Dr. MacLeod offers the best cartoon take on yesterday’s appearance by Donald Trump at the annual convention of the National Association of Black Journalists, which has been called both a “Dumpster fire” and a “train wreck” by the press as well as on social media.
Oliver Darcy has a nice wrap-up of the coverage at Reliable Sources, while Poynter’s Kerwin Speight tells what it was like to be in the room. If you missed it and want a sample, Aaron Ruper has a video compilation here, while masochists and sadists can watch the entire thing on C-SPAN’s website.
Ruper’s highlights are about 11 minutes long, while the entire event was only 35 minutes long, which gives you a sense of how little of it wasn’t entirely jaw-dropping.
The less astonishing parts were still pretty bad, and while I make no pretense of liking the fellow, even his fans have got to have their heads in their hands this morning.
Clay Jones summarizes things with a good call-and-response cartoon: Harris reacted to Trump’s ducking out of debating her with that remark, while the strangest part of the NABJ appearance was his weird take on Harris’s racial identity:
I have known her a long time, indirectly, not directly very much, and she was always of Indian heritage, and she was only promoting Indian heritage. I did not know she was Black until a number of years ago, when she happened to turn Black, and now she wants to be known as Black. Is she Indian or is she Black?
He ignored the interviewer who pointed out that Harris is a graduate of Howard and belonged to a Black sorority there, and seemingly ignored the groans from his audience of Black journalists, who didn’t need Politifact’s live fact-checking to know they were being lied to.
Kerwin Speight reports that there was an announcement before the event, asking everyone to behave professionally. I’ve been retired for a couple of years but I still have to remind myself that it’s okay for me now to applaud at events. There’s “no cheering in the press box” but I’m not in the press box anymore.
None of my sources and contacts were ever mistaken about my feelings, but they respected my keeping them out of my coverage, at least until I left the newsroom and began writing a weekly column. I don’t know how many people in the NABJ audience were columnists, but, it being an in-house gathering, nobody was ethically required to sit on their hands, and they didn’t.
Coming into a gathering of Black people you know are completely up-to-date on the news and on your own history and lying to their faces on the topic of race is, at best, an example of the kind of prideful arrogance that ancient Greeks wrote tragedies about and, at worst, a sign that maybe the wrong fading intellect dropped out of the race.
What’s really interesting in the coverage is the divide between people who felt the NABJ shouldn’t have given a noted racist a platform and people who felt it was valuable to let him spew his views before the public.
Having someone there on stage to challenge his lies and bigotry made this very different than uncritically broadcasting one of his rallies.
Speaking of how the press should cover candidates, Lisa Benson (Counterpoint) is upset that the media has been paying attention to Kamala Harris and accuses them of aiding the Democrats in boosting her image.
Surely she must remember a Republican candidate who feasted on free airtime in 2016 and 2020 from a press who found his antics, if not entirely newsworthy, certainly extremely clickworthy.
For that matter, it would be interesting to compare how many of her appearances, and how many of his, are getting live coverage, and which networks are spending how much time on each candidate.
Not to mention which networks have rules against cheering in the press box and which ones consider that a normal part of coverage.
Or, as they might spell it, “covfeferage.”
Juxtaposition of a Growing Sense of Futility
There’s no explanation for Ramirez’s insult except desperation. There’s nothing to back up the assertion and Venn Diagram cartoons, after all, are a dime a dozen.
Kelley, meanwhile, seems to think Hillary Clinton is still in the game. On the other hand, he’s smart to attack the “weird” thing, which has not only caught on but has substantial sting: It’s not vulgar, and it’s not necessary to pin down exactly what you mean.
If the shoe fits, your audience will slip it into place.
There’s an old thing about how, if someone had snuck up behind Hitler at one of his speeches and yanked down his pants, World War II would have been averted. But they’d have found another Hitler to take his place, because that’s what they wanted.
Still, authoritarians hate being mocked, and laughing at them is effective. Not only does “weird” get under their skin, but funny stuff can be a tonic to keep the faithful motivated.
Here’s an example, a quick response paraphrasing yesterday’s racist attack.
Thing is, it’s Trump’s own fault for not using Man Tan, reviewed here by a fellow who apparently shares Trump’s self-reported stature of 6’3″, 215 lbs.
Man Tan doesn’t turn you orange like Orangu Tan.
Juxtaposition of Serious Cartoon Work
Project 2025 hasn’t tested well with the public and so, despite it having been written largely by his former staff and despite him and his VP candidate on record as approving of it, Trump has suddenly remembered that he doesn’t agree with it at all.
Ohman points out that he still seems to agree with Germany’s 1933 policy proposals, while Anderson offers a laugh at the futility of trying to escape from what he has already been linked to.
The impact of a second Trump presidency doesn’t hinge on his embracing Project 2025 as long as he enacts its basic proposals. That’s not funny.
But we’ve only got two choices, as William Hazlitt suggested:
Man is the only animal that laughs and weeps; for he is the only animal that is struck with the difference between what things are, and what they ought to be.
It really is amazing how triggered the GOP is by being called “weird”
But it also makes perfect sense.
If there’s one thing conservatives love to pride themselves on, it’s being straight-laced and boring.
They just cannot tolerate the notion of being seen as being in any way “weird” or abnormal.
To them, that’s the domain of those “hippie liberals” who cater to the “queers” and “coloreds” >_>
Watched the entire unedited NABJ debacle. Ms Scott simply quoted his own vituperative bile back to him and then allowed The Prince Of Peace And Unity to hang himself. It was grimly compelling to behold as he mustered all 107% of his towering intellect and Donsplained himself into a deep crevasse of wilful ignorance and hatred. He somehow even managed to add three Ks to the word “black” each time he uttered it.
I’ve read questions why the NABJ provided him with yet another platform / chunk of free airtime, but it seemed like a masterstroke to me. This wasn’t just another of his I’ll-do-all-the-blathering-but-take-no-questions Megachurch Rally masturbatory monologues. Presidential aspirants are expected to cogently and coherently answer hard questions. Instead, the audience were regaled with possibly the most blatant bulletin yet of pompous, condescending, logic-free megalomaniacal bewilderment beamed live from the furthest reaches of Planet DarnOld.
Even though his own handlers aborted (…) at the 34-minute mark of the scheduled 1 hour, his “what he really meant to say…” minions STILL insist he was “taken out of context”, “misunderstood”, “misinterpreted”, “ambushed”, etc etc. Today’s startling “Tr*mp Campaign Statement on Liberal Mainstream Media Malpractice” is one helluva feat of gaslighting and veiled threat.
I would truly love to know what his Piltdown Man brain was believing he would achieve by conducting himself as he did in that setting. In my entire life I’ve never once laid a finger on another human being in anger, but after witnessing this latest abomination I just wanna grab Golden Boy and relentlessly flick his ignorant, miraculously-healed pig-ear until he cries like the snowflake baby he totally is.
I figured DJT thought he could gain the black votes just by showing up and winning over an obeisant audience with his charm and wit. Boy, did he get that wrong.
The bigger questions is, did anyone in his reelection team flag this as a bad idea? If they did and he ignored it, that’s further evidence of his mental decline. If no one did, it’s another example of DJT’s failure to surround himself with anyone but lickspittles afraid to tell the emperor he has no clothes.
Maybe this will help explain. Billie Bush tells Trump’s mindset that he obviously still thinks works. You can skip to 4:40 in to get directly to it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4uABj30AWs
“…at worst, a sign that maybe the wrong fading intellect dropped out of the race.” You might be giving him too much credit here by referring to him as any kind of intellectual. As always, love reading your roundup and synthesis!
Logically, what he accomplished was showing his base that when he tries to reach blacks, they just act rude disrespectful. There’s no way he was trying to attract black voters with that performance.