‘Parks and Rec’ Star Nick Offerman Reveals Ron Swanson’s 2016 Vote
We’ve all needed to retreat from reality at one point or another during Election 2016, only to find even our beloved Parks and Recreation eerily mirroring our choices. Thankfully, Ron Swanson is here to knock some sense into us, as Nick Offerman reveals his grizzled counterpart’s take on the 2016 election.
Offerman shared what would be Ron Swanson’s election take over Twitter (even if the real Ron would abhor social media), pointing out that Trump took a “huge step backwards” by going from business to politics. Swanson wouldn’t be inclined to vote for a career politician like Hillary Clinton, either, but would choose either her, or a write-in:
And in case the tweet ends up deleted:
Ron wouldn’t think much of Trump. First of all, he’d be very sad that a businessman entered politics. Huge step backwards. He had it made in the private sector and he blew it! Doesn’t speak well of his decision making. Second, he went bankrupt 4-6 times, depending on who you believe. Ron does not like businessmen getting bailed out by taxpayers. Third, Trump disrespects women. Ron likes women. Because they are human beings and deserve to be treated with basic dignity. Fourth, his boys are fatuous suck-ups with slick hair.
Ron would not like Hillary either. She is a career politician. Ron has no love of career politicians. But he would certainly vote Hillary over Trump, if he had to choose between the two. Or he would write in Merle Haggard or Willie Nelson.
Admirably, Offerman’s view isn’t far off from Parks and Recreation creator Mike Schur himself, who previously told Variety:
There have been a couple of people who’ve tweeted things about how Ron would love Donald Trump and my immediate response is, You don’t know anything about Ron Swanson. He would dislike Hillary maybe not as much, but certainly a tremendous amount, because she’s a career politician and he had no interest in career politicians. […]
I think with him it would be more about a basic level of human decency. A baseline level of, “Don’t mock people with disabilities. Don’t mock people whose sons died in the service of the country.” I think if he literally had no choice, if he was being propelled towards a voting machine and his arm was going to flip a lever, and the only thing he controls is which lever to flip — which is the only way he would vote for either of them — I think he would make his arm vote for Hillary. But grudgingly.
In any case, fictional characters can’t vote, but you can! Don’t let Ron Swanson down. I mean, he has enough gold buried not to care what you do either way, but … you know. Whole-assing one thing, and all.