Whoever came up with this little … er, large event ought to have their head examined, and then is it only quarters? What about fifths or eighths? But anyhow, this is a stunt gone wrong. With gratitude for Raw Story:
The Texas Republican Party created a viral moment in all the wrong ways at their convention when they brought a live elephant out to promote Gov. Greg Abbott’s re-election campaign — and it began to urinate loudly and dramatically on the floor. The incident prompted a predictable round of mockery from commenters on social media. “Governor Abbott closed out his speech at the Texas GOP convention with a live elephant. It then peed on the floor as it left the room. The perfect metaphor for the Texas Republican Party,” posted the official account for the Texas Democratic Party. //// “The elephant turned the entire convention into a gender neutral Bathroom,” wrote the “Organizermemes” account.
Oh, my goodness gracious, the comments were the perfect level of snark. What were they thinking? The creature must have been really unhappy to do something like that, at a guess. We’ll get into that a little further along. But for heaven’s sake, an actual elephant? That’s far too much of a stunt. The comments *are* great thus far.
“Elephants are smart. Not sure what to tell you,” wrote conservative commentator Stephen L. Miller. //// Not everyone had a witty quip to offer, though. Many others, including some conservatives, were angry about the way the GOP was mistreating the elephant. //// “Good for the elephant. It’s probably overwhelmed and anxious,” wrote former Robert F. Kennedy Jr. staffer Link Lauren. “Leave animals out of this stuff. I love my people in the Texas GOP. My home state. But this is a bad look. Not necessary.” //// “Fascist republicans were parading around an elephant at the Texas GOP convention, and it urinated all over the floor after racist murderous scumbag Greg Abbott’s propaganda speech,” wrote singer-songwriter Ricky Davila. “Hurray for the Elephant and (expletive) you to the evil bastards who used that majestic animal as a prop.”
Once you get past the funny part of the elephant peeing, it gets really sobering really fast. There’s a lot more to think about besides it being a stunt. Peeing on the floor was poetic justice. The next set of comments will go into greater detail. If you stop and think about it, they did a pretty nasty thing to that creature. Have an elephant differently and leave the real ones where they belong. The next comment is stunning. It’s really something to think about.
Perhaps the most furious response came from HuffPost’s Yashar Ali. //// “Putting an elephant into a convention hall like this is torturing it beyond the full comprehension of any human being, because we do not possess the sensory capabilities elephants do,” wrote Ali. “Elephants have the strongest sense of smell in the animal kingdom. They can smell WATER from many miles away. Now imagine putting this poor elephant into an enclosed space with thousands of people, perfume, food, sweat, cleaning products, flooring, and equipment. This elephant was hit with a massive wall of biological information and sensory overload that we cannot begin to understand. Elephants also sense sound and vibration through their FEET, not just their ears,” he added. “In the wild, they can communicate with each other from miles away just by sensing communication through their feet. Now imagine what that elephant is experiencing in a convention hall: thousands of human footsteps, sound systems, equipment, metal clanging, concrete, and more. A confusing hell. Finally, hard artificial surfaces, in this case the convention hall floor, are terrible for elephants.”
Yes, that was long, but it all needed to be included. It isn’t funny anymore. It was torture. I certainly learned a lot, and I hope you did too. We cannot comprehend what they do naturally. Humans don’t exactly have the best eyes and ears when you look at the animal kingdom. I’m certainly thinking about elephants now. If only this information could get to the people who need to know how that elephant felt. It was supposed to be a joke, a stunt. Well, it was that, in a completely wrong way. Ouch.
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The GOP mascot elephant didn’t merely talk the ‘piss on Abbott and the GOP’ talk, it literally ‘walked the walk’ so to speak. Pissed the piss? Maybe it was telling everyone ‘Trump thinks Russian hookers doing golden showers is cool – I’LL show him and the rest of you asshats a golden shower you’ll never, ever forget!’
I knew elephants had heightened sensory capability but not to the extent the person you cited provided. Yes, I knew about them being able to smell water from miles away. I can’t help but wonder if in a packed convention hall all that toxic sweat from GOPer asshats made the elephant feel like it was trapped in POISENED water and it panicked?
Is there video somewhere of this? I’d sure love to see it. Democrats in Texas (maybe elsewhere too) should fit a bunch of flatbed trucks with large flatscreens with solid bullet resistant glass to protect each screen (three, one for each side and one facing to the rear) with it on a loop and drive them through cities and towns from now until the election. Just a suggestion.
I only have two regrets. One is that Abbott didn’t have someone pushing his wheelchair behind the elephant for a ‘triumphant exit’ and get splashed with elephant piss. The other is that the RNC was wise enough to resist suggestions (which you know someone on Team Trump made to them) to pull the same stunt at the 2024 GOP convention! Back then the networks weren’t as cowed as they are now and I believe they’d have showed it in all it’s splendor.