CSotD: Trumpery
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There’s a lot to like in this cartoon, starting with the dim lighting that counters the bold bragging about a golden age most people aren’t seeing, and the absolute normalness of the woman and child who walk past the shouting speech, getting on with lives that are neither wretched nor glorious.
We see the stories of people being beaten and dragged away, but most of us still have jobs to go to and kids to care for and dishes to wash and lives to live. For most people, the cost of living is a more immediate issue, unless they happen to know someone who was beaten in the street.
And unemployment is rising, but it’s still only 4.6% of the population: For the majority of people, it’s a problem that’s happening to someone else.
But how many times can we be told that the economy is doing well before we look into our own wallets and see that it isn’t? And even if we’re not unemployed, how often can we hear the president say the unemployment rate doesn’t matter before we raise questions?
Even if we believe the president’s rosy view of the economy, we’re about to hit a point that will impact a lot of people, when health insurance rates skyrocket. Granted, the people who rely on assistance to afford ACA coverage will feel it most, but it will hit everybody, because insurance rates are linked. Even those who get health insurance through their employers will see rates go up, if not next month, whenever current contracts renew.
Some of the impact will be immediate, much will be delayed, but it’s going to be hard to sweep this under the rug with happy talk, and the trick for the opposition will be to make it clear who had the chance to fix things but refused to come to the table.
Getting messages across to the public is becoming more difficult as the administration gains more control over major media.
Hegseth’s banishing of independent media from the Pentagon appears not to have worked well. Although the new rule is that reporters there can only report on approved stories from approved sources, there are still journalists probing the bombings and killings in the Caribbean. It’s doubtful that most people are aware of his attempt to quash coverage of the military.
But the clumsy takeover of CBS News has exploded with Bari Weiss’s decision to spike that 60 Minutes story on CECOT. It’s becoming clear that she’d have done better to let it run rather than draw attention to it with a last-minute cancellation that clearly branded her decision as loyalty to the administration.
Not only does CBS look bad, but the story ran in Canada and social media is now flooded with pirate copies. The network is scrambling to block these links, but they’re bailing water with a pitchfork.
McKee is right: Big Brother is here, and the greater question is how information can be shared in a future, if the administration is also able to get control of CNN, and add it to the “friendly” sources, not just Fox, OAN and Newsmax, but the compromised Washington Post and other media unwilling to ruffle White House feathers.
Substack and other independent sources are solid alternatives, but their usefulness assumes a functioning Internet. If push comes to shove, we could find ourselves like the preservationists in Fahrenheit 451, wandering in the woods reciting words that can no longer be published.
Which is to repeat once more, “If you’ve ever wondered what you’d have done in Germany in the 1930s, you’re doing it now.”
Though we’re farther into the ’30s than when we first started saying that.
Burton makes a holiday-themed joke about a man so easily flattered that various organizations and whole nations have learned to give him presents and awards to gain his favor, knowing that he is so unconstrained by Constitutional processes that he can make things happen without the approval of Congress or the courts, so long as he remains focused long enough to follow through.
Stahler doesn’t bother with subtlety in describing the quixotic nature of our Chief Executive. In previous administrations, experts would watch world developments to try to predict how the president might respond. Today, it’s necessary to watch television if you want to guess what swell idea is going to issue forth next.
There must have been some good swashbucklers on late night TV, because his latest folly is the announcement that we’re going to start building a Golden Fleet of “Trump-class” battleships.
Presumably they won’t suffer from keel spurs.
Everything gets named for Trump, to such an extent that Wuerker accuses him of adding his own golden splendor to the nation rather than just the tacky bordello accoutrements he has put up in what’s left of the White House.
He does mark his territory, the latest insult being adding his name to the Kennedy Center, which has not only drawn anger from the Kennedy family but has sparked a lawsuit over the attempted change (which would actually require congressional action).
Anderson suggests one more opportunity for Trump to add his name to a national landmark, and the only thing more inappropriate might be for Dear Leader to demand his name be entered on the Vietnam wall.
The good news is that he doesn’t get everything he wants, and his follow-through is weak. You might be able to get a proposition bet down on whether the East end of the White House is ever going to really have a ballroom or will have to be repaired by the next occupant.
The Trumps are certainly not going to get their damage deposit back.
Whamond reminds us that the president has also made his mark and left his name on a variety of things he might prefer to forget.
The challenge for the Democrats is to keep those failures front and center, since the president’s falling approval ratings suggest that the public is not pleased with how things are going. Even the NY Post, when it announced a poll showing improvement, had to admit that other polls told a different story.
Keep the faith.
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