CSotD: Ruling By Error
Skip to comments
I swiped today’s headline from a column in the Guardian that was written even before Dear Leader stunned the world by proposing the renovation and reopening of Alcatraz, based on his having watched a Clint Eastwood movie.
The Alcatraz proposal also came a day or two after someone on social media asked if any bookies were taking bets on Trump making it to the first anniversary of his inauguration without having to be institutionalized, which seems like a joke but then not everything leading up to Alcatraz had been smooth sailing.
The American press has, for the most part, been sanewashing Trump, but he’s made it increasingly difficult and the Guardian columnists — a combination of US and UK and Aussie residents — have not muted their analysis of what is going on.
The above-linked column carried the subhead “In their rush to implement a barely concealed authoritarian agenda, this administration is producing a litany of blunders, gaffes and slip-ups” and then produced an extensive list proving the point, in addition to which a second columnist penetrated behind the clown show to declare
Science is suffering: massive cuts to federal funding of research into medicine, climate change or anything that might include a word on a long list of banned ones – like “transition” – has decimated research, made the US a global laughingstock, and set the cause of human thriving back by years. The economy is in chaos, and the bribery is all but out in the open; it no longer seems to occur to many Americans that their politicians should not be on the take.
And if you think she’s exaggerating to make her point, consider this post that appeared on social media the other day:
If the blatant bribery isn’t enough, the Alcatraz proposal was yet another case of providing cartoonists with material that barely required more than what Venables did: Add a little something to make the lunacy clear.
Huck had only to change the mitre into a dunce cap and the real challenge was to be the only cartoonist who did it, which he was not. But he compounds his point by not redrawing the astonishing bit of AI that Trump himself posted and which his White House staff reposted.
The insult to 72 million US Catholics — just under a quarter of the nation’s population — technically falls short of blasphemy, but only in the same sense that criticizing Israel’s Gaza policy isn’t necessarily antisemitic.
Parsing precise definitions won’t get you past the part where you’ve pissed off people.
Yes, it’s just a joke. Unless you remember that the Know Nothings and the KKK also made jokes about Catholics, and Jews and African-Americans, in which case you might not laugh.
You also might not laugh if you were a Republican clinging to narrow majorities in both houses of Congress with midterm elections come up, since voters have rejected Trumpism in other countries.
Even if only a quarter of American Catholic voters found the image insulting, that’s a problem.
Worst possible solution? Distracting voters by telling veterans of Korea, Vietnam, the Gulf and Afghanistan that not only are you cutting their sources of help but you’re revamping Veterans Day to exclude them.
Granted, the 16.2 million American vets are just 6.1% of the voting-age population, but 96% of them are registered voters and I’m guessing not many constitute the World War I veterans who would be honored by changing November 11 to honor them alone.
As for making May 8 “Victory Day for World War II,” my father had been in Europe May 8 and was scheduled to go settle things in the Pacific, which continued for three more months but ended before he could get there, thanks in part to his sticking around Dachau awhile to help the freed prisoners get back on their feet.
Like many WWII vets, he won’t be voting in 2026 on accounta being 105 years old and dead.
If I were president, I might focus a bit more on veterans who are still alive to vote and who probably will.
Good thing Trump has a press secretary to explain that he didn’t really mean to change Veterans’ Day and he just said it because excuse me I have to go tie down the loose cannon again.
You’ve got to admit, she’s loyal. Just don’t ask her why we’re not supposed to know that American consumers are going to pay those tariffs or how much.
Her boss explained it clearly on Meet the Press:
It’s simple to understand: If a company imports a $100 suit from China, they’ll pay another $145 in tariffs, but they’ll eat that extra cost and sell the suit for $130, their usual wholesale-to-retail mark-up, giving them a total profit, to put it in bookkeeping terms, of ($115).
Also don’t ask how her Wharton-graduate boss managed to go bankrupt half a dozen times.
Mike Pence just got the JFK Profile in Courage award, which infuriated some people who believe that holding a grudge is more important than gaining an ally, but does show what kind of person kept things from going off the rails in the first Trump Administration, an error in hiring that Dear Leader didn’t make again this time around.
(Historic Note: They shuffled Spiro Agnew out the door before they began impeaching Nixon. JD Vance may be Trump’s hole card.)
Granlund’s salute to Pence is secondary to his pointing out that Dear Leader doesn’t appear to have much of a grasp on the Constitution.
Though Trump managed to go viral — not in a good way — with how he explained the Declaration of Independence in his ABC interview:
Well it means exactly what it says, it’s a declaration, it’s a declaration of unity and love and respect and it means a lot and its something very special to our country.
You’d think a guy who has been married three times would know the difference between wedding vows and a divorce decree.
By comparison, the oath of office isn’t terribly complex, but Trump apparently didn’t quite comprehend his pledge to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution.”
If you’re surprised, you haven’t been paying attention. Or maybe you don’t mind.
Which is why we have elections.
Comments 22
Comments are closed.