CSotD: Ponderables and Imponderables
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I’ve seen so many cartoons combining the Strait of Hormuz with some visual imagery that they flow by without my noticing them anymore. But Hajjaj’s piece stopped me, in part because it’s so attractively done and in part because he’s a Jordanian/Palestinian living in Abu Dhabi.
The war is on the other side of the world from us and happening in a very different culture, and I think that makes it seem a bit theoretical. It doesn’t help that our administration has kept the press at arms’ length and has been silent, if not completely dishonest, about what’s going on over there.
Hajjaj offers a viewpoint from someone to whom the war is very real and very local and very sad. We need to realize that it’s not a partisan issue but rather an issue of recognizing all humanity as one single thing, as we did when we saw civil rights workers being attacked by dogs, as we did when we saw a Vietnamese girl burned with napalm. As we should when we see the sorrow of a region transformed into a war zone.
Which is not to say that there’s no room for satiric humor in all this. Dear Leader seems to be going off the rails and his latest nonsensical idea of renaming the strait for himself is laughable, and there is a duty to point that out, in part to break his hold on loyalist voters and legislators and in part to set a mood for possible correction.
People talk about the 25th Amendment, but it’s not relevant. That amendment was passed after the Kennedy assassination because someone asked “What if he had lived?” and they also had the recent example of Eisenhower’s heart attack. Triggering the resignation requires, if not a cooperative president, at least a professional, ethical cabinet, and it assumes a change in the president’s status. Trump may be more extreme than before, but he’s the same narcissist as ever, and he’s assembled a collection of loyal cronies who will never turn on him.
The only solution is to vote the rascals out in the midterms, but also to realize that there isn’t going to be some sort of Nuremberg Trial but rather a rebuilding and reform. We might take that stupid airplane back and force a return of some of the other emoluments, but don’t expect anything dramatic.
This is real life and the best we can hope for is real solutions.
It starts with voting, and it’s beginning to look as if voting by mail is a risky gamble, given that the USPS has defied a court order not to cooperate with the notion of a national list of approved voters.
Two things have to happen: People have to vote, and votes have to be counted. According to the whistleblower, things are already in place that could send thousands of mail-in ballots to the trash, but I’ve been through poll-worker training and, at least here, in-person ballots are on a belt-and-suspenders level of security that promises true results.
It sounds simple, but it needs to be taken seriously. It’s discouraging that Republicans in one largely blue Texas county voted to reduce the number of polling places, but it’s encouraging that hundreds turned out to protest before the vote was taken.
The people, united, will never be defeated, and I wish everyone were as motivated as those angry Texans are now.
It’s not as if Dear Leader and his pals stand much of a chance in an honest election. Trump is down to a 33% approval rating, the lowest of his career, and his preposterous renaming of Lake Ontario isn’t helping either his own popularity or Republican chances in the midterms.
To put that approval rating in perspective, Joe Biden had a 35% approval rating in October, 2024, just before he dropped out of the presidential race. Kallaugher’s cartoon does not overstate Dear Leader’s current situation.
There’s crowing at Xitter about how Trump’s seizure of Venezuelan oil is going to lower prices at the pump. It’s not easy to pick out the bots and trolls on that site, but it’s encouraging that these triumphant, joyful claims are being slapped down by more realistic posters questioning the overall morality of the move but, what is more important, pointing out that, even if it works, it will be years before the acquisition filters through to the gas pumps.
As for Trump’s promise to use Venezuelan oil to refill our dwindling Strategic Petroleum Reserve, that would also take years, but, it would likely only happen by redirecting other sources, since Venezuelan crude is not the type used there.
Oh, and, by the way, the Venezuelans would like a chance to elect their own government. Trump wants to go back to the days of McKinley and tariffs and imperialism, which brings to mind Mr. Dooley’s discussion of America’s takeover of the Philippines:
We can’t give ye anny votes, because we haven’t more thin enough to go round now; but we’ll threat ye th’ way a father shud threat his childher if we have to break ivry bone in ye’er bodies.
And, after all, the Philippines and Venezuela are much alike, when you can’t find anything on the map anyway.
Speaking of distant people’s distant problems, First Dog suggests that, besides feeling sorry for the thousands dead or missing in the wake of the Nepal disaster, we should think about how that horror came about, and how many people knew the climate was changing and how many ignored it and how many denied it and how many enacted policies that made it worse.
And it isn’t passive denial. You could point to a person, for instance, who promised the fossil fuel companies that, if they gave him a billion dollars for his campaign, he would work to stop alternative energy programs, pull his country out of the Paris Accords and overturn environmental laws intended to slow climate change. He might even dismantle the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
If such a villain existed.
Ah, well, perhaps this isn’t the time to raise political questions. For now, hopes and prayers and food packages.
But we’ll have other chances. Unless we act.
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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