CSotD: Where we are, where we’re headed
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Morten Morland offers the most sweeping, and chilling view of things to come, in the way billionaires are lining up to not just pay homage to, but to pay, the incoming president.
I’d like to think I’d be just as appalled if a president with whose intentions I agreed were getting all these massive donations, and I’ll concede that I wasn’t upset when Hollywood gatherings raised funds for Obama or Clinton. But they felt like self-defense.
That is, if we got money out of politics, abuses would end on both sides.
Meanwhile, we’ve expanded the matter well beyond personal donations from industrial giants that raised eyebrows back when Robert Abplanalp and Bebe Rebozo were handing money to a Richard Nixon who was more shameless than in ’52, when Eisenhower’s campaign made him renounce gifts from wealthy contributors (except the family’s new puppy).
And between the Checkers speech and the fabulous refurbishing of San Clemente, there was the Billie Sol Estes scandal, in which Lyndon Johnson’s ties to a wheeler-dealer convicted of fraud threw the Kennedy Administration into a tizzy, because in those days we didn’t want people convicted of fraud near the White House, much less sitting in the Oval Office.
Perhaps you had to have been there.
Today, we’ve got a convicted swindler not only about to take his place behind the Resolute Desk but selling expensive trinkets to enrich himself, while, as Pedro X. Molina (Counterpoint) points out, proving that grifters are suckers themselves.
That’s not a political observation. In my brief career selling vacuum cleaners, we knew that if a woman said, “You won’t have much luck; my husband is a salesman,” we could count the money before we were in the door. It’s no trick, as Elon knows, to turn that enthusiastic personality to your own purposes.
The blade cuts both ways. Not only is Dear Leader incredibly susceptible to flattery, but Lee Judge (KFS), himself a sharp judge of character, points out that Trump’s ego is so precious that he can’t stand perceived slights, either, even if they’ve done him no harm.
Which would be funny if, as Patrick Chappatte notes, he weren’t keeping his delicate ego intact by launching an all-out war against press freedom.
His repression of dissenting views, according to Amorim (Cartoon Movement) is greatly aided by the aforementioned wealthy supporter, who purchased Twitter, converted it into a propaganda outlet and is now declaring war on Wikipedia in hopes of silencing that major source of information.
Juxtaposition of Statement of Intent
I sometimes feel that I’m either beating a dead horse or just being insufferably liberal when I repeatedly take on certain cartoonists, but my intention is that bad, sloppy reasoning and lazy research should not go unchallenged. However, I genuinely try to be both logical and fair, and this trio illustrates my intent, however imperfectly attained.
Benson has an interpretation of California’s move towards clean air that I think is unfairly vague, since you’d have to know the timelines and intents and details to know what she’s criticizing. But while I think a move away from petroleum is necessary, I recognize dissenting views. I’d likely not make an argument over this one.
Summers, by contrast, is suggesting that it is wrong to challenge RFK Jr’s bizarre and unscientific views of health, which might be a valid point if he were being named Treasury Secretary. But he is being put in charge of the nation’s health, and the fact that he’s muscular is a ridiculous qualification in light of his having views on health that threaten to seriously harm people. This equates to “whatever Trump wants” and such a lickspittle view demands challenging.
Finally, Chip Bok cheers the killer of a mentally challenged homeless man, calling for additional lynch mob justice. His point of view is beneath contempt, and I wonder how his readers would react to a cartoon that asked “Where is Lee Harvey Oswald now that we need him?”
So that’s the hierarchy of challenge you’ll see here. I don’t apologize for being left of the rightwing, but I try to be fair, and I continue to think GoComics is wrong to feature thought-provoking political cartoons but not let readers debate them.
Functional democracy must include debate.
Juxtaposition of the Day #2
Speaking of debates, Jennings points out the way France has settled the topic of rape, with the courts standing behind the brave woman who insisted on going public with her frightening, horrifying experience. She has done for tolerance of sexual assault what the Klaus Barbie trial did for the myth that all of France served in the underground during WWII.
Meanwhile, as Ohman puts it, we in the United States are discussing which high government roles are appropriate for perpetrators of rape and sexual assault.
There was a time when we recognized a responsibility to demand basic decency.
That meant that Gary Hart’s affair forced him to abandon his presidential ambitions, and Bill Clinton’s sexual play with Monica Lewinsky brought about an impeachment.
We can debate whether those personal acts impinged on official duties, but, while the Clinton/Lewinsky business involved an employer/employee relationship, neither woman ever claimed things were nonconsensual.
The same cannot be said of accusations against Hegseth, RFK Jr. or Trump, while Gaetz is accused of statutory rape in which there can be no consent.
How can we even be discussing this? But not only are we offering them high-status, high-power jobs, but ABC knuckled under to an expensive, absurd bit of word-splitting that pitted legal definitions against standard vernacular.
As a citizen, I feel I have a stake in the matter, but, as a man, I defer to JoJo From Jerz, who is both a woman and a rape survivor, and if you want to debate this matter, you have to read her views before you are entitled to chime in.
But brace yourself, because she never holds back, and certainly not on this topic. She’s speaking up and standing behind her experience.
She’s not alone: Lady Gaga also tells it like it is:
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