CSotD: Smack Bags Keep Fallin’ on My Head
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Shannon Wheeler starts us off today with Too Much Coffee Man and a cartoon vague enough to tickle the imagination and blatant enough to stir a little depressed passion, if such a thing exists.
That is, I'm not sure he's talking about voting for Donald Trump in an act of system defiance, but, then again, maybe voting for Jill Stein or Gary Johnson was ironic. Machs nix. However it happened, here we are.
Ever since Alanis Morissette burst upon the scene, people have been arguing over the use and misuse of "ironic," and I'm not sure quite where the boundaries are on "ironic voting" or how it quite fits at the moment, but I blame Nate Silver & the gang.
That is, if we hadn't been told that the race was over before the polls opened, there might have been a little more focus and a little less frivolity in the booths.
Frivolity does have its place, mind you.
In 1968, when LBJ had been banished, Gene had been sidelined and Bobby had been shot and (the real) Mayor Daley had engineered the outcome of the Democratic Convention to his liking, voters — people 21 and over — were stuck with a choice between Tweedledee on their ticket or Tweedledum on the GOP ticket.
Not yet being 21, I tried to convince my parents to vote for Dick Gregory, not because I thought he'd win or even be a very capable president if he did, but to send a message, because his platform was humane and practical and brilliant.
Also, his flyers worked in the change machine in the campus library, but the only "message" that sent was that vending machines had a long way to go.
However, it did attract a lot of attention and may have caused people to read his book and follow his campaign.
In any case, voting for him, or for Stein or Johnson, is pure "sending a message" because you'd have to be a fool to expect any of them to actually win.
By contrast, I knew freaks who got a kick out of going into the "Wallace for President" storefront and asking for buttons and literature, and that was definitely ironic.
They joked that a Wallace victory would bring on the (counter)revolution. A half century later, I'd say we're testing that theory and it isn't holding up terribly well.
If anyone voted for Trump on the theory that he wasn't going to win but that a strong anti-Clinon vote would throw a monkey wrench into the Democrats' system, well, both ironic voting and true sailing are dead.
Regardless of how many people voted for Trump without wanting him to win, he did, and Matt Wuerker points out where we've landed. I don't know if the quote is real — it's listed here but not here — but given the things Bonaparte definitely did say, this sure feels like him.
In any case, it's a better quote than
As horrible as it sounds, when they throw the large sacks of drugs over, and if you have people on the other side of the wall, you don’t see them—they hit you on the head with 60 pounds of stuff? It’s over.
We could have elected Cliff Claven and gotten more sensible policies and fewer embarrassing quotes.
And while we're being embarrassed, let's go to our "The Whole World Is Watching" file to note the observation that Kenyan cartoonist Gado added to that ridiculous moment when Trump delivered a cheesy singles-bar level compliment to Madame Macron. I was aware that she is older than her husband but the reversal hadn't occurred to me.
If the Bags O' Drugs comment spurs comparisons to Wile E. Coyote, this ghastly moment brings forth the Bug Bunny quote, "What a maroon."
Geez, Donny, get a clue from this shoemaker.
Juxtaposition of the Day
And here's a depressing thought: Remember that question that Howard Baker kept asking at Watergate?
"What did the President know, and when did he know it?"
I don't think anyone in the Nixon White House ever denied the Watergate burglary, but it went from "no connection" to blaming it on over-enthusiastic underlings going off on their own, and while nobody necessarily believed that the Chief didn't know what was going on, there were enough loyal followers in Congress and the nation that they couldn't have impeached without the tapes proving that he had been aware of what was going on.
So here's your homework: Devise a scenario in which you can make a compelling argument that a man who thinks drug dealers routinely fling 60 pound bags of drugs over walls and who thinks it is appropriate to comment upon the physical attributes of a woman — and you can make that "another man's wife" if you want to dumb it down a little more — that such an ungrounded nitwit could mastermind an international plot to steal an election.
Maybe, if we want to get this embarrassment out of the White House, we should consider a different model than Nixon.
Meanwhile
Another breach in the defenses, as conservative Glenn McCoy takes a swipe at the GOP's failure to come up with a credible health care package. McCoy would likely welcome nearly any replacement for the Affordable Care Act, but this doesn't look like a wish for a little nibbling around the edges of what the Republicans have proposed so far.
Whatever happens up at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, McConnell and Ryan and their cohorts had better shore things up in the legislature if they want to hold onto the power they have, so far, failed to harness.
They're losing allies in the media at an unsustainable clip.
Finally, Chip Bok offers a reasonable explanation of why Kim feels he needs nukes: He's seen what happens to tyrants who lack them.
I've read analyses along this line, but this is the first time I've seen a cartoonist abandon the "crazy fat boy" approach and apply some informed intelligence to the issue.
Here's your moment of plus ca change
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