Comic Strip of the Day Editorial cartooning

CSotD: A Sad Sack of Different Things

Sometimes the jokes just write themselves. ICYMI, our president actually said “An old fashioned term that we use — groceries — I used it on the campaign. It’s such an old fashioned term, but a beautiful term. ‘Groceries.’ It’s a bag with different things in it.”

This is, of course, the same president who believes that people have to show ID in order to buy those old-fashioned grocery things, which helps explain why his Secretary of Commerce confidently said that, if his mother-in-law didn’t get her Social Security check, she’d shrug it off and not complain.

They’re not from this planet.

Wright explains that average people don’t mind all power being concentrated in the hands of the wealthy, and that Democrats are being foolish to suggest otherwise.

Perhaps not, but those who remember history remember that average GI’s identified with a character known as the Sad Sack, and that they knew it wasn’t his entire name, that he was a Sad Sack of ****, getting it from all sides.

Now the Sad Sack’s grandchildren are getting it from powerful men who don’t care about them, and if they don’t see the problem today, they likely will see it soon.

Power, combined with a lack of mercy, has seemed like enviable, welcome strength to a lot of people, but there will come a point where they begin to realize they are at the bottom of that pile.

Consumer confidence, as Bennett depicted it, was already at a low point and had cost the Democrats dearly in the 2024 elections.

The problem will come when people realize that eggs are no less expensive than before, and that they can no longer blame Joe Biden, particularly as other prices rise.

And as Whamond suggests, the notion of “Liberation” will wear thin when they realize they’re being liberated from their ability to get by day to day, and to keep their savings, if they had any, and their retirement plans, if they had any, and must now simply struggle to pay their rent and buy that bag of different things to which the President has given the beautiful, old-fashioned name “groceries.”

The President comes up with all sorts of names for things, Katauskas suggests, because he is a master at marketing his ideas to the public.

In fact, he’s even thought of liberating people around the world who didn’t even realize they needed, or wanted, to be liberated, Blower says.

His cunning plan involves a sharply targeted combination of tariffs that can’t help but hit the mark. And possible a few other things as well, Morland suggests.

However, Argentine cartoonist Becs suggests that perhaps it is the rest of the world being liberated, as the US retreats into America-First economic isolation in an otherwise global market.

And it’s hard to argue with the notion, given that Trump has even placed specific tariffs on a pair of isolated Australian islands inhabited only by penguins.

Just wait until you see the price of herring by next week!

April 2, 2025, will forever be remembered as the day American industry was reborn, the day America’s destiny was reclaimed and the day that we began to make America wealthy again,” the President declared, and Banx takes a moment to predict how the day will be celebrated by happy Americans.

Juxtaposition of the Day

Danziger suggests how the tariff program may be sold, as an America-First way to punish imports and support American industry, and Darkow echoes the notion that tariffs will fall on imported cars.

But few in the auto industry see the tariffs as nearly so one-sided, and de Adder provides a graphic reminder that even a vehicle made in America has had components from overseas imported not just once but repeatedly as various parts are assembled into the final product.

Estimates of the increase for a Ford F150 vary widely, from $400 to $5,000 depending on who is doing the math, and a move by the Senate to reduce tariffs on this continent will reduce the impact on American carmakers, to the extent that “American cars” are not Canadian or Mexican made. Or made of aluminum and steel.

Perhaps it is cynical to suggest that, as import prices rise, American companies will increase prices out of self-interest, but the President has been on both sides of that issue, saying it shouldn’t happen but then admitting that it probably will and that he doesn’t care.

As Slyngstad suggests, even the MAGA crowd may be chagrinned at the impact of high tariffs on Chinese and other Asian manufacturers of regular clothing as well as of golden high tops, red ballcaps and other MAGA accoutrements.

Note, too, that GOP loyalists still promote the lie that foreign manufacturers pay the tariffs. There’s no other way to phrase it: It is an obvious lie, because tariffs are paid by the importers, so this is not fresh money coming to the United States. It is our own money creating higher costs that will be passed on to consumers.

The consumers who are so wealthy that they don’t have to even go into those stores that sell bags of different things that we call by that beautiful, old-fashioned term “groceries” won’t notice the increases in the cost of clothing or of food or of smartphones or anything else.

But the people who not only have to budget for bags of different things but go to the Bags of Different Things Store to obtain them certainly will.

We can expect, as Bramhall says, applause for Liberation Day from the loyal crowd, but the polls suggest that the hardcore loyalists do not form a majority.

Trump’s approval ratings for the economy in general and cost of living specifically are negative, and this past week’s Democratic victory in Wisconsin, turndown of GOP amendments in Louisiana and Republican squeaker wins in red Florida districts all point to problems in the coming midterms if the economic oil tanker doesn’t change directions on a dime, which oil tankers never do.

Not even on Liberation Day.

Especially not on Liberation Day.

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Comments 17

  1. I thought that Wrights point was that Democrats were using words like “oligarch” instead of “ruled by rich people.” Since he talks about “communicating with the average guy.”

    1. I learned the word “oligarch” in high school, and if it’s still unfamiliar to anyone the dictionary is online. “Democrats can’t communicate with average Americans because they use big words” is not the own he thinks it is.

      1. These are the same people who think “woke” and “DEI” are insults.

        Of course big words are scary and confusing.

      2. And if big words aren’t scary and confusing, they are elitist and out of touch. And too many people don’t want to admit they don’t know what a word means and can’t be bothered to look it . Remember the “author” who wrote a book about the evils of wokeness but couldn’t define what the term meant?

      3. It is not that people don’t understand the big words, as that there is no emotional resonance to them. People can understand both the Latin term and the four letter one, but no one shouts out “excrement!”when they hit their thumb with the hammer.

      4. Ted: Hence the cartoon in which a man, having hit his thumb with a hammer, calmly turns to his wife and says, “Dear, what is that word your brother shouts when he hits his thumb with a hammer?”

        The caption? Too much yoga

  2. Republican squeaker wins in red Florida districts

    A loss by 15% is not a squeaker. It’s just better than 30%.

    1. Squeaker is relative. If it didn’t scare them, it should have. Not perhaps for those districts, but for others they have marked “safe.”

    2. There’s always a special election lull for the party in power…15% was very encouraging. The Left’s embrace of radical 80/20 issues will sink them in the midterms, but at least moral victories are giving a spark of joy.

      1. You keep go on keep telling yourself that, genius. When the big beautiful tariffs take a sledgehammer to jobs and 401k’s come midterm time, voters are not going to be too pleased with whoever’s in charge, regardless of how “radical leftist” the alternative is.

  3. I think it was HL Hunt who complained that a million dollars didn’t go as far as it used to.

    1. In a similar vein, Sen Dirksen one said about the budget, ” A billion here , a billion there, pretty soon you’re talking real money”

  4. Who would disagree with the need to come up with a good replacement for oligarchs. Any and all suggestions welcome.

    However, rich folks or something similar won’t do. MAGAites and many others aspire to be rich. McDonalds uses Monopoly Man to promote business. The Lottery thrives, as does the entire gambling industry.

    The needed word/image needs to promote using wealth as a political weapon. Something related to Elon Musk might work.

  5. We are also confusing that ‘oligarchy’ only means rule by the rich. A better definition is that an oligarchy is rule by the rich FOR the rich. None of these firings/closings from social service agencies is to find fraud or waste but to take funding from them to give the wealthy tax breaks.
    As for Mr. Wright, I don’t know who he’s hanging around with, but many folks I know what representation for all the citizenry.

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