Taylor Swift, The West Wing, James Taylor: Politics is So Hip These Days I Can Barely Stand It
People like to say we're in a Golden Age of TV, but I think we're also in a Golden Age of Political Pop Culture References. Politics is just so hip these days.
Did you see that John Boehner's office sent out an email blast using Taylor Swift GIFs to argue against President Obama's free community college plan? The point is that "free college" isn't really free. Pretty clever…
Or, as GIF number five says, "Still, 60 billion dollars is a lot of money…you can't just shake it off." (That's another subtle Taylor Swift reference, for the fans.)
This guy is the Speaker of the House of Representatives of the United States Congress, and he's referencing Taylor Swift! The kids must love it!
It's not just Republicans who've upped their pop-culture reference game.
The White House released a video today featuring the cast of The West Wing to promote the second annual Big Block of Cheese Day. It's even got Martin Sheen, who played the President!
The video also contains multiple puns using the word Feta, which is a kind of cheese.
The White House blog post on the event says "we thought it'd be a gouda idea to brie-unite a certain cast of characters [hint! hint!] to help us bring back a tradition that dates back to the days of President Andrew Jackson." (Gouda and brie are also kinds of cheese.)
I love puns!
Okay, The West Wing isn't quite the pop charts. But honestly, who doesn't appreciate The West Wing? I know it's just a TV show, but that's what politics should really be like.
The West Wing is still pretty cool, at least here in Washington.
But it's even gone beyond Washington.
You can't forget John Kerry's heartwarming message to the French: "You've Got a Friend," performed by none other than James Taylor, who actually went to France. I have to say, it was very emotional.
I just can't get over it. It's easy to think politics is stuffy and stale and out of touch and lame and clueless, but then I look at all of this and think, these days it's actually pretty hip.
