CSotD: Stop the Presses
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It is the elephant, not the president, who hesitates to dive into an empty pool. They’ve followed him faithfully since his first inauguration, but Republicans have been scrubbing their websites of mentions of Dear Leader and several of them found places they needed to be instead of the half-empty halls of Trumpapalooza.
They’re not eager to actively alienate the MAGA crowd, but with Dear Leader’s approval ratings falling below 30%, there’s no reason to list him as a reference, either. Especially now that he can’t bring them publicity.
Trump played a bold hand in barring three news organizations from the White House, but he assumed a level of competition that would keep others from coming to their associates’ aid.
He assumed wrong, because even Fox, whose coverage is often at odds with the other outlets, has joined a boycott of pool coverage, and while a few ever-faithful fringe networks may have stayed with him, the big boys, the ones who provide video and photographic coverage for those smaller companies, have effectively cut off coverage.
As de Adder suggests, Trump has removed the legislative pillar through partisan loyalty, made a mockery of his own role as executive and managed to keep the judiciary somewhat in thrall, thanks to the shenanigans in a Republican-dominated Senate that kept Democratic presidents from being able to appoint justices.
However, while de Adder shows a few cracks in the media pillar, it seems Dear Leader is finding it hard to demolish.
Not for lack of effort, mind you. The administration has declared press access a privilege, not a right, but not only has that attack on the First Amendment failed in the courts in the past, the sophistry specifically failed when Trump attempted to bar Jim Acosta from the premises, and if he can’t learn from history, he should at least be able to learn from personal experience.
It may be interesting to see if Alito and Thomas remain loyal, but it would be a jaw-dropper to see a majority of SCOTUS justices ignore both precedents of the court and the plain language of the Constitution.
The result being a variation on that question of a tree falling in the forest: If a president makes a speech and nobody broadcasts it, did he make a sound?
Trump did make a speech yesterday and there was some coverage in this country, because it happened at the UN so the boycott of the White House press pool had limited application.
I don’t understand why the UN doorman is greeting a secretary in Italian, given that the issues he drags in aren’t any more pressing in Italy than in others, nor to I know why Benson depicts a secretary heading into a gathering famously attended by heads of state. Certainly there will be underlings in attendance, but they’re hardly the main attraction.
But perhaps they should be. Olivia Troye, who did set ups for two of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) meetings during the first Trump administration, offers a front row view of what really happens during that yearly meeting, and her insider info is under the headline “Forget the Speeches. Here’s What Really Happens at the UN General Assembly.”
The cozy meetings of leaders that take place apart from the speeches may include some secretaries, given that Troye was setting up meetings for Vice-President Pence with heads of state, but as with a lot of politics, it’s yet another case in which the speeches that get all the attention are not the moments that change policies and relationships.
It’s good that the speeches are not to be taken too seriously, because Dear Leader’s address didn’t reportedly provoke laughter this year as it has in the past, but Turner penned this cartoon before the speech, and it may be that they didn’t laugh because they’ve gotten used to his schtick, which didn’t even include a great number of fresh falsehoods this time around.
Juxtaposition of the Day
As it is, Anderson and Markstein go for laughs by pointing out that Dear Leader’s reputation for falsehoods has become so well-established that simply referencing his inability to tell the truth has become something of a punch line in itself, and, as it turns out, he foisted some of the same barefaced nonsense on his audience at the United Nations that he’s been offering his own citizens.
However, while the UN heard once more about all the non-existent wars he stopped, along with his familiar fables about a few real ones that he didn’t, his American audience has suffered a constant flow of phony excuses and broken promises, which may explain how he has managed to get his approval rating below 30%.
Heller wonders how long even his rightwing loyalists can stick by his side, and it’s not only a question we’ll see answered on November 3, but it’s apt to make the next two years a challenge for him.
It is said that LBJ remarked that when they had lost Walter Cronkite’s support for the Vietnam War, they’d lost the country’s. I’m not sure what it means for Trump when Steve Kelley starts mocking him, but it sure can’t be good news.
Trump has often been hailed as a master of media manipulation, but this latest hissy-fit has cost him coverage of his speech at the UN as well as — unless things change quickly — what would likely have been fawning coverage of Xi’s three-day visit to Washington.
He’s facing his greatest challenge: Silence. It’s a challenge so daunting that he has set up Trump TV on YouTube, which early reviews said is a series of clips without much appeal, and is likely to draw the same size crowds as did his birthday parade and his great American state fair.
He won’t be bragging about his latest success, because what he has achieved has been to prove that attempting to control the freedom of the press has the opposite effect and, when you’ve spent a lifetime seeking publicity, suddenly losing it as an obvious result of your own folly must be unbearable.
To him. Maybe not to anyone else.
Mike Peterson has posted his "Comic Strip of the Day" column every day since 2010. His opinions are his own, but we welcome comments either agreeing or in opposition.
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