CSotD: Swamping the Drains

I like David Cohen‘s take because it really does seem like Trump is grabbing random screwballs for his cabinet rather than carrying out some cunning plan.

Granted, anyone who listened to his speeches during the campaign shouldn’t be surprised that his actions now are similarly incoherent and inexplicable, but it would be nice if he would just put on some music and gyrate for the next four years.

However, as Mike Luckovich suggests, the fact that he’s not in control doesn’t mean that nobody is running the show.

I’m not sure Elon is, either, and if JD has to take over before the four years are up — as seems a reasonable prediction — we’re going to discover how well two years in Congress prepares someone for running the nation.

Though at least he hasn’t caused multiple bankruptcies and destroyed an entire sports league.

I’ve noted before that I count on David Rowe to exploit the time difference between here and Sydney and provide up-to-date cartoons each morning, but even he can’t keep up with the flow of lunacy pouring out of Washington. He got Gabbard, Gaetz and Hegseth in, but missed Little Bobby.

However, another Aussie, Glen Le Lievre, fills in the missing clown.

Perhaps we should send all our cartoonists to Australia so they, too, can get a headstart on the day’s events. And also so Attorney General Gaetz doesn’t get hold of them.

Cynics might note that being in Australia is no guarantee of safety, and that the people in On the Beach weren’t spared from the nuclear war in the northern hemisphere but, rather, were waiting for the toxic cloud to reach them.

On the other hand, I’ve seen several commentators suggest that what may save us all is the sheer incompetence and idiocy we’ve seen so far, and that a president who can’t get out of his own way may find it difficult to get in ours.

I’m doubtful that this will work for four years because I agree with Luckovich that Dear Leader isn’t really in charge, but if he can maintain chaos for two years, we’ll have a chance to jerk his congressional majorities out from under him.

Ann Coulter maintains hope that the insane nomination of Matt Gaetz is part of a cunning plan, but when has she been right (beyond far-right)? Still, the fact that she’s apparently astonished brings to mind the story of LBJ realizing he’d lost Walter Cronkite and therefore lost the country.

If Trump has lost Ann Coulter, will that diminish his ability to keep the MAGAts in line?

It won’t hurt him as much as when his tariffs raise the prices he promised to bring down, but that assumes that MAGAts have memories and are paying attention.

The story about LBJ and Cronkite probably didn’t really happen anyway. The real parallel is that LBJ was elected in 1964 on a promise that “We are not about to send American boys 9 or 10 thousand miles away from home to do what Asian boys ought to be doing for themselves.”

The comforting notion being that his broken promise knocked him out of the 1968 race in favor of Nixon’s secret plan to end the war, which turned out to be about the midpoint of American deaths.

Trump may not be able to mount a coherent policy, but, as Walt Handelsman says, he is bringing about Grover Norquist’s vision: “I don’t want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.”

Which seemed like hyperbole at best and insanity at worst, but here we are.

Juxtaposition of the Day

Glen Le Lievre

Marian Kamensky — Cartoon Movement

The song “Send in the Clowns” ends with “Don’t bother: They’re here,” but Le Lievre and Kamensky suggest, rather, a gathering of rats.

Constant Readers will realize how much I appreciate the reversal of the “rats leaving a sinking ship” concept, since the sailors’ superstition was that rats knew when a ship was doomed and would leave before it sailed.

Le Lievre and Kamensky have flipped it to show them eagerly piling aboard instead. Do they know it’s doomed?

Ben Jennings suggests that they aren’t the only ones waiting to capitalize on America’s disaster.

If Trump had asked Putin for advice — and maybe he did — he couldn’t have pleased him more than appointing Tulsi Gabbard as director of national intelligence.

It’s part of an effort to make government more efficient, since, in his first administration, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Ambassador to the U.S. Sergey Kislyak had to visit the White House so Trump could reveal Israeli intelligence to them himself.

As for Netanyahu, the people who refused to vote for Harris because she didn’t exercise the vice-president’s power to end wars are about to be as surprised as the Latinos who voted for Trump on the assumption that he doesn’t intend to deport them.

However, at the moment, the naive mooncalves on the left are distracted by the fact that, like every president of the modern era except one, Joe Biden invited the president-elect to visit him in the White House.

I don’t think Bill Bramhall hopes that that one ungracious chief executive will show some manners and good breeding in four years so much as he simply hopes the guy will agree to step aside when his four years are up.

Assuming he hasn’t gone completely bonkers and been shoved aside by then.

Our hopes in the near term are that a few Republicans remember what their party once stood for, and what it would have refused to stand for.

RJ Matson has his doubts, and it won’t be enough for Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins to go against the flow, since that would still leave the GOP sycophants with a one-vote Senate majority.

However, you may find some comfort in visiting Steve Brodner’s Substack for a rundown on Trump’s nominees as well as a stern statement of resistance against the darkness that threatens. He’s resolved not to let the nation die without a fight.

And check out JoJo from Jerz from time to time, in order to keep your spirits up. Here’s an interview with her, and here’s a sample of what she does: