# Herschel Walker (need I say more?) **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [October 7, 2022, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/herschel-walker-need-i-say-more/972861 "2022-10-07T01:34:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 15
**Author:** ![Love\_Rhombus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/love_rhombus/32/10694_2.png) [@Love\_Rhombus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Love_Rhombus)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2022, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/herschel-walker-need-i-say-more/972861/281 "2022-11-22T16:20:20Z")
Are you pitching a new Terminator film? Also I can’t get the word “Warnockracy” out of my head. It has no real connection, I just had to scratch the itch. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2022, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/herschel-walker-need-i-say-more/972861/282 "2022-11-22T16:22:13Z")
> [@Love\_Rhombus](#): > > Are you pitching a new Terminator film? A Terminator can kill a werewolf, so now Herschel wants to be a Terminator… ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2022, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/herschel-walker-need-i-say-more/972861/283 "2022-11-22T16:30:23Z")
I don’t think it’s so much a grammatical error as a _non sequitur._ Herschel was bullshitting about a TV show, because he’s a political nincompoop. At some point he remembered that he was supposed to be campaigning, so he thought: 1. _Insult Warnock!_ “Because of Senator Warnock…” 2. _Tie it into whatever I was talking about!_ “…it wouldn’t be on the air…” 3. _The fuck did I say? Never mind! Explain!_ “…because…” 4. _Because why? Elaborate the insult in a way that in some way references the show!_ “…he’s still living in the past.” The grammar was fine. Consider, “Coral thrived in Earth’s oceans until the 21st century. **But because of global warming, it wouldn’t survive much longer, because global warming heated the oceans up too much.** ” That’s not a great sentence, but it shows how the same grammatical structure works. Walker’s problem is that his idea was incoherent, not that he broke rules of grammar. ---
**Author:** ![Meltdown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Meltdown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meltdown)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2022, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/herschel-walker-need-i-say-more/972861/284 "2022-11-22T16:34:37Z")
> [@Love\_Rhombus](#): > > Are you pitching a new Terminator film? No, I’m auditioning to become Walker’s speechwriter. ---
**Author:** ![DesertDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desertdog/32/11503_2.png) [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2022, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/herschel-walker-need-i-say-more/972861/285 "2022-11-22T16:44:10Z")
> [@JRDelirious](#): > > He’s basically saying Archie should be allowed to go on being Archie and never change or learn a thing or be called out and you should just let them live in the past. I remember back when it was being broadcast conservative viewers having the opinion that Archie won his conflicts with Mike and Gloria while liberal viewers did not. ---
**Author:** ![Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/son_of_a_rich/32/5439_2.png) [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Son_of_a_Rich)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2022, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/herschel-walker-need-i-say-more/972861/286 "2022-11-22T16:57:02Z")
His assertion that Archie Bunker could kill a werewolf is unfounded. ---
**Author:** ![Horatius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/horatius/32/3572_2.png) [@Horatius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatius)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2022, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/herschel-walker-need-i-say-more/972861/287 "2022-11-22T17:06:58Z")
Give Archie some credit, he did fight in WWII. Which is way more than any of his fans today would ever do. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2022, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/herschel-walker-need-i-say-more/972861/288 "2022-11-22T17:09:54Z")
The plot continues to sicken… > **[Secret tapes shared by woman who claims Herschel Walker paid for her abortion](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/midterm-elections-2022/herschel-walker-abortion-tapes-georgia-b2231044.html)** > > The press conference comes ahead of early voting in Georgia. > A woman who claims to be the ex-girlfriend of Republican Senate nominee Herschel Walker will give a press conference on Tuesday to reveal new audio recordings after he denied to allegations that he accompanied her to have an abortion… ---
**Author:** ![crowmanyclouds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crowmanyclouds/32/19884_2.png) [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2022, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/herschel-walker-need-i-say-more/972861/289 "2022-11-22T17:16:27Z")
Yeah, if Walker could English all proper like, ‘But because of Senator Warnock, ~~it~~ _All in the Family_ wouldn’t be on the air because ~~he’s~~ Archie Bunker (not Warnock) is still living in the past.’ After that (you didn’t see the nightmare of deconstructing a badly formed paragraph first thing in my morning, with no coffee, that I didn’t post) my brain really hurts. ---
**Author:** ![DavidNRockies](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/davidnrockies/32/6279_2.png) [@DavidNRockies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DavidNRockies)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2022, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/herschel-walker-need-i-say-more/972861/290 "2022-11-22T17:35:53Z")
It sounds like textbook [**Bunker mentality**](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/bunker%20mentality) 😉 ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2022, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/herschel-walker-need-i-say-more/972861/291 "2022-11-22T18:29:04Z")
> [@Horatius](#): > > Give Archie some credit, he did fight in WWII. > > Which is way more than any of his fans today would ever do. Don’t be _too_ sure. I’m not saying anything about which side they’d be on, though… ---
**Author:** ![Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/son_of_a_rich/32/5439_2.png) [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Son_of_a_Rich)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2022, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/herschel-walker-need-i-say-more/972861/292 "2022-11-22T18:49:47Z")
Walker has one thing going for him- the late night white comics (so far) refrain from impersonating him even though it’s supremely easy. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2022, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/herschel-walker-need-i-say-more/972861/293 "2022-11-22T19:13:16Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > The grammar was fine. Consider, “Coral thrived in Earth’s oceans until the 21st century. **But because of global warming, it wouldn’t survive much longer, because global warming heated the oceans up too much.** ” Not at all the same. I agree that Walker’s idea is incoherent, but so is the structure of the sentence. Just to point out a few aspects of Walker’s incoherence, “because of Senator Warnock” is a meaningless attribution of cause, whereas global warming is a specific process with well-known effects. So “because of global warming …” is meaningful, but “because of Senator Warnock”, without context, is not. Is it Warnock’s very existence that is causing the problem? Is it something he would do? If so, what? Then there is the bizarre switch from the present tense (“because of Senator Warnock”) to a past-tense conditional (“wouldn’t be on the air”). In your example, the “wouldn’t survive much longer” is not expressing a conditional, but is a narrative style denoting a later event in a historical chronology, for instance as in “when the stock market crashed in 1929, few anticipated that the ensuing depression would continue for a decade”. Walker’s statement – like much of everything else he says – is an unholy mess of stupidly incoherent ideas and comically incoherent language. Here’s Walker again, saying something (no one is sure what) about air pollution, China, and the Green New Deal: > We’re gonna put from the Green New Deal, millions of billions of dollars cleaning our good air up. … Since we don’t control the air, our good air decided to float over to China’s bad air so when China gets our good air, their bad air got to move. So it moves over to our good air space. Then now we got to clean that back up, while they’re messing ours up. ---
**Author:** ![DavidNRockies](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/davidnrockies/32/6279_2.png) [@DavidNRockies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DavidNRockies)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2022, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/herschel-walker-need-i-say-more/972861/294 "2022-11-22T19:23:09Z")
> [@wolfpup (quoting Herschel Walker)](#): > > We’re gonna put from the Green New Deal, millions of billions of dollars cleaning our good air up. Check me if I’m wrong, but if 350,000,000 Americans (not just taxpayers or voters) had to pay even a single “million billion dollars,” wouldn’t that amount to a per capita cash call of about $2,857,143? Forgive me, but Mr. Walker may well have gotten my attention with this one! /s ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2022, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/herschel-walker-need-i-say-more/972861/295 "2022-11-22T19:26:04Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > Walker’s statement – like much of everything else he says – is an unholy mess of stupidly incoherent ideas and comically incoherent language. Here’s Walker again, saying something (no one is sure what) about air pollution, China, and the Green New Deal: > > > We’re gonna put from the Green New Deal, millions of billions of dollars cleaning our good air up. … Since we don’t control the air, our good air decided to float over to China’s bad air so when China gets our good air, their bad air got to move. So it moves over to our good air space. Then now we got to clean that back up, while they’re messing ours up. This looks like the result of an originally coherent concept (if some countries reduce air pollution while others don’t, everyone still has some degree of air pollution) getting crushed and mangled by the loose gears inside Walker’s head. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2022, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/herschel-walker-need-i-say-more/972861/296 "2022-11-22T19:54:36Z")
Walker got hold of a competitive swimmer to help make a new ad, and is now demonizing the transgender community in the hope of cornering the bigot vote. The specific angle on this is the old trope of biological males competing in women’s sports, a problem that is of great concern to precisely no one, although it will definitely rile up the bigots and maybe even cause a few more nightclub shootings. > **[Watch: Herschel Walker releases ad targeting transgender athletes | CNN Politics](https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2022/11/21/herschel-walker-new-ad-transgender-athletes-jennings-newsroom-vpx.cnn)** > > CNN political commentator Scott Jennings reacts to Georgia Senate candidate Herschel Walker's new ad targeting transgender athletes. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2022, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/herschel-walker-need-i-say-more/972861/297 "2022-11-22T20:36:51Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > Not at all the same. I agree that Walker’s idea is incoherent, but so is the structure of the sentence. > > Just to point out a few aspects of Walker’s incoherence, “because of Senator Warnock” is a meaningless attribution of cause, whereas global warming is a specific process with well-known effects. So “because of global warming …” is meaningful, but “because of Senator Warnock”, without context, is not. Is it Warnock’s very existence that is causing the problem? Is it something he would do? If so, what? > > Then there is the bizarre switch from the present tense (“because of Senator Warnock”) to a past-tense conditional (“wouldn’t be on the air”). In your example, the “wouldn’t survive much longer” is not expressing a conditional, but is a narrative style denoting a later event in a historical chronology, for instance as in “when the stock market crashed in 1929, few anticipated that the ensuing depression would continue for a decade”. You start by saying “not at all the same,” but then point mainly to how his _content_ differs from my example content, showing that his content is a series of non sequiturs. Which means that they are, structurally, the same. For example, “Because of Senator Warnock” could be a fine attribution of cause. “Because of Senator Warnock, you wouldn’t want to eat that slice of pizza: he mandated that all pizza slices had to be licked by a Democrat before being sold.” The reason it’s not a fine attribution of cause is because he doesn’t follow up in any meaningful way. Hey, you asked for a descriptivist point of view, so here it is: even when someone is engaging in word salad as thoroughly begibberfied as Walker’s, folks tend to follow the rules of grammar. His sentence rivals “colorless green ideas sleep furiously” for demonstrating that point. ---
**Author:** ![Ann\_Hedonia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ann_hedonia/32/319_2.png) [@Ann\_Hedonia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ann_Hedonia)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2022, 3:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/herschel-walker-need-i-say-more/972861/298 "2022-11-23T03:02:56Z")
I’ll give Walker this…….he’s got me _really_ wanting to watch Fright Night. All in the Family, not so much. ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2022, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/herschel-walker-need-i-say-more/972861/299 "2022-11-23T03:49:38Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > begibberfied I like it. ---
**Author:** ![Sylvanz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/fbc32d/32.png) [@Sylvanz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sylvanz)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2022, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/herschel-walker-need-i-say-more/972861/300 "2022-11-23T16:17:16Z")
The biggest reason All in the Family would no longer be on the air is that the actors that played 2 of the main roles, including the one Mr. Walker admires so much, are DEAD. It’s also interesting to note that the late Carroll O’Connor, who played Archie was a scary leftist. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/herschel-walker-need-i-say-more/972861.md?page=14) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/herschel-walker-need-i-say-more/972861.md?page=16)