I love it when the media does my job for me. Politico published a series of cartoons from the Trump years. For each major event, they had Matt Wuerker (a great comic artist in his own right) pick one Republican leaning cartoon and one Democratic cartoon.
The whole series is worth looking at. But to whet your interest, here are the two cartoons from the early days of the Covid pandemic:
Joe Biden is now the President of the United States. There was no violence at the Capitol. In fact, there was no violence at any of the state capitols, despite warnings. I guess this is the way the insurrection ends, not with a bang but a whimper.
Speaking of hollow things, QAnon seems to be in disarray. Perhaps their desired “Great Awakening” happened after all, except that they became woke to the fact that “We all got played”.
When one die-hard QAnon adherent posted a new theory that Biden was “part of the plan”, the responses included “This will never happen”, “Just stfu already!”, “It”s over. It is sadly, sadly over.” And ultimately “What a fraud!”, “Wake up. We’ve been had.”
Even the “Proud Boys” are not so proud anymore. They were expecting Trump to pardon the Capitol rioters, but now that he has left the building, they are waking to the fact that he just didn’t care. Like everyone else, the insurgents were thrown “under the bus” by Trump.
Can’t wait for him to be gone? Here’s a wonderful eviction clock. Actually, they have three versions: potty mouth, no profanity, and the Timothy version.
Enjoy!
Interestingly, a new Gallup poll shows the soon-to-be ex-president with the lowest approval rating since polling began. Another poll shows that a majority of Americans think that he is the worst president ever.
And speaking of leaving, a top member of the GOP in Wyoming has started talking about seceding from the US. I hope they don’t let the screen door slam on their way out.
Donald Trump will soon be gone, but not forgotten. Because the Museum of London has added the Trump Baby Blimp to its collection. The blimp will be added to the museum’s protest collection, which includes items from the women’s suffrage movement and anti-war protests. The blimp greeted Trump when he visited London in 2018.
Republicans, especially Lindsey Graham, think that the best thing we can do to heal the nation is to let Donald Trump get away with all of his crimes and lies. Methinks that is far more likely to encourage racism, division, and corruption. After all, Trump is still claiming that he actually won the election in a landslide, and praises insurrectionists and white supremacists. How the hell is that going to encourage healing?
Heal my ass. After all, we are still seeing record numbers of deaths due to Trump’s mishandling of the pandemic.
Not to mention that Graham said just a week ago that he was done with Trump. And then jumped on Air Force One with him for a political photo op in Texas. And now this. One can only hope that the voters of South Carolina figure out Graham is a spineless opportunist with no morals or principles.
Alabama’s new GOP Senator Tommy Tuberville is not the sharpest knife in the drawer. As Groucho Marx said in Duck Soup, “He may look like an idiot and talk like an idiot but don’t let that fool you. He really is an idiot.” According to the Alabama site AL.com:
As a candidate, Tommy Tuberville was scared to debate incumbent U.S. Senator Doug Jones. He refused to talk with reporters throughout his campaign. The only thing the former Auburn football coach promised to do was ‘stand with Trump.’ And now we know why. Tubs is about as bright as a bucket of mud.
As Kyle Whitmire writes: “With the job in the bag, he gave an interview to Alabama Daily News in which he said so many stupid things that ADN’s site crashed from all the folks coming to gawk at it.”
In the ADN interview, Tuberville said that the three branches of our government are “the House, the Senate and executive.” Football must not have been kind to him. Even his name looks like “tuber-ville”, which I guess means village potato, although he pronounces “tuber” like “TUBB-er”. He prefers to be called “coach”.
It gets worse. In an interview with Alabama TV station WIAT in Montgomery, Tuberville suggested that the inauguration of Joe Biden should be delayed.
We probably could have had a swearing-in and inauguration later after we got this virus behind us a little bit. Again, we’re talking about Washington, D.C.
The TV station noted that it was not clear if Tuberville was aware that the Constitution requires the “inauguration and swearing-in” of a President to take place on January 20th.
Even more ironic is that the Constitution requires that if a new president is not sworn in at noon on that day, then the presidency devolves according to a strict line of succession. Which means that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi would become the new US President. I won’t even wonder whether Tubs is aware of that.
When will it be ok to start breathing again? After the inauguration? After we’ve gone a week with Trump not appearing in the news? After the midterms?
Elon Musk tweeted this earlier, but I’m not totally sure if it is serious or meant to be a joke!
I think you could probably make a case that without Facebook, none of this would have happened.
On Sunday I posted the video from former California governor (and movie Terminator) Arnold Schwartenegger. This video has totally gone viral.
The tweet has more than 1.1 million likes, which is better than Trump has ever done. Actually, that’s not entirely true. Trump did have one tweet that did better, with 1.9 million likes. However, that tweet was the announcement that he had contracted COVID-19, so we suspect that those likes weren’t coming from approving supporters.
This quote was published only a couple of hours ago, and as I write this, Schwartenegger’s tweet has already passed 1.2 million likes. Can we go for 2 million likes?
In addition, it was also posted by Schwartenegger to YouTube, and also posted by over a dozen news organizations, gaining millions of additional views and a third of a million likes (and that’s just the ones I could find).
I think everyone noticed that it is only bad to ransack a government building if you are not white. Or if you are white, then if you are a liberal.
They left off explaining how you address a BLM protest — “Throw the thugs in jail for 10 years.” For a MAGA mob — “We love you.”
UPDATE:
This is the most powerful speech I have heard about the events at the Capitol, from Arnold Schwarzenegger.
The NY Times ran an opinion piece titled “Can Donald Trump Survive Without Twitter?”
I think the question that may be even more important is “Can the Media survive without Donald Trump?” Trump’s constant sowing of division and outrage has been a bonanza for media. Not just “are they able to survive”, but also “are they willing to give up talking non-stop about Donald Trump?”
It is ironic that the Times’ opinion piece also serves to keep Trump in the news. They just can’t quit. (Even more ironic, I’m now guilty of the same thing. Mea Culpa)
The media must stop giving attention to Donald Trump. Earlier in Trump’s term, I got so sick of talking about Trump that I stopped posting to this blog. I only started up again for the midterms, but after that the 2020 election was in full swing.
I’ll try harder now to ignore him. Wish me luck.
UPDATE: A reader sent this in a comment. It is definitely apropos.
Thank you, Randy Rainbow.
I think I will be dancing around today singing “Lie-Lie-Lie-Lie!”.
Today, Twitter permanently suspended President Trump from its service “due to the risk of further incitement for violence,” effectively cutting him off from his favorite megaphone for reaching his supporters.
I say, it is about time!
And to anyone complaining that this is against the First Amendment, the Bill of Rights does not say that a private company (such as Twitter or Facebook) has to publish everything sent to it. They are free to publish whatever they want, and NOT publish whatever they want. And if you don’t like it, you can start your own company and publish whatever you want.
There are limits of course — the famous “you cannot yell fire in a crowded theater”. Or more germane to the current situation, you cannot incite people to violate the law, like Trump just did.
The main thing the First Amendment says about the freedom of speech is that the government cannot tell anyone (or any company) what they can or cannot say (within limits). And for a little less than two more weeks (unfortunately) Donald Trump basically is the government. Claiming that Twitter has to publish what he says or else they are in violation of the First Amendment is totally backwards and nonsensical.
In that spirit, I will publish this hilarious comment on Twitter’s decision:
Stephen Colbert has never been so angry, and rightly so. Watch this.
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