CSotD: Buyers’ Regret
Skip to comments
Bennett’s day-after cartoon would have been easy to nit-pick a year or so ago, because half of us wanted the exchange immediately while half of us were pleased, so using Uncle Sam would have been unfair.
However, waking up on Boxing Day to find that he bombed another country and then spewed about 150 screwy messages on social media and still found time to tell an eight-year-old girl she was beautiful and cute, and to tell another kid that Elton John wrote Pinball Wizard … well, we all know Who wrote Pinball Wizard, don’t we?
If this were your grandfather, you’d be doing more than taking away his car keys.
I keep seeing people post about the 25th Amendment, but I’m not sure they’ve read it, because it’s set up specifically for the administration to self-regulate and was based on “What if Kennedy had survived the shooting?” rather than “What did Nixon know and when did he know it?”
The whole thing is worth reading, but the critical portion is this:
Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.
And don’t get too excited about “such other body” because “and” means that it still relies on JD Vance making the call, and it results in JD becoming the president, which might give him motivation but doesn’t do a whole lot for the rest of us.
However, the situation is not hopeless. I don’t know much about Mike Pence’s new group, but they’ve already snatched most of the brains from the Heritage Foundation, and announced plans to pursue a more traditional conservative agenda rather than Project 2025.
We’re seeing the GOP bloc in Congress teeter a bit, and while MTG isn’t my ideal of a great statesperson, I don’t think the country is in a position to be rejecting potential allies. There also may be others who are staying in office but perhaps breaking away from the Cult of Personality, whether they join Pence or just begin thinking for themselves.
If FDR can work with Stalin, I think Chuck Schumer should be able to build a few alliances across the aisle. You don’t have to put a ring on it: We both retreated to our respective corners at the end of the war.
Juxtaposition of the Day
Pick the one you like, or go with both. I’d fault Deering for suggesting Trump as the Scream because that’s more the response to him. Trump doesn’t know he’s nuts.
But having a dyed-in-the-wool rightwinger like Kelley turn against him is a sign that some unexpected people are at least gasping, if not screaming.
And keep in mind that Kelley drew that cartoon before Dear Leader bombed Nigeria and dropped a truckload of crazy on Truth Social. I doubt this morning’s news is making him regret having expressed a few doubts.
Meanwhile, over on the funny pages where lead time is considerably longer, it’s not a surprise that Lalo Alcaraz had this one teed up for Boxing Day, given his progressive views.
Ditto with Rabbits, which has been critical of Trump since Day One. I’m not sure Dear Leader’s ridiculous attempt to suck up to FIFA in exchange for that peace prize is going to cost him any NFL votes, particularly since sports fans have differentiated between football and futbol for decades, but the question of a third term is worth raising, since it’s not only screwy but deeply unpatriotic.
Scott Stantis has been wrestling with his traditional conservative values for some time, given that Prickly City was originally marketed as equal time for Doonesbury but less extremist than Mallard Filmore. But while he’s expressed serious reservations about Dear Leader for awhile, this is more a bold stance than a sly dig.
There’s a perennial discussion of placing comic strips and editorial opinion, with both Garry Trudeau and Wiley Miller having stated that they’d rather be on the comics page than the editorial page. If nothing else, that provides a chance to ambush readers who were expecting to see Dagwood run into the mailman again and who avoid the editorial page.
Editorial cartoons are expected to make people think, but good comic strips do, too, even when they aren’t making readers think about politics. Some of the silliest gags on the funny pages become familiar, lasting bits of folk wisdom, and if a cartoonist can make a solid gag with a political twist, there’s a chance of getting under the skin of an otherwise uncommitted voter.
Message placement is becoming increasingly difficult, as Corporate America allies itself — willingly or in self-protection — with the administration.
Bear in mind that there was no Fox News and no Rush Limbaugh in the days of Watergate. There were highly conservative columnists and TV commentators, but the people who made a hero of Gordon Liddy were outliers, not major players on the stage.
Not only do we have Fox advancing the notion that Biden invaded Ukraine, but now CBS has declared its loyalty to the throne, joining the Washington Post in ingratiating itself with the power structure at the cost of abandoning serious journalism.
Adams anticipated this more than a week ago, but Dear Leader has made it more true today than it was then. His willingness to toe the Russian line and abandon NATO becomes clearer every day, while his adventurism in Venezuela, in Iran and now in Nigeria not only alienates our allies but threatens to inspire the next class of Osama bin Ladens.
The question, as Trump spins further and further out of kilter, is whether he can last until the midterms, and how those elections will shift the balance of power and control in our country.
Meanwhile, as Charlie Sykes says, “You are not the crazy ones.”
Comments 14