviate about “free love” and other virtues they learned at the dirt-orgy known as Woodstock 1969. Later, they used these values to elect an anti-semitic peanut farmer named Jimmy Carter, the alien uber-lord Ronald Regan, and the entire Bush Dynasty. Oblivious to sub-prime mortgage rates, the boomers also bought condo after condo till they sank the economy like a Carnival cruise ship. Despite all this, they call unemployed college grads lazy, as if they didn’t create the economy that has forced kids with law degrees to live with their mothers. And if you ask the boomers about the impending social security crisis created by their rapidly aging demographic, they will deflect with a complaint about how nobody makes eye contact on the subway anymore. The worst part is the boomers make these points via bulleted chain emails.
Image via Wiki Commons.
OBAMA
Barack Obama is not about to collect social security, but he’s just as responsible for America’s decline as the fat cats that came before him. He loves over-reaching national security laws so much, Michelle makes bitchy jokes about PRISM whenever she gets too tipsy at parties. Thanks to Obama, even the most hardworking and upstanding citizens can be spied on for ordering a pressure cooker online. And if you don’t think your information is being looked at, you’re wrong.
Start using the NSA’s three-hops rule and you’ll shock yourself. I have two three-hop connections to the Boston Bombers, a two-hop connection to Timothy McVeigh, and a three-hop connection to Whitey Bulger. Just admitting that on the internet means a snickering office of NSA nerds have legal justification to comb through my break-up texts. And I’m very, very boring. I have a great books degree and live tweet episodes of Princesses Long Island. That’s about it.
But in Obama’s mind, watching Princesses Long Island is a problem. Going after Kimye isn’t the first time Obama has criticized reality television to make a point—Obama loves to use popular culture as a tool to explain America. And by using the Kardashians as a symbol, he admits that Americans know and understand the first family of reality television. Obama uses pop culture to his advantage by making a big show of being “just like us,” upping his credibility factor through Star Wars jokes and a friendship with Jay-Z. What makes Hov cool and his BFF and collaborator Kanye a “jackass” who knocked up the woman who murdered the American dream? Both men perpetuate materialism in their rhymes, but at least Kanye’s lyrics question our cultural obsession with chains and croissants. Obama’s reasoning is unclear. Maybe he needs to stay in his own wheelhouse and point the blame at the powerful people who actually exert control rather than taking cheap shots at the lowest common denominator.
Previously – The Monarch Mind Control Mystique
