If the last eleven years of Trump Blight have taught us anything, it’s that former reality TV stars shouldn’t hold important government jobs. And they really shouldn’t star in new ones while they’re still in office.
And yet, here we are with too many unqualified, uneducated, and unpatriotic MAGA propaganda merchants in power and still on camera. Aside from Wrestling Lady Linda “Piledriver” McMahon and Fox News talking head Pete Hegseth, Trump’s revolving Cabinet door has welcomed and spit out the likes of Omarosa Manigault, Judge Jeanine Pirro, and Dr. Mehmet Oz, who really should’ve lost his medical license by now.
It’s the worst reality show ever, but the worst cast member of them all just might be egregiously underqualified Transportation Secretary Sean “Road Rash” Duffy, whose only qualification for the job is a license to drive an RV. He first appeared on the Boston season of MTV’s “The Real World,” then moved on to the premiere season of “Road Rules,” where he met his now-wife, Fox News talking head Rachel “Grand Canyon” Duffy, who was on the San Francisco season of “The Real World.”
GenX remembers how Rachel treated her roommate, AIDS activist Pedro Zamora, coming across as super fake while (ew) making out with Puck. Rachel eventually claimed to understand and support Pedro, despite her staunch conservative Republican views. But we all watched her turn into just another MAGA Mean Girl spewing hate at the LGBTQ+ community, all while claiming to be a “devout Catholic.” Her hypocrisy is visible on both Fox News and her Twitter account, where I’m still not blocked no matter how hard I try.
The Duffys now have nine children, with one of them old enough (sort of) to be married to a guy running for her dad’s old seat. Sean Duffy was elected to Congress in Wisconsin in 2011 and managed to keep the seat until 2019, consistently voting with the most extreme conservatives in the Republican Party. That’s the seat their son-in-law, Michael Alfonso, 26, is gunning for after winning his primary election. I’m sure it’s just a weird coincidence.
Anyway, Sean Duffy inherited a nearly spotless record from his predecessor, Pete Buttigieg, and proceeded to light it on fire, both figuratively and literally. Since his appointment, there have been roughly 60 to 87 reported aviation incidents, plus several dozen fatal crashes during his initial months in office. Aside from his abhorrent body count, Duffy’s abysmal record also includes historic flight cancellations and delays due to reductions in air traffic controllers and TSA agents.
The Duffys drew major criticism earlier this summer when they promoted their “Great American Road Trip,” packing all their kids who still live at home into a large, gas-guzzling vehicle and living on the road for a full seven months while most Americans couldn’t afford to fill our tanks. How Sean Duffy did his job remotely from the road has never been explained, but we soon learned that the whole thing was being funded by private companies and filmed as part of their new reality TV show.
Newly released on YouTube, the show (which I wouldn’t watch with anyone else’s eyes) is already generating controversy thanks to Dad of the Year explaining to his daughter, Paloma, why he won’t “let” her go to Harvard.
The Ivy League might have had its share of scandals and whatnot, but it’s still a big deal to get into Harvard. But not to the Duffys, who think it’ll turn Paloma into a raging, bleeding-heart liberal.
“Catholicism to us is everything,” says Rachel, reacting to Paloma’s interest in higher education. “It's the basis of our marriage. It's the basis of our family. So, I'm nervous about the idea of Paloma going to Harvard.”
I don’t know what your arbitrary faith-based belief system has to do with getting a college degree, and thankfully, neither does Paloma.
“I went to an extremely conservative school in high school, and I’m part of an extremely conservative family,” Paloma tells her dad. “And that if I go to a liberal setting, that’s a way more rounded education.”
And that’s exactly what her parents don’t want for her. Independent thinking from a girl? Not in the Duffy household!
Isn’t that awful? Parents are supposed to encourage their kids to explore the world and follow their interests. Our kids aren’t our clones, even though they came from us, and we have to respect them as individuals, even when they take a different path than we did.
There are far too many examples of what happens to kids brought up in extremely conservative religious households. Restriction and repression often lead to rebellion. Paloma Duffy has every right to explore different points of view, and trying to keep her in the family bubble isn’t going to go well for Sean and Rachel.
Because they seem to be more loyal to Trump. You know, the convicted felon and adjudicated rapist who’s mentioned in the Epstein Files over 38,000 times (but it’s closer to a million, say insiders), while Jesus is only mentioned roughly 1300 times in the Bible.
But Rachel is such a devout Catholic, she wrote while becoming the eyeroll emoji.
Paloma’s older sister, Evita (the young married one), seems to be on her parents’ side.
No, Rachel, your job is to let your adult children make their own decisions so they don’t end up doing dumb things out of pure spite. Your job is to see your kids for who they are instead of forcing them to be obedient drones parroting your propaganda. If you let them leave your carefully controlled bubble, they’ll come back to you willingly. And they’ll be more interesting people, because they’ll be around interesting people.
I hope Paloma gets into Harvard and then just applies for student loans and a work-study program, like a lot of college kids do. Because she’ll be setting a better example for her younger siblings than her parents ever have.