No, Ron Swanson is a a worthy hero for adults: strong, self-sufficient, no nonsense, hates his job, suspicious of the government, mostly wishes to be left alone, and loves steak. He IS my hero; he's everything, everything, I wish I could be. I could fly higher than an eagle, were he the wind beneath my wings.
I mean he was also sexist and racist, didn't trust "ethnic" people, hated Europeans for the sin of free health care and multiculturalism, was lazy and entitled, had terrible taste in woman and in food, and actively contributed to a worse town by being comically bad at his job.
It's also a comedy show, and those negative traits are played up for the sake of absurdist humor. At the end of the day Ron Swanson is one of the good guys as shown by Leslie Knope's bubbly and constantly optimistic demeanor, arguably Swanson's polar opposite, melting his icy exterior time and time again. Throughout the series we see how much Ron actually loves and respects Leslie.
I mean is it fair to ignore his downsides as non-canonical jokes and absurdism, but champion his qualities are the "real" Ron Swanson? I mean I can just as easily say his respect for Leslie is played up for absurdist humor.
What was funny about those moments they shared when Leslie was able get through his icy veneer and elicit a smile, or a laugh, or when he staunchly defended her work ethic and capabilities as well as those in his office, or offered her advice when her career in politics was taking hard knocks? Those were the more serious moments which leads me to believe they were the more "real" ones and more indicative of Ron's actual character. He did, after all, develop (for what it's worth) away from most of those negative traits by the time the show's run ended: he traveled out of the States, finally landed a truly good woman becoming a stepfather, and was generally more amicable a person than the one he started out as.
