CSotD: The Pushmi-Pullyu President
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As you see, the pushmi-pullyu illustrated by Dr. Dolittle author Hugh Lofting didn’t look much like two llamas sewn together, and the Doctor, seen at the right, looked more like W.C. Fields than Rex Harrison, but Dab Dab the Duck asked the relevant question, which people around the world have been asking about the pushmi-pullyu currently in the White House.
Jeremy Banx illustrates the outcome of such lack of direction, as we go from small tariffs to huge tariffs to tariffs that Dear Leader says are just right but it’s all subject to change.
I don’t know of cargo ships changing direction mid-ocean, but that’s cartooning. What is clear is that ships have been tied up in port and then suddenly launched in hopes of completing their trip from Shanghai to Seattle before Dear Leader changes his mind again.
Dear Leader’s inability to focus on a plan has left exporters, importers, stores and customers in a state of confusion, and the well-worn thing about an oil tanker not being able to change directions on a dime certainly applies to cargo ships as well.
The pushmi-pullyu is used to facing both ways at the same time, but the markets make decisions based on certainty, and so while the net result doesn’t bother Dear Leader in the least, it’s playing Holy Ned with the world economy.
Nigerian cartoonist Kenny Tosh isn’t particularly puzzled by Dear Leader’s latest erratic contradiction of Dear Leader’s clear policy on immigration.
There’s that old snark about dull-witted, inconsistent politicos, “If you want to know what he thinks, find out who he spoke to last,” and Tosh puts the monkey on the Statue of Liberty’s shoulder to provide an answer.
Madam and Eve has, in the years since the ANC came to power, often harped on the high crime rate and general corruption in the country, but it has never suggested that one race is more apt than the others to be threatened or exploited by the current chaos.
And, by the way, 300 Rand is worth about $16 this morning. Don’t underestimate Thandi’s grasp on things, or Mother Anderson’s grasp on her gin and tonic.
Another South African points out the problem with having Elon Musk be the last person the Pushme-Pullyu President has spoken to, which is that, while a large number of South Africans are unhappy with how things are going, the poor, picked-upon, threatened complainers there are the same sort of whingers we’ve got here in the United States, not upset because they’re discriminated against but because they aren’t being discriminated in favor of.
It’s very painful to be a white supremacist in a land where nobody else thinks white people are superior by definition. It’s even worse to try to claim white victimhood when so many black people there can also claim to be victims of crime.
But it’s more a matter of whining than a matter of fact, and, again, it’s important to note that South Africa has a lot of problems and a lot of people wish things were different.
Still, as long as the Trump administration is sending Afghans who aided our troops back to face the wrath of the Taliban, and feels that being threatened by gangs in El Salvador is no excuse for trying to come here, it’s very hard not to suspect that skin color is a crucial factor in the Trump administration’s immigration policy.
Particularly if black South Africans are not extended the same right to claim refugee status.
Juxtaposition of the Day
A man is known by the company he keeps, and it has not gone unnoticed that Dear Leader is not only meeting with MbS — that’s politics — but is embracing him and (purely coincidently) making personal business deals or (ethically!) having his sons do so on his behalf.
I’m never sure whether Mrs. Betty Bowers is a cartoon character, a meme or a pseudonymous wiseacre, but she sure doesn’t dance around the point here. A good leader can meet with all sorts of unpleasant people without making it seem like a pleasure rather than a political obligation.
However, Trump the President’s Middle Eastern trip just happens to be to places where Trump the Businessman has major deals on the burner. It’s nice, I suppose, that things get greased with some purchases of US weaponry, which helps our economy, but it certainly doesn’t begin to pass the whiff test.
And then there’s that stupid airplane. As Zyglis points out, the gift is a clear violation of the emoluments clause in the Constitution, though Attorney General Pam Bondi signed off on it, having already signed off on her personal sale of $1 million of Trump Media stock the day before Trump announced his tariffs and sent the market into a tailspin.
I guess if the attorney general does it, that makes it legal.
But in a twist that reminds me of the old Robert Wagner TV show It Takes a Thief, it seems the ol’ con man may have been conned. I don’t have a separate source to confirm this, but Charlie Sykes says David Frum says that the jet the Qataris are generously giving Dear Leader is a white elephant they’ve been trying to unload for the past five years.
Which also reminds me of the Leave It To Beaver episode where Wally wanted to buy a car. Maybe Donald Trump needs to take Ward along with him to avoid getting ripped off with this “gift.”
Juxtaposition of the Day #2
At the risk of ending on a down note, it’s hardly surprising that secret police who roam around kidnapping and disappearing people would hide their faces and refuse to identify themselves.
Molina has lived in a land with secret police, but Bish has figured it out, too. In an open society, the majority of police officers are decent people doing a job that, if sometimes imperfect, is generally well-intentioned.
In a closed society, thugs are the default, not “a few bad apples.” Mehdi Hassan has some thoughts about the secret police we tolerate.
Maybe we should be hiding our faces.
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