Position: Director of Pediatric Neurosurgery(retired), Johns Hopkins Hospital
Announcement Date: May 4, 2015
Withdrew: March 2, 2016
Accomplishments: A really good neurosurgeon, not a very good expert on how to store grain.
Attempted to stab best friend?: Nope!
The most outsider of candidates, Carson had almost nothing to do with politics until he went on a strange rant against various Obama policies during the National Prayer Breakfast in 2013, the topics included political correctness(against) tithing as taxation(for) and health savings accounts(for). This found a lot of attention in the Tea Party climate, and soon after assorted people were talking about him running for president, which he obviously followed up on for reasons that are unclear to me.
Carson has the distinction of being the only candidate to show a serious threat to Trump once the debates started, I think mostly because the man is so out of it that he never conflicted with Trump in any serious way while still getting attention by saying crazy things that weren't overtly hateful, the religious part of the party that still thinks they are good people bought into that and I suspect that is where the large portion of his support came from. A bit of the less overtly racist wing liked him too, because being black and speaking against political correctness is basically permission to be a bigot for those people.
It was a solid bit of support, and unlike virtually all the other candidates, he never conflicted majorly with Trump, save for one statement from Trump during Carsons brief lead suggesting he might be a child molester or something. And yes I realize that at least one persons career should have been over after something like that is said on the national stage about another candidate.
Carson, like many evangelicals, has a narrative of his life that he wants everyone to believe, with that crowd it isn't good enough to just be saved, no they have to have been the worst kind of person before getting god, and Carson's attempts to push that narrative lead to what I think might be a unique period in American news, where reporters were spending untold effort to dig up background information proving that he attempt to murder his friend with a knife, or hit his mother on the head, or whatever else he claimed he was doing before he took up with the Lord and it rarely rings true, it sure didn't in Carson's case.
Similarly unconvincing were stories he told in his books and on the campaign trail about assorted situations he would get into, usually in school, where an authority figure would set up some elaborate test of ethics or some shit and he would pass, surprisingly often he would end up with ten dollars as well.
Carson's politics would surprise someone who judged just based on looks and tone, they are about as hard right as it is possible to be, with bans on gay marriage and abortions of course, as well as supporting religious freedom laws that enshrine bigotry into law. He's ridiculously pro Israel and anti-muslim, wants refugees to be settled in camps in other countries, recently called Hillary Clinton an agent of the devil, and supports a "Tithe tax" basically a 10% flat tax for everyone with no exceptions or changes. Which at least has the virtue of simplicity. Oh yeah, he is a young earth creationist, thinks of the bible as literal truth, and is a global warming denier as well.
Now I could have spent my life thinking of Carson not at all, or if I did it would be with a mix of appreciation for his skills as surgeon and disdain for his religious views, because in a sane world my only possible exposure to him would have been in a news article about his accomplishments in medicine, or an obituary or something. However he chose to run for president, thus incurring my ire.
My ire means nothing to anyone of course, but I hate him just as much as the rest of these jerks now and that means by forcing himself into my sphere of knowledge he has made my life slightly worse. Yes, I hate him more because he made me hate him, it is now a self reinforcing spiral of hate that will only end when I see all he fights for crumble and his legacy forgotten, so it may never end. I never said I was a healthy man.
That said, Carson is probably the most hilarious of the contenders out there, well, apart from Lindsey Graham anyway. Carson was so obviously out of his depth from day one that you had to laugh, because like Trump he never admitted to being ignorant of anything, rather he would wake as if from a stupor, say something strange and tangentially related, then return to his stupor, during the debates this would often take the form of complaining about never being called on.
Carson lost much of his support in early 2016 to other hateful bigot Ted Cruz, who could speak a little bit more convincingly and had the advantage of being white, he lingered around for a while and then dropped out with little fanfare, these days he is a sought after commentator for some reason and close ally to the Trump campaign.
Fuck these guys don't fail even when they fail, I should run next election, get me a SuperPAC and see how much I can steal before dropping out.
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