Who Ron Swanson Would Vote For This Election

Ron Swanson had some of the most coherent political views on Parks And Recreation: he was staunchly pro-business and anti-government, and he didn't trust banks with his money (preferring to bury his gold instead). As such, if you're currently trying to figure out who would Ron Swanson vote for in the 2016 elections, you might assume you've got the Pawnee native pegged. But, according to the actor who embodied Swanson, Nick Offerman, you're probably a little off.

Offerman tweeted about his take on Swanson's probable 2016 political preferences. He stated:

"Ron wouldn’t think much of Trump. First of all, he’d be very sad that a businessman entered politics. Huge step backwards. He had it made in the private sector and he blew it! Doesn’t speak well of his decision making. Second, he went bankrupt 4-6 times, depending on who you believe. Ron does not like businessmen getting bailed out by taxpayers. Third, Trump disrespects women. Ron likes women. Because they are human beings and deserve to be treated with basic dignity. Fourth, his boys are fatuous suck-ups with slick hair."

That's not all:

"Ron would not like Hillary either. She is a career politician. Ron has no love of career politicians. But he would certainly vote Hillary over Trump, if he had to choose between the two. Or he would write in Merle Haggard or Willie Nelson."

And if you think Offerman has potentially been biased by his personal own views on politics, as Screen Crush did observe, it's interesting how this closely resembles Parks and Recreation creator Mike Schur's take on the matter. During a Variety interview he said:

"There have been a couple of people who’ve tweeted things about how Ron would love Donald Trump and my immediate response is, You don’t know anything about Ron Swanson. He would dislike Hillary maybe not as much, but certainly a tremendous amount, because she’s a career politician and he had no interest in career politicians. […] I think with him it would be more about a basic level of human decency. A baseline level of, 'Don’t mock people with disabilities. Don’t mock people whose sons died in the service of the country.' I think if he literally had no choice, if he was being propelled towards a voting machine and his arm was going to flip a lever, and the only thing he controls is which lever to flip — which is the only way he would vote for either of them — I think he would make his arm vote for Hillary. But grudgingly."

On one level, this isn't exactly surprising. After all, who on television is more similar to Hillary Clinton than Ron's close personal friend, Lesley Knope? Like Clinton, Knope loves policies, and she's got a puritanical work ethic. Also just like Clinton, Knope's all about supporting and promoting other women in politics (remember all that effort she put into trying to coax April Ludgate into a career?).

And sure, while Knope and Swanson didn't always see eye to eye politically, Swanson often ended up helping Knope when she tried to push bills through to help the community of Pawnee become a more equal, liberal place. So while initially Swanson may seem to be a hard-line Republican, the values that guide him — fairness, compassion, equality — position him more ambiguously than you might assume.

So if the political motivations of the fictional characters of Parks And Recreation is the guiding light for your vote, you should have a long hard think about the fact that even the most far-right amongst their numbers would definitely not be voting Trump.

Images: NBC; Giphy