Rutherford B. Hayes, Tea Partier

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

Photo/Wikimedia CommonsPhoto Courtesy of the University of Texas at AustinMeet your 45th president, America. He’s the same as the 19th, really, only without the beard.

That would be 2012 candidate Rutherford B. Hayes (no relation to the former president), a Gulf War veteran-turned-businessman and as of today, aspiring leader of the free world. He’s also something of a TeaĀ Partier; according to his website, Hayes’s most important order of business in Washington will be to weed out “socialists, communists, and marxists, as well as sensatiable[sic] condescending egos.”Ā Time permitting, he’ll get us out of Afghanistan, institute a 10-percent flat tax, withdraw from the United Nations, return to the gold standard, abolish theĀ IRS, fire all teachers who “indoctrinate children,” and undo the core tenets of his predecessor’s “unconstitutional” health care reform.

Whether the (kind of) famous name will be an asset or a liability, though, remains to be seen

ā€”Hayes was, after all, swept into office with the help of a systematic vote-suppression scheme and a series of backroom deals; “Rutherfraud” was like the 1870s answer to “Nobama,” except all of the allegations were true.

Hayesā€”the living oneā€”has not responded to MoJo‘s requests for comment, but we’ll let you know when he does. In the meantime, he seems to be keeping busy. According to his website, he’s currently the Chief Financial Officer for “Miss LibertyĀ America,” believed to be the first-ever Tea Party beauty paegant.Ā Except it’s so, so much more than that:

The contestants will be judged in categories of personal interview, swimsuit, evening gown, beauty, talent, questions regarding the documents of America’s founding fathers, and Marksmanship! This will be the first pageant of its kind to introduce competency in the handling, safety and use of firearms, and CPR! The contestants must be able to save a life as well as defend one!

Ā 

I should also note that while Hayes I is either forgotten or mocked in the United States, he’s huge inĀ Paraguay. There’s a state called “ElĀ Presidente Hayes,” an eponymous soccer team called “Los Yanquis,” a statue, a mural, and a postage stamp. And also this:

In the late 1990s, a Paraguayan TV show fulfilled a 17-year-old girl’s wish after she miraculously emerged from a coma by giving her an all-expense-paid trip to Ohio to see the Hayes Presidential Center.

“It appears that they have sort of an inflated view of Hayes’ importance in American history,” Culbertson said. “One article said that they thought he was revered only behind Abraham Lincoln within the United States, which certainly isn’t the case.”

Yet.

WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We canā€™t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who wonā€™t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its futureā€”you.

And we need readers to show up for us big timeā€”again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

payment methods

WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We canā€™t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who wonā€™t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its futureā€”you.

And we need readers to show up for us big timeā€”again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate