CSotD: A Sad Sack of Different Things
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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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