CSotD: Playing the Fools
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It’s interesting that satire can bring a smile even when there’s nothing funny about it, and by framing this in a well-established, popular satire, the Simpsons, Ruben Bolling boosts the humor quotient to compensate for the horror he’s describing.
Then he touches it off by having the Haitian Simpsons sheltered by their silly, fatuous neighbor, to provide one more giggle before he drops the Anne Frank quote as a dispiriting challenge. So, do you still believe people are good at heart?
And do you suppose little Anne still did, once she was out of the confined safety of the Secret Annex and facing the reality of Bergen Belsen? That’s a real question; she may have found comfort in the other inmates, but, then again, one of the lessons of Maus is that Vladek Spiegelman was not a very nice fellow and perhaps that was what allowed him to survive.
Bagley’s handwriting made it unclear whether this cartoon is from 2026 or 2022, so I did a search and it is four years old, but it might as well have been drawn to capture the toxic caterwauling currently on Xitter as the loyalist mob seeks Anthony Fauci’s head for reasons they can’t articulate but are eager to believe, and accusations they can’t back up but are happy to repeat.
MacKay, too, published an oldie, this one from 2020, and rather than pointing out the fools as Bagley did, he demonstrates the fooler who overrode Fauci’s expertise with a succession of quack recommendations and anti-scientific pronouncements while the pandemic was killing thousands.
It doesn’t matter if Trump believed the nonsense he preached of bleach and ivermectin and magical lights as cures for covid. What mattered is that he preached it from the bully pulpit, so that believing it became less a matter of logic and more a matter of patriotic loyalty.
Some very evil people have purposely, knowingly lied in order to direct the mob and gain power. But a loyal fool is as dangerous as an intentional villain, and by their fruits you should judge them.
Logic and honesty don’t much enter into matters in a dystopia.
Sutton’s portrait of Sen. Ron Johnson is reminiscent of Batman’s nemesis, the Riddler …
… while his fatuous questions remind us of a modern stooge, Tucker Carlson, who plays the fool as a debating technique that allows him to raise issues without having to verify them. “I don’t know,” he says, “I’m just asking.”
Funny thing: Johnson really did try to grill Fauci over vaccine safety in yesterday’s hearing, and the matter is now spread all over Xitter as bots, trolls and useful idiots rant about the dreaded vaccines. But anyone with any memory recognizes that the development of a vaccine through Operation Warp Speed has been praised even by Trump opponents as a triumph of his administration.
Recalling history has no more relevance than logic or, god knows, science. Bear in mind that the Trump administration has begun erecting signs outside museums urging people not to believe what they see inside. Telnaes suggests putting up signs with more urgent warnings, but, again, if people are eager to be fooled, they’ll not only persist in their folly but distrust and hate anyone who tries to disrupt their beliefs.
The faithful keep believing, even though the person questioning the Smithsonian’s grasp of history has declared that George Washington seized British airports during the Revolution and that Japan is an Islamic nation.
And that he’s in favor of fair, honest elections.
Fauci, however, is no fool, though he wouldn’t have had to be terribly smart if he simply noticed the declarations before yesterday’s Senate hearing, in which his inquisitors promised to charge him with perjury for his testimony. So he gave them nothing, and his invocation of his Fifth Amendment rights seems unassailable, since it was obvious that whatever he answered would, indeed, tend to incriminate him.
Now they’re threatening to charge him with contempt for claiming his constitutional right to avoid self-incrimination, and the trolls are screaming that only guilty people decline to testify.
Goris counters with the reminder that Dear Leader himself took the Fifth nearly 450 times when he was facing fraud charges, despite having earlier declared “The mob takes the Fifth. If you’re innocent, why are you taking the Fifth Amendment?”
That is not, however, the quote that matters. This is:
“This constant lying is not aimed at making the people believe a lie, but at ensuring that no one believes anything anymore. A people that can no longer distinguish between truth and lies cannot distinguish between right and wrong. And such a people, deprived of the power to think and judge, is, without knowing and willing it, completely subjected to the rule of lies. With such a people, you can do whatever you want.” –Hannah Arendt
Our free press is of limited use when the president answers questions with insults and evasions, when the Pentagon shuts off access to reporters and fails to hold press conferences in the midst of a war, and when press credentials favor media outlets that ask trivial, powder-puff questions while more essential matters go unaddressed.
However, there is hope. Fox News has backed off from hardcore support of Trump, possibly afraid of another expensive loss in court but perhaps because they don’t see him as a credible voice for conservative politics, an opinion seemingly shared by such former fervent believers as Candace Owens, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Megyn Kelly, Tucker Carlson, and Nick Fuentes.
One-time pro-Trump firebrand Alex Jones has even called for his impeachment, based on his prosecution of war with Iran.
Trump’s relentless, sexist, low-class attacks on Kaitlin Collins and other women reporters cannot be gaining him any support except possibly among the sad-ass incels of the manosphere, who are far louder than they are influential.
Collins is an excellent standard bearer, because she’s young, charismatic and consistently professional. I normally close with a tune, but her appearance on the Daily Show is compelling and encouraging because of how she combines a sense of humor with an intense combination of purpose and of serious journalistic ethics.
Watch this. It will help you to keep the faith.
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.
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