If I were a betting man, I’d listen to the croupier, “Place your bets, the game is on!”
I agree with Bill Bramhall‘s cartoon. Trump kept his temper and his tongue in check until his opponent changed and the odds changed along with the lineup.
I particularly enjoy Jeremy Banx‘s take on the way Harris’s fundraising has burst past that glass ceiling.
But I’m not a betting man, and unless I knew Rick Blaine was directing the wheel, I wouldn’t gamble on the outcome.
I once went all in with four 10s only to find that my opponents had a full house, Jacks and Threes. Four of a Kind beats a Full House, but we were playing low-hole and one of his threes was down.
It wasn’t fixed and he wasn’t cheating. But now I fold in wild-card games, which brings us to our first
Juxtaposition of the Day
As I was setting this up, I saw, in the lower left corner of Luckovich’s cartoon, that his piece is from 2016. Normally I’d sigh and take it down. But it’s hardly outdated, because that’s how long Trump has been establishing an excuse for failure.
He didn’t need it that year, but four years later, he used it to launch a fraudulent plan to overturn the election with phony delegates, then incited an attempted coup.
The second part of the Juxtaposition indicates that his faithful have fallen for his con job: Bok proclaims Harris to be a cheater, because that’s the only way she could possibly be ahead of Dear Leader.
The defense for this libel is that Ruiz finished first by not running the entire course, and Harris was a late entrant, but that ignores the fact that Harris has been VP for three years and so was running along with Biden until he dropped out.
If you need to ignore the facts to make your point, you don’t have a point worth making.
Still, unless she wins in an absolutely unquestionable landslide, the MAGAts will call it a fraud because they’ve been set up in advance.
And speaking of absolutely unquestionable landslides, here’s a laugh: Dear Leader is accusing Harris of causing the crisis in Venezuela, claiming that “Crazy Kamala Harris” withdrew the sanctions and that’s how Maduro was able to falsely claim victory.
Except that the sanctions, requiring fair and free elections, were re-imposed in April when it was clear Maduro was planning to cheat. And, of course, Harris was only the VP anyway.
So who’s the crazy one?
Tim Campbell (Counterpoint) suggests that MAGAts are justified in blaming her for the border crisis, because she was Border Czar, even though Democrats argue that it’s not an official title.
But it’s also not the portfolio she was handed. Harris was tasked not with stopping anyone from crossing the border but with finding out why they were so desperate to do so.
And then only in Mexico and the “Northern Triangle” countries of Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras, which doesn’t even include Venezuela, where the universal condemnations of the election had better take hold or we’ll see even more of its people headed this direction.
Where, as we all know or at least as Gary Varvel (Counterpoint) assures us, migrants are part of a devious plot by colored folks from shithole countries to let illegal alien voting overwhelm the efforts of good white Americans to keep control of their country.
Which brings us to
Juxtaposition of the Day #2
Rabbits asks a mystifying question: Even if she wins, how could Kamala Harris possibly be both the oldest and youngest female president in history? Obviously, someone is cheating!
Mike Lester raises a similar question about her ethnicity: How could she possibly be both Indian and African?
Come to think of it, I claim to be of Irish, Danish and Italian ancestry at the same time. Either I’m lying or someone is cheating, because, golly, it just isn’t possible.
Somebody on social media suggested that, if you don’t think Harris is Black, imagine if she’d tried to rent an apartment from Fred and Donald Trump. But I digress.
Or maybe I don’t.
Christine Sharp points out the dilemma all this racial shape-shifting poses to the Vance family, though of course Usha is only of one ethnicity, which doesn’t so much negate Sharp’s point as it does ignore how many ethnicities there are in India.
Don’t look at me: My great-grandfather anglicized our name when he came from Copenhagen, swapping that final e for an o, and — Bingo! — we went from being Danish to being Swedish!
Though, to be serious, I have a disagreement with Jeff Stahler (AMS), whose cartoon picks at a sore spot I ran into yesterday reading NPR reporter Eric Deggans’ otherwise excellent essay about that NABJ conference.
Deggans, however, wrote that Trump sounded like “someone who just doesn’t understand America’s modern melting pot of ethnicities.” .
I hate that damned expression, because the melting pot metaphor is about everyone mixing together so that we’re all the same.
For racial minorities, going into the melting pot can include code-switching, but for any ethnic group, “fitting in” often involves abandoning your ethnicity in order to “look like America.”
For the 47.3% of me that thinks he’s Irish, fitting in means choosing Maggie over Jiggs and never eating corned beef and cabbage, because that’s Shanty Irish and it’s better to be Lace Curtain Irish, which is pretty much the same as not being Irish at all.
I prefer the Canadian ideal, the “cultural mosaic” in which we all make a lovely picture, but each piece retains its own shape and color.
And you can be Asian and Black at the same time, or Irish, Danish and Italian. Or all five, if your folks were the right people.
It’s not a matter of “replacing” Americans.
It’s a matter of enhancing them.
Pat Bagley sums up the NABJ fiasco very well, and I hope it was as much a disaster for Trump’s efforts to end democracy in America as it was fun to watch him blow his cool and show his true colors.
Speaking of which, here’s a South African song about colors that used to be illegal down there:
It became a thing for White supremacists took DNA tests several years ago to prove their racial purity. It didn’t go well. They have since urged their fellow travelers to stay away from these tests because it’s a Jewish conspiracy to alter the results. I wish I could make up stupid stuff like this, but you can never top reality for absurdity.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/neo-nazis-genetic-tests-white-supremacist-stormfront-racial-ethnic-african-jewish-asian-dna-a7899746.html
My friend all due respect but this is dated Friday 18 August 2017. Nobody in my local KKK chapter has ever heard of this.
Has their DNA changed since then?
It would appear so. And took civility with it.
Well, Kamala Harris published a book in which she claimed to be Swedish.
Oh wait, that was Trump in “Art of the Deal.”
What a magnificent array of cartoons ! After this I can’t imagine Trump winning. Try to picture him whining …
In Banx’s cartoon, has the glass ceiling been shattered? IT still looks intact to me, albeit close to being shattered.
My fault, not his. It has been “transcended.”
Which reminds me of a yogi I knew who never used Novacaine. He was able to transcend dental medication.
Many years ago, I read a better metaphor for America than a “melting pot”, but I forget who wrote it. That person preferred to call it a stew, many different ingredients combined together; each with a unique identity, but each contributing so.e flavor to the whole conglomeration.
I like the stew or the mosaic much better. People want to be seen for who they are, not invisible because they try to fit in.
I like the stew analogy, but in the long run the melting pot analogy might be more appropriate. After three or four generations, most descendants of immigrants have become thoroughly entrenched in American culture.
I find it so disheartening how many cartoonists run with material that’s based on lies and easily disproven talking points (e.g., border czar, illegal migrants voting). Even when going for a joke or satire, I put a lot into researching that it’s founded on some truth and facts. I appreciate that you keep calling out the falsehoods when you see them, Mike.
Likewise, I’ve gotten really sick of all the “couch” jokes
JD Vance is enough of a loony scumbag that we shouldn’t have to rely on false anecdotes to smear him
Completely agree. He buries himself with his own words
Metaphorically speaking, what would it even mean to have ‘started partway through the course’ in politics? /Is/ there any meaning beyond the crybaby claim of cheating?
Those aren’t very strong straws that are being grasped at.
I almost managed to heroically resist pointing out that it should be “la partiE” but then the autism came for me and here we are. Sorry.
No, it should have been “le parti.” Tout simplement, il faut retenir que : “Parti” est le participe passé masculin du verbe “partir”. “Partie”, quant à lui, est le participe passé féminin du verbe “partir”. Le mot “parti” peut aussi être utilisé comme un nom masculin, tandis que “partie” peut être utilisé comme un nom féminin.
(Okay, I cheated and stole that explanation.)
My bad. I read it as “the game continues” and not “the party continues”.