‘Is this some kind of sick joke?’ Lauren Boebert asks, and no, she’s not talking about her son breaking into cars

If you had a time machine and went back to 2008 to claim that Sarah Palin was the best of a bad bunch, many would laugh in disbelief. Yet, the depressingly predictable rise of conservative politicians like Lauren Boebert makes the former governor of Alaska look like a bonafide genius.

Never content with embarrassing herself with hateful, often contradictory politics, in recent months Boebert has been kicked out of a movie theater for vaping and groping her date like a horny teen. You’d think someone from the so-called party of family values would be a little more respectful, but then again, hypocrisy might as well be a plank of the Republican manifesto at this point (and that’s not even mentioning that her date is the owner of a bar that hosts LGBTQ+ and drag events in Aspen. Boebert has been an outspoken critic of similar events).

Her son Tyler has also recently been living up to the aphorism that the apple doesn’t fall from the tree, getting into a number of legal scrapes that have ended up with him being arrested. The 18-year-old was eventually arrested for a string of property thefts and vehicle trespasses, according to Colorado police.

Tyler is now facing five felony counts and 22 possible charges, and was released after posting a bond of $1,250. In a statement, Boebert showed that she seems to have discovered the capacity for empathy and grace that has been so sorely lacking in her treatment of political opponents, and others that an increasingly unhinged Republican party consider to be enemies of America, including various minorities. She said:

“I love my son Tyler, who has been through some very difficult, public challenges for a young man and the subject of attention that he didn’t ask for. It breaks my heart to see my child struggling and, in this situation, especially when he has been provided multiple opportunities to get his life on track.”

She then added that “as an adult and father, Tyler will take responsibility for his actions and should be held accountable for poor decisions just like any other citizen.” Tyler became a father in the summer of 2023 while still a teen.

However, none of this less-than-savory behavior by her son and family has stopped her from using her platform on Twitter/X to continue grandstanding on issues that her party is doing nothing to fix. Her most recent post attacks a slew of foreign aid bills that the Biden administration has been passing in response to increased tensions in the Middle East thanks to Israel’s violent and damaging response to the horrorific October 7th attacks and Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine.

While Boebert refers to the bills as being a “sick joke,” she doesn’t mention the fact that Republicans recently killed a bipartisan border bill in an attempt to play politics and to increase Donald Trump’s chances of being elected president in the upcoming 2024 election. Biden’s border bill would have increased funding for security at America’s southern frontier.

There’s also a certain irony to her posts given her family’s behavior. American conservatives have effectively stoked fears around the border by linking immigrants who come over as asylum seekers to criminal behavior, demonizing those escaping issues that have been directly caused by American intervention in Latin America. Yet, if Boebert was actually bothered about eliminating crime, she might want to look a little closer to home.

With that said, it isn’t hard to feel a little bit sorry for her son. Being raised by someone in the public eye, who is also incredibly divisive and full of hate, can’t be easy. And his upbringing would have been especially hard, given that his parents are prone to violent outbursts in public. Really, the kid never had a chance.

Another recent post from Boebert repeats baseless Republican talking points about the national debt, betraying that Boebert’s knowledge of fiscal policy is about as shallow as her knowledge of most things.

Over the course of his presidency, Trump saw a huge jump in the national debt, something that is not mentioned by Boebert in her tweets. It’s unconfirmed if this is more hypocritical politicking or simply because she doesn’t know. Normally we’d assume it’s the former, but with Boebert, ignorance is a feature, not a bug.