First of all, we knew — didn’t we? — that Dear Leader wasn’t going to cough up the money he owes E. Jean Carroll. Not in a timely manner, certainly, and most likely not out of his own pocket. It seems more likely that the courts will force him to pay his fines to New York State, though it could just mean taking some second mortgages on various properties.
Presumably based on honest appraisals this time.
But as Dave Whamond suggests and news reports confirm, he’s still counting on being able to run cons on his loyal followers. He’ll spin all the facts he can spin and lie about any facts he can’t spin, and the suckers will dig into their pockets once more to help their hero.
Call it the National Pigeon Drop, and it’s okay to admit some admiration for the boldness of the con, so long as you don’t allow yourself to be distracted from its pure evil.
I’d also caution against thinking that the people who fall for the con deserve to be fleeced for being so gullible and/or downright stupid.
I once covered the story of a Vietnam vet with significant brain damage who sat all day watching TV sales channels while his wife was at work. He ordered truckloads of things which they couldn’t afford and certainly didn’t need, and it took some concerted pressure from the local veterans’ group to get the TV network to accept it all back.
It didn’t seem humorous and I didn’t hear anyone say his family deserved it.
What I would suggest is that when a politician seems more intent on advancing a brand than on advancing coherent policies, your Spidey Sense should tingle.
Whamond shows some of the geegaws Dear Leader has been selling his flock, and I suspect the only reason he hasn’t been peddling the Trump Pocket Fisherman is that he hasn’t thought of it yet.
The latest con is those stupid sneakers, and, just as Trump NFTs looked ridiculous but sold out quickly, so, too, the sneakers went like hot cakes.
They’ve inspired a lot of cartoons, most of them kind of obvious, but here are some that I really liked:
Clay Bennett (CTFP) put a pair on the feet of the Republican Party, with the laces knotted in promise of a pratfall. Inshallah.
I agree that voters may well be backing away from the GOP because of its continued loyalty to a rapist and conman, but, then again, I’ve overestimated voters plenty of times.
Part of pulling a con is persuading the marks that you are the one they should trust and that everyone else is out to cheat them. Not only has Trump done an excellent job of this, but he’s got major media like Fox and Newsmax and Sinclair helping to fog the facts and advance the con.
So when the FBI arrests a source for lying in an investigation, the MAGAt networks barely cover it, having already convinced the pigeons that the FBI is part of the Deep State.
As Bill Bramhall reminds us, Trump boasted early on that he could commit murder in front of a crowd of witnesses and his supporters would stick by him. Now he’s openly taking the side of Putin against our NATO allies, and getting plenty of support from the Freedom Caucus and other power-hungry pachyderms.
Even those who admit they don’t really want Russia to invade European countries are saying so quietly while continuing to stifle aid to Ukraine.
The degree to which Trump’s turncoat pronouncements will dissuade voters remains to be seen, and it is reckless to assume you know the answer.
In fact, Bramhall went on to address the matter himself, showing the idolatry that caused those ugly, impractical sneakers to sell so fast and so well.
But my favorite commentary comes from Barry Blitt, who weds the golden sneakers to the old thing about sneakers on a wire being a signal to indicate where you could buy drugs.
When Peacock adapted Brave New World as a series, it emphasized Huxley’s “soma” above the level in his novel, and this commentary discusses it in a way that might be speaking of the comforting, mind-numbing drug available wherever you see the Golden Kicks.
Elsewhere Among Dubious Assertions
Lisa Benson (Counterpoint) contends that raising wages will require raising prices.
I agree with her basic analysis, since back when the minimum wage first came under fire, it was widely discussed that the price of burgers would have to rise. What I don’t agree with is her sense of outrage, because the overall reaction was … yeah, so?
As you can see by the date, this meme is more than 10 years old and if raising the hourly wage is enough to get workers off welfare, maybe fiscal conservatives should be saluting the move rather than condemning it.
Assuming their loyalty is to actual taxpayers and not to the tax-exempt oligarchs.
Juxtaposition of Malaprops
One advantage of having gone to a small school is that I know who was in my eighth grade social studies class, and none of them went on to become political cartoonists.
But they did learn that “lame duck” refers to political figures who have lost an election but remain in office until the next government is inaugurated.
It arose in the days when we had elections in November and inaugurations in March. Today, the lame duck session is only a few weeks.
Unless you warp the term to mean anyone not likely to be elected again, at which point a president becomes a lame duck on the first day of his second term. And a British PM becomes a lame duck whenever you decide he probably won’t win another election.
Political commentators should be required to take eighth grade social studies.
Back to fiscal conservativism, it occurs to me that Michael Ramirez (Creators) can’t really want to build dams in an area where rainfall is historically rare, unless he is accepting that climate change is real. Which is okay with me, because, given how long it takes to build a dam, climate change would be here by the time they’re ready.
Meanwhile, be aware that snowpack is also building. They’re gonna be okay.
Except for this earworm:
I am not going to listen to that earworm because I lived there for seven years, and I know that the lyrics are a big lie. It frequently rains in both Los Angeles and San Diego from late October to early March, and a 40 degree (F) drizzle is much less pleasant than a 30 degree flurry would be. Change “rains” to “snows” and I would believe the lyrics.
Bear in mind that, like “Detroit City” and several others, this is a song about an ambitious failure who has been lying to the folks back home. He’s not only been poured on by the real weather of Southern California, but drowned in the failure of his own dreams.
I saw Barry Blitt’s about ten minutes after I did it.
I can’t imagine that Ramirez would be a fan of the taxes needed so that ‘they’ can build those dams.