CSotD: Divided Against Ourselves
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Heller addresses the matter of taking Donald Trump seriously but not literally. Some of what he says is clearly ridiculous, some seems unlikely, some is frightening. As the woman suggests, the combination forms an endless cycle of distraction.
However, while he didn’t keep his vainglorious promise to end the war in Ukraine in 24 hours, some of his other projects seem less absurd today than they did during the campaign.
Dear Leader’s first-term attempt to ban Muslims from entering the country was shot down because he specified a religion. Now he’s back with a list of countries whose citizens are barred, and it looks largely like the list of what he previously dubbed “shithole countries.”
He doesn’t seem to know just which countries have large Muslim communities, but he’s compiled a list of nations with significant brown and black populations.
Note that he has listed Libya as a forbidden country, which — though predominantly Muslim — is an odd choice, since he also wants to deport migrants there.
More fuel for the ongoing debate over whether he is playing a game of distraction or is genuinely delusional.
Trump is willing to play to a racist, sexist audience, and he isn’t playing a solo. The willful misunderstanding of DEI plays well to those who believe that black and brown people, and all women, are inherently less qualified than white men.
DEI serves as a reminder — not a mandate — that, when applicants are equally qualified, it is reasonable to break the tie in favor of creating a more varied workforce. But in Lester’s cartoon, it means putting incompetent mud people in sensitive positions that white men would, empowered by natural superiority, do better.
It’s an attractive argument for white supremacists, and in 2024, Trump gained 60% of the white male vote.
But, then again, he got 53% of the white female vote, a significant but not overwhelming difference, echoed in the overall white vote, which went 56% for him and 42% for Harris.
Obviously, race and gender were factors, and there’s little surprising in educational attainment, either: Trump got 42% of college graduates while Harris got 56%, and those numbers basically swapped places for voters without college degrees.
Trump has said that he loves the poorly educated, but in that article an analyst suggests that the difference is less about education than resulting economics, that Trump appeals to an audience that feels they haven’t gotten all that they deserve in life.
McCoy exalts the rightwing, suggesting that they are kind and accepting, while liberals are hateful and judgmental. I can’t provide a link to any statistical proof of this, nor does it reflect my own experience. I’ve had a few friends with whom I don’t talk politics, but it’s a mutual agreement, stated or just understood.
I’m willing to believe McCoy’s experience is different, which surely proves how kind and accepting I am.
But I will disagree with Slyngstad, because I think the war on Harvard is about status and economics, and that, while it may be easy to persuade white supremacists that minorities and furriners are being admitted in place of qualified white Americans, I highly doubt very many expected, or wanted, to go there themselves.
I’m also leery, in this divided nation, of conflating educational attainment with intelligence. Having grown up with a lot of people who never went beyond high school, and some who didn’t get that far, I’m well aware how many of them are intelligent people who do well in careers they like and are good at.
I’m also aware that the farmers of America have been given the shaft, despite having supported Dear Leader in 2024. This article on the levels of betrayal is long but highly worthwhile, but to cite a few high points:
- Trump tariffs decimated soybean exports in 2016 and threaten greater damage this time. His last round turned Brazil (Good-bye, rain forests!) into China’s primary supplier, and cost American taxpayers billions in compensation.
- Cancelling USAID cut off American farmers, who counted on our overseas food programs as a source of revenue.
- Ending school food programs and limiting SNAP represents yet another blow to farm economies. When fewer people can buy food, it’s bad news for farmers.
Some farmers in that story pointed out that Dear Leader’s hostility towards climate change and protecting the environment cost them USDA compensation for willingness to farm responsibly.
Incidentally, the couple I get my maple syrup from each spring also raise beef cattle and he does forestry work. They both have degrees in agriculture, and she’s got a masters.
Ma and Pa Kettle don’t live here anymore.
Juxtaposition of the Day
Trump’s war on Harvard combines his strategy of villainizing foreigners and immigrants with the age-old strategy of stirring up hostility against those people George Wallace accused of being “pointy-head college professors who can’t even park a bicycle straight.”
The similarity has not gone unremarked, and it should also be remembered that Wallace carried five states as a third-party candidate in the 1968 Presidential Election.
The difference is that, back then, a candidate like Wallace couldn’t earn the nomination of a major party.
As for Hands’ cartoon, it is yet another example of exploiting how little non-collegiate voters know about college. He notes that the international students Trump is holding up as disloyal communist troublemakers are, for the most part, here to work, in contrast to the stereotypical Bluto Blutarsky goof-offs and legacies our country can claim as citizens.
Though, to be fair, while Trump apparently matched Bluto’s classroom work ethic, he doesn’t drink.
Juxtaposition of the Day #2
Speaking of doing your homework, Rep. Mike Flood (R-Neb) caught hell at a town meeting when he admitted he voted for the BBB without having read it, and other Republicans have since been outed for having similarly approved a major piece of legislation without knowing what was in it.
But ignorance is an increasingly valid excuse, now that the Trump administration is removing information from government websites and has failed to issue regularly scheduled economic and educational reports if they don’t support Dear Leader’s claims.
Karoline Leavitt insists he’s the most transparent president in history.
She may be correct.
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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