CSotD: Political Conversion Therapy
Skip to comments
I gather it happened, though I don’t subscribe to Paramount+ and I wouldn’t have stayed up that late anyway. But from what I’ve read, it came off and people who made the effort to be there had a good time, which is unsurprising.
If they were apt to view it the way Rowe did, they wouldn’t have gone, and while the Guardian’s reporter was appalled at the over-the-top jingoism and occasional extremism, what did anybody expect?
Constant Readers — and even occasional drop-bys — won’t be shocked if I confess that I’m not a Donald Trump fan. However, while I realize that a lot of people like him and what he’s doing, I think there are many who waver, and who could be challenged and changed.
Which raises that thing about “comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable.” Clearly, anyone who likes Trump would not like the way Rowe has been depicting him since the elections of 2016.
His imagery comforts the afflicted, but, while he merrily afflicts the comfortable, he’s not attempting to convert anyone.
Nor is First Dog trying to persuade Trump fans to cross the aisle, though this birthday salute is a sharp indicator of how Donald Trump is seen by critics abroad.
We may regret how Elon Musk set his DOGE brown shirts on a destructive rampage, and convinced Dear Leader with lies about South African genocide, and even gave a Nazi salute which his fan base quickly denied, but he is a unique character, and if he disappeared tomorrow, it would take an army of tech-bro oligarchs to replace him.
Trump, however, has the unwavering support of those tech bros, and has rebuilt the Republican Party into a cabal of loyalists such that, if his dubious health failed him tomorrow, his policies and his approach would carry on.
If you want to see America return to the Good Old Post-WWII Days, you’ll have to convert some of his less dedicated followers into once again championing science, health, education and civil rights.
The hardcore MAGAs never supported those things, but they had no voice in the days before Fox and talk radio. Even Joe McCarthy’s reign of terror fell apart when a few brave voices stepped up to rally the decent folk.
As Jones puts it, Trump’s core group is easily led and capable of simultaneously believing contradictory things, but as his approval ratings crater, it becomes clear that, though MAGA hardliners will never change, there are others who can be persuaded, assuming they are lured in rather than driven away.
IMNSHO, that means that the process of comforting the afflicted should not further afflict and alienate those who are becoming uncomfortable.
Compare and contrast:
I generally like Ward Sutton’s work, but while name-calling may amuse his fan base — who also get a kick out of his satiric Stan Kelly persona — the term “white trash” is an absolute red flag to a lot of people who grew up in poverty, particularly those who may have done well in school but were ashamed to let their friends meet their parents or see their homes.
The term has the same impact in their world as the N-word or wetback or any of a variety of race-based slang expressions.
Whamond flirts with a similarly offensive expression, “trailer trash,” but he doesn’t use it, and treads lightly, depicting a bad neighbor that even people whose financial situation puts them in mobile homes and Section 8 housing can appreciate.
It’s not pleasant to work hard keeping your own lawn neat and to have trash and weeds a few feet away, and it’s even harder being the neighbor who stands in an open doorway, listening to the argument next door and wondering if things will settle down or if it’s time to call the police.
Whamond, who is Canadian, has the beaver next door looking over the fence, and it’s a key factor in his piece, though I think most American readers would miss the US/Canada aspect of his statement about good neighbors.
If he’d had a human on that side of the fence, it would be a different message and one that would ring more bells in this country.
Wuerker avoids sociological commentary on several levels. He not only doesn’t bring poverty into the conversation, but by depicting sloppy gold spraypaint, he doesn’t make it a put-down of poor taste, but, rather, one of lousy execution.
Politics should be pragmatic: Craft stores wouldn’t sell gilded stuff to put on your walls if a lot of people didn’t think it was just swell. In general, putting people down for being poor or because they don’t share your exquisitely refined taste is hardly a likely way to make friends.
You won’t convince the True Believers, but you can reach, and possibly persuade, a substantial group that has supported Trump in the past.
Converting those who waver could include reminding them of divisive gaffes like Trump’s insulting statements that he doesn’t care about people’s financial problems and that he looks at high gas prices as “peanuts.”
Rall combines that lack of empathy with the vast amounts of money Trump and his family have amassed since he took office.
The party line among the MAGA crowd is that Trump donates back his salary, but less dedicated conservatives should realize that his golfing weekends at Mar A Lago total far more than his paycheck, and they need to hear about his insider trading and his greedy Trump Airport profiteering.
Kearney appears in small, rural papers, and is thus in a position to address the harm Trump is doing in those deeply Red markets. Canadian potash has been a sticking point in US/Canada trade since the FTA agreement of the ’80s, and, combined with the fertilizer shortage caused by his Iran war, Trump should be vulnerable in fly-over country.
Appeal to people’s intelligence so they’ll doubt evasions and lies. Fox & Friends won’t shake their faith in Dear Leader, but Kristen Welker’s insistence on evidence was widely reported and the resulting hissy-fit should open some minds.
Forget scorpions and frogs. It’s time to talk buzzards and monkeys.
Mike Peterson has posted his "Comic Strip of the Day" column every day since 2010. His opinions are his own, but we welcome comments either agreeing or in opposition.
Comments 25