CSotD: Taco Tuesday Come On A Friday This Week
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A sudden explosion in Trump Always Chickens Out references, caused by a sudden explosion in the White House press room because some nasty reporter asked the TACO how he felt about being called a taco.
One of those things we warn 4-year-olds about: When you react like that, it just encourages them.
So now there are tacos all over the Interwebs.
Davies makes a little extra effort to come up with some additional terms for the menu of the TACO truck, to drive home the other dysfunctional elements of the Trump administration.
TACO is the third silly thing to find its way to the chink in Dear Leader’s armor. First it was the small hands jokes. Then it was “weird,” and the laughter and fury that “weird” inspired might have had more impact on the election, because it was so simple and so effective.
Only I guess someone decided it was too divisive, and “weird” disappeared, despite those who clung to a theory that elections are, by their nature, divisive.
We’ll see how TACO does.
I continue to see value in a book detailing the errors of the Democratic Party, from nominating an already unpopular candidate in 2016 through Biden planning a second term and triggering a last-minute, cobbled-together 2024 race.
So I supported Jake Tapper’s efforts, when I thought that was the book he was writing.
I really do wish Tapper were touring with the same kinds of messages you’d get from Theodore White or other analysts of how things work. But what I’ve seen so far is more gossip than serious political theory, and Luckovich is right: Tapper is a heckler, not an analyst.
The grown-ups are talking now, Jake.
I like Stahler’s piece, which does a good job of explaining what happens when you put an ungoverned, uninhibited knucklehead in power over a Congress unwilling to rein him in.
If Stahler’s intention is to comfort the afflicted, well done. But it’s an argument that will sail over the heads of people who haven’t been thinking things over and who get their information from places that would never carry this cartoon in the first place.
That’s why tacos matter. Is the insult juvenile? Is it divisive? Yeah, but look who got elected on a platform consisting entirely of juvenile, divisive insults.
Fight fire with fire.
Lord knows, the TACO’s backers aren’t afraid to go low. Since the days of Reagan and Gingrich, the rightwing has worked to undermine faith in the American government while building loyalty to the American flag.
And if your goal is loyalty rather than good governance, if you feel, for instance, that the Department of Justice exists to carry out the president’s policies rather than to enforce the law, then it’s natural to assume that judges who rule against Dear Leader are working hand in glove with the communists and socialists across the aisle.
But Dear Leader is doing his TACO thing even with the DOJ, having come out with a blistering attack on Leonard Leo and the Federalist Society.
That’s a case of biting the hand that fed you, that stacked a court for you and that helped turn an egotistical blowhard into the most powerful man in the world who isn’t named Xi Jinping or Vladimir Putin.
And I cannot for the life of me figure out how — given the budget’s squeaker approval in the House — that he thinks this pair is in any form bipartisan.
I suspect he may be saying that the GOP has ended its fascination with DOGE because they are just like the Democrats who tax and spend. Which, even without the Big Beautiful Bill’s reception thus far, doesn’t begin to echo the budgeting trends under each party.
It’s an attempt at “They all do it,” which is equivalent to “Whatever,” in that it is a refusal to engage in the conversation, or even to think about the matter, much less to follow the facts to a logical end.
It’s overturning the game board rather than risk losing.
I’d give Chip Bok special credit for the reference, pointing out the same ambivalence St. Augustine confessed to in admitting that, as a young man, he had prayed for purity … but not yet.
He’s right that those of us who rely on Social Security, Medicare and a stable stock market are praying that the whole contraption will hold up at least until we’re out of the picture. But that’s not the same as wanting for it to then collapse.
There are many seniors who don’t think the entitlements are overly generous but who want an economic system in which their children and grandchildren can flourish.
As with Stahler’s cartoon, this piece is accurate and effective but more geared to reinforce opinions than to change them.
Both things are valuable outcomes, because reinforcement can drive voter turnout, and this kind of dark cynicism is a driver rather than an anesthesia that makes people think the others will do all the work.
Juxtaposition of the Day
The idea that Medicaid is abused by lazy freeloaders is so popular that it comes back every few years as an opportunity to kick people who are farther down on the ladder.
Both cartoonists exaggerate. Nearly 2/3rds of adults on Medicaid work and those who don’t have health or other exemptions. Only a very few recipients are healthy and not working.
Ramirez exaggerates what is, to motivate distrust of the system and its recipients, while Stossel exaggerates what might come, to inspire mercy.
(Strange that two fellows with signs seeking work are upset that Medicaid wants them to work, innit?)
Stossel looks to inspire mercy, but Telnaes seems more intent of inspiring rage. I have said before that she does her best work when she’s furious, and she doesn’t approve of keeping a brain-dead Georgia woman hooked up to machines because she died pregnant.
Telnaes has amassed a huge Substack audience, but I still suspect this will likely be seen mostly by those who agree.
Which is fine. It will certainly motivate them, because this kind of fury can be contagious.
Being nice doesn’t always cut it.
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