Two years ago, rapper Waka Flocka Flame tweeted, “I am dead a** running for President in 2016.” Since then, he’s kept on rhyming and handed a swift smackdown and worthwhile lecture to those racist OU fraternity brothers. I didn’t think we’d be covering him again anytime soon, but now there’s some entertaining news. Waka has officially thrown his name into the 2016 Presidential race. Never mind that he’s only 28 years old, and a person must be 35 to run for either President or Vice President. Waka still filled out the official forms on 4/20 (“the best day of the year“). He filmed a very funny, f-bomb filled candidacy video for Rolling Stone. Here’s some excerpts about his platform:
Legalizing marijuana: “The first thing I’ll do as President is legalize marijuana. A blunt a day will take the pain away. You wake up, hit a blunt, go to work, you go to work, sh*t will be okay. You look around, things ain’t looking good, you roll the blunt, sh*t going to be okay. School work getting too hard? Don’t touch the blunt. Think about it. Wait ’till you get old enough.”
On education: “Education is important. We gotta start teaching these kids more reality. Trade skills. And they gotta learn my lyrics.”
On Congress: “I’m not wearing a suit when I go to the meeting. It’s f***ing irritating. Everybody’s got hot-a** suits on, arguing, sweating.”
Minimum wage: “I’m gonna raise minimum wage. I feel like all fast food restaurants should be paying $15 an hour, since In ‘n’ Out’s doing it.”
Women’s rights: “I feel like women’s got all the rights already. What else they want? My mother was my father and my mother, so she controlled the house. She raised me. She put food on the table. She kept lights on. Women are pretty tough. I feel like it’s not really rights for women, it’s more of a respect thing.”
His competition: “Hillary is my only competition right now because the women love her. She’s honest, and her husband is Bill, so it’s a tough one. I hope I make it.”
[From Rolling Stone]
Waka admits that he’s not very tolerant about people with big feet, and he’d outlaw dogs in restaurants. The part about women’s rights could be read the wrong way, but Waka’s making a point similar to Chris Rock’s assertion about how he grew up “in a matriarchal society. You never hear, ‘Women need to step up.’ No, it’s all, ‘You’re the greatest thing that ever walked the Earth.’” Waka’s saying his mother raised him and was very powerful and tough. He thinks she’s already asserted all her rights and deserves more respect.
This Presidential bid is hilarious even though Waka swears he isn’t joking. The best part is when Waka talks about how Hillary is his only real competition. He’s not wrong! Right now Waka’s winning on Twitter against Hillary, but dude has his work cut out for him. All those distracting blunts, man. Learn more about Waka’s campaign here.
#WakaforAmerica
Photos courtesy of Rolling Stone, Fame/Flynet & WENN
Voting for Waka. End of story. #WakaForAmerica
ETA: Just got on Twitter. The best tweet I’ve seen so far is “#WakaforAmerica ONE NATION UNDER SQUAD”
He’s definitely far preferable to every single Republican candidate who’s considering running for President
…kay
Lmao! Precisely
I would vote for him if (I didn’t live in Canada), have you seen the competition?
If I were North American, he’d have my vote in a heartbeat. And while I got the point he tried to make about women’s rights, I do agree that it could be easily misunderstood.
The best thing about Waka is, he’s so stupid! His stupidity is so endearing.
Waka vs. Hilary? This is the world I want to live in.
No, I’m not kidding.
I was laughing uncontrollably at my desk and then I stopped and thought, ‘Let’s Do This’.
So I am right there with you Amy in that train of thought.
I’d love to have a president with sleeve tattoos.
Me, too.
Ditto!!
Sure, why not–and I’m a white suburban mother who thinks she is a conservative with a touch of democrat….I don’t like either party, but shoot, the way things are going this could be what we need! It might work
A political process once envied worldwide, now starting to resemble the Jerry Springer Show.
At least this guy is humorous with it.
Just waiting for Donald Trump, to make his non-credible, attention-whoring, bid and its complete.
I think Trump is close to declaring. And I look forward to it. He can be a part of the great “clown car of candidates”.
But this guy is better than Trump or Cruz. He is comfortable in his lack of knowledge and does not try and be something he is not.
Y’know I don’t even understand why people give oxygen to ‘candidates’ like Trump in the first place.
Try getting him to release his financial records first.
I’m dead serious when I say this is the best political news in ages. If they let him participate in the primary debates, the kids will watch, the laughs will roll, the memes will fly, and maybe, just maybe, millennials and moderates will get interested in who is running the country in time for the real race.
Finally, a viable candidate!!!! I love him. And if it came to down to him or Hilary, I would campaign for him til I dropped.
Ditto. I’ll vote for him before I vote for Hillary.
I’m disturbed by the folks actually taking this seriously. Women already have all the rights, fast food workers should be paid better than firefighters/paramedics/cops, and “you roll the blunt, shit going to be ok”? I thought it was funny until I was reading the comments. Ugh.
I hope they’re kidding. Or maybe already rolled a few blunts this morning. $15 for flipping burgers is ridiculous. I thought it was funny at first but now I can’t imagine if people really supported him
I think they’re kidding, or at least I was.
He’s basically saying, “I never personally experienced women’s rights issues, so therefore they do not exist.” That’s dangerous, because too many people (especially men, and too many other women for comfort) feel that way about women.
As a straight person, I’ve never experienced gay rights issues, therefore, they do not exist.
As a white person, I’ve never experienced civil rights issues, therefore, they do not exist.
I could go on.
It’s clearly a joke but he’s actually really smart and he’s made comments about a lot of social justice issues many times in the past that make a lot of sense that a lot of people agree with. Stop judging someone over a harmless joke and making rash judgements.
Well, he certainly gets my vote!
Name thief! I think he has some solid ideas too =P
I live in England, but seems to me within England or The U.S. it doesn’t matter who wins the elections, big businesses will always run the country behind closed doors. Point proved by the fact no matter who you’ve voted for, the campaign with the most money has always won.
https://youtu.be/zzbjEMaDjrk
I just like him for the eye candy
I do not find his comments humorous or harmless at all. Jackasses like him and Chris Rock need to recognize that we do NOT live in a matriarchal society, we live in a FAILED patriarchy. There is a difference. If we lived in a true matriarchy women would walk up and down the streets at night or whenever they wanted with no fear of being harassed, raped or murdered for one.
And women in the black community do NOT need to be told to “step up” because they already have more than stepped up – by taking on the role of both mother AND father when the so-called fathers decided to absent themselves from the home. Black women have every right to be told how they are the greatest thing on Earth in this regard because if they also abandoned ship like black men did then things would be even worse than they are now. Black men like this one and Chris Rock sicken me – black women to them are supposed to be workhorses and do the impossible with no gratitude or relief, while the men who do not step up are somehow not supposed to be held accountable.
True shit. i grew up wanting to be a housewife because I saw how hard my mother worked… I became disgusted at the notion that housewives were thought to be white women while WOC were to be “workhorses”. No disrespect to either parties. Just thinking in terms of stereotypes.
Very true Livealot. Too many historic, cultural, racial and gender nuances when it comes to the role of motherhood for me to find that part of his comments funny. I can see how most of his comments are to be taken as harmless fun, but when he decided to talk about women and black mothers in particular – that part to me is where I close down because it will never, ever be funny. Black mothers have been too vilified and degraded in the black community for that to ever be made into a joke.
I get what you’re saying, but maybe women should “step up” by NOT reproducing with total POS men in the first place. That goes for women of ALL colors.
@Jay – Yep.
+100000000000000000000
Love this guy. Btw, it’s Hillary
Well I did come “this” close to voting for Roseanne Barr.
Since “real politics” is pretty much a sh*t show, why the hell not? He’s certainly more interesting than anyone else, and while I don’t agree with him, I don’t agree much with any other candidate either so might as well be entertained instead of lied to.
It’s not true that millennials “don’t care about politics”. We do care, we want to care. It’s just that it really doesn’t seem to matter. We’re getting too screwed with debt and a horrible job market to have much left over to see which out of touch rich person is going to win the “I’m better than that other (out of touch rich) guy” race. Congress just seems to bicker over everything and not decide much. Maybe that’s just me, but I’ve only noticed lukewarm interest from myself and my peers since it really does all feel the same. People hated the last guy, people hate this guy, people will probably hate the next guy. The choice between a douche and a turd is not an invigorating one.
What itake away from this is that in n out is paying 15$ an hour. That’s great, isold frequent them more often.
and it’s proof that corporations can value men than just book money if they choose to do so.
It annoys me when people argue for such a high pay rate for flipping burgers. I don’t think jobs like that were ever intended to be careers that can support entire families. There are people who do actual important work that requires intelligence/skill who make less than $15/hr. If you want to make more money, get a real career, not a job meant for 16 yr old kids.
A lot of people are not able to get a “real” career and their family does depend on them flippin burgers.
It’s definitely annoying for people to want so much for a simple job. If flipping burgers pays $15 an hour, why bother going through school to get a job that doesn’t pay much more? Some need the job to get by, but $15 is extremely too high
Yeah, unfortunately, as politically charged an issue as it is, income inequality in this country (and in the UK) is among the highest among the world’s developed nations. There’s piles of evidence that the more equal the income in a particular nation or state, the healthier and happier its citizens, INCLUDING the rich. People start screaming “SOCIALISM” but the data is there that links income inequality to everything from obesity to abortion and dropout rates to heart attacks and early deaths from preventable diseases to prison overcrowding. The most surprising: the early death data and unhappiness quotients in unequal societies apply to the rich, too. Reason being: income inequality is also a psychological issue – it affects people psychologically when they cannot get jobs that pay enough to provide for their families. The excuse that “poor people just need to get their crap together” is no longer gonna cut it. The book “The Spirit Level” by two UK public health researchers informed this citizen of one of the most unequal states in the US, and my vote will go to politician(s) who have studied this research and pledge to help level the playing field.
Flipping burgers is a real job and real adults do it. Actually, having kids in such jobs is a major problem around here – it distracts them considerably from their school work. Adults really do need the work anyway, while most of the kids are supporting their car for leisure time activities. Their parents provide them with free room and board, so they can manage on a low wage. But that’s a lousy way to run a business. It’s like the argument that women don’t need to make the same pay as men, because they’re working for “pin money”, although mysteriously the pay wouldn’t jump up if their husband died, got sick, was unemployed, ran off, or never existed. (I also never heard anybody suggest that single men should make less than married men…) My mother’s “pin money” was the sole support of herself and two kids. Really, pay a decent wage so someone can live on it.
Even a single person has trouble paying bills on $15 per hour in many places. Rents are especially high and would take a big chunk of that paycheck. At lower amounts, employees can actually be eligible for food stamps, they’re so low income for their family size. My brother worked at a cafeteria for years that was like that. All the employees with kids were on food stamps (no health insurance either). He was uninsured until finally a union started. That means their employers are making bigger profits because they are letting taxpayers subsidize their business rather than paying a proper living wage..
Time is time. My time, with a Ph.D. in a scientific field, is not intrinsically worth more than the time of a burger flipper. I might be able to get more $$$ when people need my special skills badly enough, but that’s no guarantee in today’s market. Most jobs don’t require skills taking years of training to acquire (my brother said he could train his replacement in the sandwich making line in 15 minutes), but they are all needed to make our society function and the workers need to eat and pay rent. We have to think in terms of what people need for a comfortable living, with the ability to raise children and plan a bit ahead for the future and deal with emergencies without going into crushing debt. If burger flippers get better wages which will let them live comfortably, there still won’t be any more of a dropout exodus from schools than now. People will just be able to eat better and avoid eviction. There are only so many burger flipper jobs to go around, anyway. People make choices about education on a different basis- developing their interests and strengths, making themselves more flexible when their job disappears with advancing technology. On many jobs today in my area (freelance scientific translation), I would make more money per hour at Walmart, the recession never left in my market plus I’m competing against translators around the world, many in places where they can live much more cheaply than I can. I still have not yet been inspired to fill out a Walmart application.
Anyway, everybody works and most get pretty tired after their shift. Try flipping burgers for a few hours and then tell me it’s not real work. Poverty wages just mean you work hard without much effect financially and will have to scramble to get a second job if you can. I would much rather have happy, financially comfortable, and non-exhausted people preparing my food, please…
Seriously, you need to be 35 to run for President? Why? I’m not American, and I’ve never heard of a country having a minimum age for its leader. If someone younger can run a good campaign and convince the public to vote for them, why shouldn’t they?
Well, I don’t know what country you’re from, but almost every country in the world has a minimum age for their leader, all (I think) between 30-40.
He is not old enough to be eligible. And that convicted felon thing…
While part of me is laughing at the joke, another part of me admires him for at least starting a conversation and being so ballsy yet humorous about it. I’m not fond of his comments about women’s equality. But let’s face it – he’s adorable. And hot. Adorably hot. Definitely a Candidate Crush.
I hope he gets himself established as an official write-in candidate in each state, I think it just requires a certain number of names on a petition filed by a certain deadline. We used to be able to just write in anybody, but the voting machines have made that difficult. Poll workers don’t usually even know how to do it, so instructions need to be promoted as well. I don’t know if he could do it, though, because he doesn’t meet the age requirement for the office.
It would be interesting to see how many votes he could get. Many people just don’t bother voting because they don’t think it makes any difference. I would rather they voted for a write-in candidate, since that gives a warning to the political parties and lets certain issues be raised. We have a winner-take-all system so some people will argue against voting for independent candidates, saying it steals votes from their candidate who of course absolutely must win. But the only way we can ever shake up this bloated two-fundraising-party system is if people don’t stay home but go out and vote for someone who actually represents them. That sends a message, at least, and counteracts the idea that people don’t vote because they’re happy with both candidates. We’ll never know unless they have real alternatives.