CSotD: Avoiding the Cornfield
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Dwane Powell sets the mood for today’s array.
There have been several “screaming toddler” approaches to Trump and his hissy fit over the wall, but Powell not only modifies an increasingly tired concept but melds Trump’s infantile stubbornness with the Christmas angle.
I’ve never understood the “hold my breath” threat and I certainly never saw any of my little friends actually do it, but, if it exists, it’s a particularly good example of a kid who has his parents totally buffaloed, since it obviously wouldn’t take long for someone to wait out the threat.
OTOH, that makes it the perfect symbol for how Trump is able to manipulate the Republicans in Congress, who hasten to keep their darling little Donnie happy at any cost.
Which would make some sense if the brat had more power in domestic affairs than the Congress, which he doesn’t.
However, he does possess the nuclear launch codes and the ability to blow us all into the cornfield without having to go through channels.
If that were their concern, it would be understandable for his GOP enablers to remain so unwaveringly intent on keeping him happy.
But there’s no indication of that.
Rather, they seem to be delighted with how he turns everything into a pinata and then smashes it, because they can scoop up the goodies that fall out while he runs off to destroy the next one.
Then this past week, as Jeff Danziger notes, the country’s strict nanny quit and now we’re all stuck with the job of trying to contain the little monster.
First, he said he’d shut down the government and take the blame. Then he said he wouldn’t shut it down. Then he decided he would shut it down, but somebody else made him do it.
It’s like having Pee Wee Herman in the Oval Office.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tweeted that she thinks Congressional salaries should be held up during a shut down, but, although I’m quite dependent on Social Security payments myself, I’d be happy to see them cut off as well, and wouldn’t it be interesting if the Post Office had to shut down all deliveries four days before Christmas?
Trump’s fan base is much more alert in this Matt Wuerker cartoon than they are in real life, but even people too politically lobotomized to remember that the promise was to build a wall paid for by Mexico, and not smart enough to realize that the shutdown will cost far more than the appropriation Trump is holding his breath over, would notice that they had no money and that their Christmas presents were in storage for the duration.
As it is, however, the shutdown is partial and mostly effects other people.
We’ve pretty well established that “caring about other people” is no longer an American priority.
Nor does Trump’s base seem to remember that Russia was once considered the bad guys, and they’ve gone from “Four Legs Good, Two Legs Bad” to ” … Two Legs Better” without skipping a bleat.
They’re not likely to be outraged by Bill Bramhall’s cartoon because, well, they’re just not.
As for the theory that the military establishment would keep the little knucklehead in check, even conservatives like Nate Beeler have seen that reassurance swept away, and I like how Beeler plays with the concept of a government shutdown, taking it from “people aren’t getting paid” to “the system is being totally ignored.”
Still, as Ann Telnaes points out, the Republican Congress is intent on protecting, rather than correcting and controlling, Trump.
It is a puzzlement indeed.
One can understand how, by abandoning all decency, those who profit from catering to the fossil fuels industry would allow climate change to proceed, on the theory that even their children will be gone before things get completely out of control.
And, if one assumes a similar lack of conscience and morality, it’s easy to see how they would let the economy fall to ruin as long as they personally walked away with a fortune.
But Jimmy Margulies is right about the potential — here and now, not in 20 years — for Trump’s bar-room-blowhard approach to foreign policy to bring us to ruin.
And yet here we are, and Jim Morin points out a reality that nobody over the age of six could possibly miss.
The same people who supported his pointless decision to infuriate Arabs by recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, and who endorsed his inexplicable decision to walk away from a deal that kept Iran’s nuclear program under control, are now condoning, at least by their silence, a move that will put an unchecked Iranian force on Israel’s doorstep while allowing the slaughter of our Kurdish partners and the triumph of Trump’s bromantic partners Russia and Turkey.
I wish I had an answer beyond hoping that Ruth Bader Ginsburg can hold on until 2020.
And beyond hoping that, until then, Dear Leader can screw things up domestically to the point of infuriating voters while not blowing us all into glowing bits with his foreign adventurism.
Howsoever, given the way our legislative branch has abandoned its Constitutional role in balancing power, the next time the army in some banana republic surrounds the presidential palace with tanks and declares that they are taking power until new, fair elections can be held, I’m going to be a whole lot less judgmental.
So, could we use a little levity about now? I think so.
I got an extra laff out of today’s Candorville, because not only is it funny itself, but the topic of department store Santas always makes me think of Larry the Animal, who was hired as a department store Santa because he was fat and had a pair of wire rimmed glasses and was jolly under circumstances the store should probably have examined more closely.
His story is here and will make you laugh. Or shudder. Or both.
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