A Lawmaker Just Sold Himself on Social Media and We Need to Talk About It

This, my friends, is more than not okay and we need to talk about why, lest you just chuckle and brush it off as a joke.

I don't watch The Bachelor, I never have, nor door I ever plan to. That fact is irrelevant here, but in the spirit of transparency I wanted to you to know. Now you do.

Moving on.

From what I've gleaned from the social media frenzy that ensues whenever a season of The Bachelor is set to close, there was a major upset this week. The bachelor himself, Arie Luyendyk Jr., dumped his fiancee, Becca Kufrin, during Monday's finale.

Luyendyk previously proposed to Kufrin, as appears to be the goal of the show. What doesn't appear to be the goal of the show is to break off an engagement and, instead, go after the runner-up, Lauren Burnham. Or maybe that is the goal of the show.. because ratings. ¯_(ツ)_/¯

The upset understandably grabbed the attention of the show's audience, with some viewers taking it harder than others. One such viewer stands out above the rest. His name is Drew Christensen. Christensen is a Minnesota State Representative and happens to represent the district that Kufrin hails from.

He took to Twitter to do what only a lawmaker could do.

You read that right. Drew Christensen took to social media to ask if he should author a bill in the state of Minnesota preventing Arie Luyendyk Jr., a contestant on a reality TV show, from entering the state of Minnesota. Because us Minnesotans have the right to "live free from the presence of Arie Luyendyk Jr."

Now, you might might chuckle, or quickly brush it off as an attention-getting stunt and move on. But let's pause and discuss.

1. Is this how a lawmaker should spend their time? We're currently shoulder-deep in the gun control debate. In fact, students in Minnesota walked out of the class yesterday to draw attention to the issue. Did Mr. Christensen tweet about that? Nope.

2. Is banning someone from a state even okay? Probably not. We were all up in arms over the Muslim ban, understandably. But people are actually behind banning someone from a state because of a television show? What.

3. Can you imagine Donald Trump using Twitter in this way? 500,000 retweets and I'll shutdown the government! Or better yet 1,000,000 retweets and I'll bomb North Korea! How about 2,000,000 likes and I'll call Putin right now. On live TV! You can imagine that, can't you? And now that Rep. Christensen has been so careless with his political power, I wonder if a similar stunt might be pulled with malicious intent.

4. Reaching a goal of a certain number of interactions on social media while we're in the midst of arguing whether or not Russia used social media to throw our election just seems... silly. Did Russian bots respond? More than likely a heck of a lot of bots did. That's what bots do. Since we're so convinced that Russian bots are influencing public opinion on Twitter and interfering in our elections it certainly makes all the sense in world to involve all of social media in authoring a bill, no?

5. Speaking of who retweeted the tweet in question.. How many retweeters are Christensen's constituents? Isn't he tasked with representing them? Not bots and reality television fans?

6. This is hugely offensive to anyone who has ever put in long, hard, unpaid hours to get a bill written to actually do something useful. But for a television show the process can happen seemingly overnight. Hmm.

Perhaps Christensen can author a bill banning Donald Trump from the state of Minnesota instead. Trump is far more threatening and dangerous and I do think we do have the right to live free from his presence. Unless, of course, Christensen is concerned that Luyendyk might propose to multiple Minnesota residents, breaking each engagement off and leaving us in tears at the altar. But even then, I can take care of myself Mr. Christensen thank you very much. But maybe I'm a little bias.

"This entire situation has been done tongue-in-cheek and about supporting the hometown girl. We Minnesotans stick together. It's been a great civic experiment on how easy it is to get in touch with your elected officials and showing that, yes, we can have a sense of humor,” the Republican lawmaker said on Thursday.

You're free to make jokes, Drew, but is this really what your platform is for?

Apparently he thinks so, because he wasn't kidding.

And he didn't stop there.

Drew Christensen is doing nothing but making a mockery of our legal system with this stunt, which really doesn't need much help in that department as it is. Oh, and he's getting his few minutes of fame, too.

Does Christensen think his law will pass? No, not really. He even said himself that he isn't going to vote for it. But that doesn't undue what has already been done.

It is laughable that we have a reality TV star in the White House. And now we have a lawmaker using social media to author ludicrous bills based on reality TV. What's next?

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