Marco Rubio Becomes 2016 G.O.P. Frontrunner By Being Cuban, An Idiot

In case you missed it, there was an election a few weeks ago, and one of the parties was reaaaaally banking on older white men to vote for them, because that was the only group they had not condemned to hell. This party was called "Republicans," and they did very poorly, as a great many people are not, as it turns out, older white men.

But good news! There is a young, Cuban man repping the Republican Party right now and he is celebrating Mitt Romney's giant white-dude loss with trips to Iowa and interviews with GQ  , for that is where the future of the GOP is nestled. His name is Marco Rubio, and he is a senator, and he told GQ his best friend was Jim DeMint, who is also a senator, who said a few months ago that it was crazy, just crazy, that we aren't just teaching creationism in schools already .

And Rubio,because he must, probably, is jumping on the "let's not be too hasty, All Of Science" bandwagon" with him. To better his chances at the White House, Rubio is distancing himself from the nation's most controversial issue of faith: people who know what they are talking about.

Tell us, hip GQ transcriber, how does Spring Chicken Sen. Rubio feel about matters of the brain?

 GQ:  How old do you think the Earth is?

 Marco Rubio:  I'm not a scientist, man. I can tell you what recorded history says, I can tell you what the Bible says, but I think that's a dispute amongst theologians and I think it has nothing to do with the gross domestic product or economic growth of the United States. I think the age of the universe has zero to do with how our economy is going to grow. I'm not a scientist. I don't think I'm qualified to answer a question like that. At the end of the day, I think there are multiple theories out there on how the universe was created and I think this is a country where people should have the opportunity to teach them all. I think parents should be able to teach their kids what their faith says, what science says. Whether the Earth was created in 7 days, or 7 actual eras, I'm not sure we'll ever be able to answer that. It's one of the great mysteries.

Let us pause for a moment, to consider several important points here:

• For a government at the center of what it calls "The Great Experiment," there seem to be a lot of politicians not really into the results of experiments. We have to ask presidential hopefuls how old the planet is.

• More distressing: The wrong answer will make you far more popular than the correct one.

• A Republican who has gotten popular without screaming hyperbolically about abortion, Muslims, or "religious freedom" still thinksthe age of the Earthis "one of the great mysteries," as if the entire geological record was lost when Atlantis sank. This, it seems, is all we can hope for.

• When asked a question about science, Rubio answered with "I'm not a scientist, man." This sounds stupid, sure. But it also implies that a scientist would know the answer,which they fucking do, but Rubio still just stands, gazing in wonderment, about how we will never know, so that dumb people will vote for him.

Pencils down. The answer is 4.54 billion years. That's the answer. Sorry religion, you failed the test. You had a few thousand years to figure out the answer, you blew it. The good news: If Professor Rubio grades the tests, everyone is right. [ GQ ]