CSotD: Democracy Circles the Drain
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There are scores of cartoons questioning who is the president, Donald or Elon, but I particularly like Jeff Stahler (AMS)‘s take because it suggests some sneakiness on Elon’s part, rather than a willing handover by Dear Leader.
The way to get Musk out of government is not by direct demands. Trump hates being told what to do and would persist out of stubbornness.
But he also hates sharing the spotlight and he particularly hates to be ridiculed. Suggesting that Elon is making him look weak and foolish may be a better tactic.
The latest oddity in this bromance is that Elon reportedly crashed Trump’s dinner with Jeff Bezos. Or perhaps not, depending on where you read it. The BBC says they all dined together, while the Times of India repeats colorful languageTM indicating that Musk wasn’t expected or particularly welcome.
Trump himself covered it up by posting “Everybody wants to be my friend” and it’s possible he believes it. Others, however, are wondering where Musk fits in to American politics and also the international scene.
Senator Chris Murphy responded with some alarm over Musk’s embrace of Germany’s far-right AfD party, which is widely considered a neo-nazi revivalist group, though it has its defenders, most of whom appear to back away from the extremists rather than denouncing them entirely.
Musk’s support of the AdF brought back memories of a fellow who used to write to me whenever my educational features in the local paper offended him, which was pretty often. As time went by, I learned that his father had been a German soldier killed in WWII and his mother had remarried an American in the occupation and brought him here.
He was an unrepentant Nazi and even used the term “mud people” in one of his notes to me. I forget what finally drove him away.
It may have been my printing of an oral history of a Black GI in WWI, which was illustrated by this recruiting poster of the era.
But I think it was this current events piece (sorry I don’t have the clear color image) in which the city of Dresden marked the anniversary of its firebombing, but spelled out a message to neo-nazis who wanted to exploit the event. They set out candles that, viewed from above, spelled “This City is Sick of Nazis.”
But that was 2005. The AdF is yet a minority party in German politics, but having Musk on their side may brighten their future.
Thomas Meitsch, who cartoons under the name Schwarwel, adapts a familiar meme to indicate his response to Musk’s support of the AdF (Note the X on “Robin’s” shoulder.), perhaps with a secondary nod to Will Smith, since Batman’s remark roughly translates to getting Nazis out of your mouth.
And the satirical magazine, Der Postillon, saluted him with this graphic and an accompanying article, from which a translated portion reads:
The multi-millionaire, oligarch and secret US President Elon Musk today presented the public with a new leap that he has made in the past few days. … According to insiders, he is already preparing a simplified variant of the jump for short appearances, in which only the right arm is raised.
Meanwhile, it’s getting difficult to tell satires from genuine Trump pronouncements.
For instance, his threat to re-acquire the Panama Canal has been circulating and while it doesn’t seem like something a sane person would post, that doesn’t necessarily mean that he didn’t say it. Reuters and Fox, among others, are reporting it as genuine.
I’m remembering Dave, a 1993 movie that was something of a knockoff of The Prisoner of Zenda, in which a lookalike random person is brought in to temporarily impersonate the president. In both versions of the tale, he proves to be a better person than the genuine article, who nonetheless is restored to power.
Fortunately, the Muskrat doesn’t much look like Dear Leader, so if he’s permanently swapped in, it will be our own damn fault for failing to notice.
Juxtaposition of the Day
Speaking of unqualified candidates for major office, the latest wrinkle in the Pete Hegseth saga is that reports of his drinking on the job have been backed up by photos of his office showing a well-stocked supply of Joy Juice.
Cartoonists have had grim fun with the notion that there could be any credibility to a promise to go on the wagon if he is named Secretary of Defense, with Danziger showing him debasing himself with empty promises and Whamond pointing out that no HR person would accept such an empty pledge.
However, while fun is fun, what isn’t fun is that Republican Senators would confirm him if his acceptance required that he sprout butterfly wings and fly around the Capitol building.
As Pat Byrnes points out, the safety of our troops and the defense of our nation are irrelevant when weighed against the certainty that Trump and Musk would order uncooperative legislators to be primaried.
Profiles in Courage might only be a short pamphlet if it were written today, though it would include a chapter on Liz Cheney, who the Republicans are investigating for her role on the January 6 Committee.
Joyce Vance explains how utterly insane it is to prosecute a legislator for work clearly and absolutely protected by the Constitution and by common sense, and Senator Murphy weighs in with alarm.
The True Believers remain undeterred.
The Senate is not only poised to confirm a drunken sexual assaulter who defends war criminals as Secretary of Defense, and an apparent Russian asset as director of national intelligence, but, as Matt Wuerker (Politico) points out, is about to place a worthy successor to J. Edgar Hoover at the head of the FBI.
Memories are short, but, for those too young to know of events a half-century ago, yes, Hoover was that bad.
Colbert King — no relation to Hoover’s most famous target — remembers.
King resigned from the State Department over the abuses of COINTELPRO, the outrageous, extra-legal harassment campaign carried out against Americans who didn’t meet Hoover’s standards of patriotic conformity.
In this column, he scratches the surface of what Hoover did and of what we may expect from Patel.
Those of us who remember are neither looking forward nor backing down.
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