No, Mocking Beto’s Cheesy ‘Betomaniac’ Ad is Not Going to ‘Ruin’ His 2020 Bid

If you have spent any time on social media in the ten hours since Rep. Beto O’Rourke‘s (D-TX) announcement that he is running for president in 2020, you may have noticed his 2018 senate campaign videos circulating among his critics.

The “Betomaniac” campaign ad features a team of ladies swooning and fangirling over “the man” O’Rourke, who is strong and hip and gentle. Another video features a group of parents, grandparents, and children dancing for Beto. Cheesy, I know. To top it all off, recall he spent a recent visit to the dentist filming himself for Instagram while getting a cleaning and talking about immigration with his dental hygienist. The eye rolls were strong with that one.

But it doesn’t exactly make me hate the man. For some reason, O’Rourke’s critics seem to think harping on it will. The video is being shared with all kinds of snarky comments: “cringe!” “Ew!” “Lame!” Yeah, that will totally ruin O’Rourke’s campaign (sarc.); not the fact that he is a Texas congressman in favor of potentially abolishing ICE, or that he has shown zero support for small businesses.

Unless you are a secret O’Rourke fan, sharing and mocking his 2018 campaign videos with snarky captions about how cheesy he is is not going to hurt him; it will only make him more popular and loved by people who think those attacks are petty. That was the effect President Donald Trump‘s critics had on him when they mocked him as too crass and uneducated, and the effect Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez‘s (D-NY) fans had on her when they mocked her for being too young and inexperienced.

The quality that makes O’Rourke popular to his supporters is that he is interesting and different; that he was able to stand out by running for senate as a liberal in conservative Texas, as well as campaigning as a “hip” social media influencer among serious-looking politicians. O’Rourke is only a couple years apart from his former opponent Senator Ted Cruz, for instance, and you wouldn’t know it.

Therefore, O’Rourke’s critics can easily downgrade his popularity by normalizing his campaign. Stop focusing on the things that his supporters are so obsessed with — his edginess, his ability to act cheesy and not care what others think– and start focusing on the traits that make him on par with every other politician. Trust me, there are plenty.

O’Rourke is simply another politician focused on winning an election campaign. If his critics simply acknowledged that and acknowledged the flaws in his platform, perhaps his fans would realize it too.

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.