This year, Critic will not be using the first or last name of the current US President.
Being a student magazine focused on the University of Otago and Scarfie life in Dunedin, we don’t cover a whole lot of international news, but the influence of American politics has a way of infecting all areas of life and culture, so there’s no doubt it’s going to come up at some point.
When it does, we will refer to the US President by his title alone, not his name.
Why did we decide to do this? Well, there are three reasons.
The first is of course that we are biased little left-wing shits, sitting in the safe space of our ivory tower and hearing the name of that fucking asshole makes us retch uncontrollably. Refusing to say the name of such a ridiculous narcissist is our small and almost entirely pointless form of protest from all the way on the other side of the world.
The second reason is that it’s going to force our writers to get way more creative with their nicknames. For example: The Overcooked Carrot, Cheeto Jesus, Fuckface Von Clownstick, or Albi the Racist Dragon.
The third, and only real, logical reason, is to make a point about how the actions of the current President and his administration are not normal. The President of the United States called many of their closest allies “shithole countries”. The President had an affair with a porn star and paid her hush money to keep it quiet. The President continually attacks the press, the FBI agents investigating him for colluding with Russia, and the more than a dozen women who have accused him of sexual assault. There’s too examples many to list.
These things are not normal. But when we use his name, we think of the TV star, the grandiose showman of casinos and golf courses, the guy that we all treated as a clown. When he does something insane, we shrug it off.
Elected leaders knowingly lying to their country is supposed to be a massive scandal. With this guy, it’s become so commonplace that we barely even shrug.
We shouldn’t, we should treat it as we would treat any President or leader saying what he says or doing what he does.
This man holds the office of the Presidency, the most powerful elected position in the world. We think it’s important that media coverage of his actions reflects that.