Sean Roberts Is Not Allowed to Call Himself 'The Patriot' Anymore
The Oklahoma politician swung for the fences and missed, but finally attains a genuine nickname
Sean Roberts, Republican State Representative of Oklahoma, is running for a new gig - the cushy Commissioner of Labor position - and he had the idea to list himself as Sean ‘The Patriot’ Roberts on the official ballot.
This is cynical and shamelessly tacky, but this is America and Roberts would have obviously obliterated whatever opponent he faced if he were indeed allowed to call himself ‘The Patriot’ and garnered the rubber stamp of approval from the same people who voted for Donald Trump because he played a rich businessman on a reality TV show.
If you were allowed to call yourself Rick ‘The Libtard Killer’ Kilowsky, you would soon become the President of Texas, and I think if you identified as ‘Xena the Lesbian Book Banner’ you’d have a decent chance of unseating Nancy Pelosi.
Luckily most places in America have laws about how one can and can’t list themselves on a ballot, which includes name and profession. You can’t just call yourself a Doctor, for example, you have to actually be one. You can’t just call yourself a Community Organizer, you have to prove that you actually organize communities - which is actually impossible to prove or disprove by the way, so if you don’t have a real job just go with that.
If you want to be listed with your nickname on the ballot you have to prove that people actually call you by that name.
On a side note this poses an interesting question: Nick Foles, the fledgling quarterback currently of the Chicago Bears has arguably the coolest nickname in all of society, which is Bick Dick Nick. If he were to run for office, could he identify himself as such on the ballot, and should George Soros or the Koch Brothers put some money behind him right now because he would steamroll the competition in a way he’s never dreamed of on the football field.
Anyway, there are different laws in different places. In Kansas, if you wanted to call yourself ‘The Patriot’ then you’d have to have five people vouch under oath that they call you ‘The Patriot’. This means that if I spent a week in Kansas biker bars buying guys free Pabst I could run on the Kansas ballot as Matt ‘Freedom Bell” Ralston. My campaign slogan would be “Let it ring.” I would win, but then I’d have to live in Kansas.
In Oklahoma, where Sean ‘The Patriot’ Roberts is doing his bidding, and opponent is able to challenge the veracity of one’s nickname and a brief hearing will ensue to deem whether the entire thing is a sham, and that is what happened.
As the hearing kicked off Roberts had some difficulty spelling the word ‘Patriot’ when stating his name to the three person judicial panel. He was able to spell it, but most of us have to spell our names on a regular basis and it becomes rote and not something one has to mouth to themselves before launching into.
He then presented various pieces of evidence, mostly campaign banners and things that he had recently made after deciding to call himself ‘The Patriot’ (he has run for office twelve previous times and never had a nickname on the ballot. He also is obviously not cool enough to have a nickname in real life if that wasn’t explicitly stated already.)
Perhaps the strongest exhibit he provided was a birthday card. The giver of this card thanked Roberts for his support in passing an open firearm carrying law and wrote “Thank you for picking up the torch of freedom and finally getting constitutional carry across the finish line. You truly are The Patriot.”
That’s fairly compelling, but it’s only one guy who calls Roberts ‘The Patriot’ and it’s highly possible of course that Roberts wrote the card himself. Lacking much evidence Roberts then constructed an apocryphal narrative.
This was in relation to the open-carry bill that he advocated for, and he cast himself as as a martyr and last man standing in the fight for gun rights, before slipping in that he had been called ‘The Patriot’ since junior high school - which would be burying the lead if the lead weren’t an impromptu and unconvincing lie of the type people blurt out when they are nervous and guilty.
I was the only one to survive when there was a large group of other Republicans who went after a group of conservatives. I was the only one to survive that onslaught. They kind of started calling me ‘The Patriot’ from my past all the way back to junior high.
Wait, they retroactively started calling you ‘The Patriot’ back to your school days after you became a politician in adulthood? Okay. The panel found that he cannot be the one person who calls him ‘The Patriot.’
This wasn’t brought up in the hearing, but Roberts is not a patriot. He’s a Republican who has promoted the falsehood that Democrats rigged the 2020 election and has pushed for more restrictive voting laws in response to this disproven conspiracy theory, and even introduced a bill that would require all Oklahomans to re-register to vote before the next election¹. Voter suppression is undemocratic, and it contradicts the most basic values that fat Republicans claim America stands for.
He also pulled a bunch of stunts threatening to sue sports teams if the athletes kneeled during the National Anthem. Again, this is a clear freedom of speech issue, and advocating punishment for practicing free speech is not patriotic. It means that you don’t know what America stands for, but ignorance of the law doesn’t make you patriotic.
The list goes on an on. Sean Roberts is not a patriot. He’s definitely not The Patriot, and as of now Wikipedia has a more appropriate nickname for him, his first real nickname, which will probably stick this time.
¹ https://www.fox23.com/news/local/oklahoma-representative-looking-pass-bill-that-removes-voting-machines/4IGDQJNE6JDXNKKPZNQXVQRSX4/