CSotD: The Wide World of Whatever
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Ann Telnaes provokes a response of “Well, yes, but no …”
I think I’m done wondering whether Trump is a deliberate liar or truly believes the preposterous nonsense he says. I’ve compared him in the past to OJ Simpson and Jeffrey MacDonald, both of whom denied murders that they most assuredly committed. I think they were sincere, having traumatized themselves into believing an alternative reality that was more bearable.
I’m not in a position to psychoanalyze the president, but, while I can’t believe he really thinks he graduated from Wharton with honors, much less first in his class, I am perfectly willing to believe that he thinks when refugees seek “asylum” it means they had previously been confined to mental hospitals and I’m neutral on the issue of who he thinks pays tariffs.
Thing is, I don’t care if he believes a test for early signs of dementia constitutes an intelligence test, because I know what it’s for and I’ve seen the video of him wandering around gormless in Japan, and I’m more concerned — as others have pointed out — that reporters who were all over Biden for being old and confused seem to be giving Trump a pass on his declining mental state.
To accuse him of deliberate lies assumes he can tell fact from fiction. So, yes but no: Yes, he says things that are quite obviously not true, but no, I don’t think he’s doing it on purpose. And, no, I don’t find it presidential.
The problem is not that Nora O’Donnell didn’t turn the 60 Minutes interview into an inquisition. Jonathan Swan shredded him in 2022 and here we are anyway.
The problem, rather, is that he gets some hare-brained idea and nobody around him bothers, or perhaps dares, to dissuade him from pursuing it.
Granted, Matson can be criticized for this cartoon because Trump’s lunacy actually is costing him public support. But who’s going to tell him?
He’s surrounded himself with suck-ups and even if they are bright enough to spot his nonsense, they’re also bright enough to shut up and pretend everything is hunky-dory.
And besides, Venezuela may not be a source of fentanyl, but it’s an extraordinary source of petroleum.
The whole world is watching. Parkins is British-born but lives in Canada and an Australian cartoonist reposted this. It’s funny but not so funny if you’re actually in one of those boats or if you have children of military age or if you live in Venezuela.
As I suggested yesterday, if they were really blowing up drug dealers, they’d be showing off the evidence. As it is, Hegseth has warned the military not to discuss the boat strikes with Congress without Pentagon approval.
And that’s not funny, either.
Nigeria is farther down on the list of oil reserves, but as ÇİFTÇİ notes, there’s plenty of good raw materials in Africa generally and in Nigeria specifically.
Apparently, Dear Leader saw a story on Fox that said Muslims were threatening Christians, which sent him into one of his tizzies. It’s not true: Militant extremists are threatening both Christians and Muslims in Nigeria, but Boko Haram is all over much of Africa, and there’s nothing extraordinary happening to Nigerian Christians.
It’s similar to when he saw Escape from Alcatraz on TV and decided we should reopen the old prison. It was an unworkable, asinine idea, but administration personnel had to go out there and walk around as if it might really happen.
As for consulting with Congress, what’s the point? Johnson isn’t about to let the House resume business anytime soon, and, even if he did, just as Matson drew a parody of Bob Mankoff’s instant classic, Johnson’s been doing an extraordinarily good imitation of Sgt Schulz from Hogan’s Heroes.
Meanwhile, a congressional committee and the MAGA faithful have been having conniptions over Biden’s use of an autopen, a device that goes back at least to Harry Truman, though Jefferson had a similar contraption. They contend that Biden pardons signed with an autopen are void, though there’s no legal precedent to suggest it and several to refute the idea.
However — and I’m not making this up — Dear Leader pardoned a cryptocoin magnate convicted of money laundering, who has assisted the Trump family in banking millions of dollars. Now he says he doesn’t even know the fellow.
No word yet from the House Oversight Committee about the validity of that pardon.
In other more-or-less the same news
(Guy Richards Smit)
Smits nails today’s mayoral election in NYC perfectly. The NY Post has barely had space for anything more than impassioned diatribes against Zohran Mamdani, and led yesterday with the news that “Nearly a million New Yorkers ready to flee NYC if Mamdani becomes mayor — possibly igniting largest exodus in history.”
I’ve seen Gandhi, so I doubt that last part, since NYC has a population of 8.8 million and an estimated 7.15 million Muslims left India at partition. But maybe they meant to write that “nearly a million New Yorkers plan to stay.”
Here’s the point: You don’t have to believe that Mamdani is the perfect candidate to believe that everybody involved who is over the age of 30 has had a bad case of cranial-rectal inversion over this campaign, and that if this local election has any wider implications, it’s that this would be a very good time for everybody to wise the hell up.
But never mind what I think. Margaret Sullivan has an excellent analysis of the whole thing, and I suspect a second lesson will come in the midterm elections, when same-old-same-old candidates lose to those who behave as if they’ve been outside talking to real people.
Juxtaposition of the Day
There remains a contingent of Lotto Nation nitwits with their noses pressed against the glass, but we’ll see how Mamdani does in NYC, and that may show the gap between the Jay Gatsby Wannabe Party and the young voters of the future (which begins now).
And a round of applause for Cole for getting Dickens’ view of a dual society correct. Does anyone remember what happened to French royalty because of that split?
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