CSotD: Loyalty and Nervous Laughter
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Bok cuts to the chase. It’s not clear that any particular event, much less crisis, demanded that Trump address a problem that didn’t seem to exist, or at least, didn’t seem to exist to anyone who understood international trade.
Some countries import more than they export, some export more than they import. It’s not a plot. It’s just how things work and always have. But somehow the Wharton School of Business’ most famous graduate seems to think a balance of trade means that exports and imports must zero out.
And so Bok combines “leadfoot” — rushing into things without thinking them through — with “shooting himself in the foot,” and not only making an ass of himself but damaging America’s economy.
It applies to all sorts of ill-considered cunning plans that manage to be ridiculous and frightening at once. The world is laughing at us, but it’s nervous laughter.
Rowson points out all the things Trump might have turned his mind to and all the silly things he brought up instead. Cartoonists often portray Trump as foolish, but Rowson foregoes the raccoon-on-his-head comic portrayal and draws him as a sour old man asleep in the midst of a chaotic mix of absurd executive orders and genuine global disasters.
Somebody must have mentioned to Trump the fact that the US was once run on a system of tariffs instead of income taxes, which is true but was a feature of the Gilded Age in which a few people were wealthy and a whole lot of people were not. You would think that an intelligent person, hearing about a world of tariffs without taxes, would wonder how on earth such a system could function.
Instead, however, Trump decided to adopt it unexamined, just as he has decided that the Navy needs battleships and that our aircraft carriers need to look like the ones in the 1940s when John Wayne was winning the war.
And that with a little Lysol and a coat of fresh paint, Alcatraz could be a spiffy new prison again.
And that if you invite a winning college team to lunch at the White House, what they’ll want is lukewarm Quarter Pounders and cold fries.
McKee makes the point that Dear Leader is surrounded by loyalists who support his performative actions not because they make sense but because they horrify the people on the other side of the aisle, this whole governing thing being based on making your side cheer and the other side weep.
The fact that Dear Leader promised to bring down prices and they have, instead, gone up is not the issue, nor is the fact that he promised no new wars and he’s initiated a whole batch. Nor does it matter that those other folks are calling him crazy and pointing out that he lies and that none of his reforms are helping anyone but himself.
It’s all about loyalties, and, as has been said here many times, the stadium of a losing team can still be sold out, because good fans will stand by the hometeam, and loyal Americans will stand by Dear Leader.
Anything else is unpatriotic.
Juxtaposition of the Day
Niagara Falls makes a wonderful setting for criticism, because it is between the two countries and we’ve already established that going over Niagara Falls in a barrel is both foolish and daring, depending on how it works out in the end.
Brookes points out how little changing the name changes the fate of the fool who goes over the brink, while Blitt mocks the false patriotism of leading the country into an unnecessary, predictable disaster.
I like Brookes’ take, because it suggests that Trump was convinced of his own capability to achieve the impossible, and, specifically, that changing the name will change the outcome.
But I also like the way Blitt has him not just taking himself into an obvious disaster, but leading the entire nation there.
People on social media have been pointing out that the Welland Canal, the means of getting around the Falls, is Canadian and it would be possible for them to stop American ships from going through, but we’d have to be on the brink of actual armed conflict before it came to that.
But as we sit in the sixth month of a five day war, there’s real temptation to mention other waterways that used to be open.
Jennings uses the setting to demonstrate Trump’s overall lack of perspective, and gets a telling pun out of it, as the world watches the fall of America and marvels at how quickly we’ve managed to bring it about.
But how sudden has this change been? There was a time not so long ago when Ronald Reagan was the hero of the right wing, with things named after him and his folksy wisdom quoted at every opportunity. But he’s no longer the exemplar, in free trade or other aspects of American policy.
In fact, when Dear Leader or Natalie or whoever is in charge of Truth these days created this ranking of presidents, the Gipper is not only exiled from the level of greatness, but missing entirely. The ranking doesn’t meet historians standards, but even a fool should realize that there are not only several presidents missing, but that one of them used to be held up as the model for Republican leadership.
No, not Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Harry Truman, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, George H.W. Bush or George W. Bush. The guy that What’s-His-Name International Airport is named for.
Shows what happens when you crib from an 80-year-old list and don’t know who’s been in the White House since.
But the ranking was apparently done by a team that thinks the nation’s capital is in North Carolina, based on this map the White House released.
It’s like the old joke about two guys running from a lion: “I don’t have to be faster than the lion. I only need to be faster than you.”
We’ll see who’s smarter on November 3.
“Name it and claim it” is an imperialist policy leftover from the 17th Century. Didn’t we learn the folly of this on Electric Company?
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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