Back in the 1870’s (you remember it as well as I do, don’t you?) a cartoonist named Thomas Nast basically invented the political cartoon. Back then, a bloated New York politician and his gang of criminals were busy getting wealthy through corrupt business and government relationships. Nast used his gift for scribbly-art satire to lampoon the buffoons and make the public laugh at the evil he exposed. Of course, they knew about the corruption of Boss Tweed before they laughed at the cartoons, but the focus on the problem created by Nast’s magnifying glass focusing the rays of sunlight on the problem is often credited with helping to burn up the scandal.
Cartoonists had power back then. Power over public opinion. The power to help fairly uncomplicated (and sometimes stupid) folk to recognize the absurdity of the situation and the need for changing it.
So why haven’t cartoonists fried the Make-America-Great-Again orangutan running the country now with his brand of corpulent corruption already? Believe me, they are trying.
They have already highlighted the way the Bozo Administration manipulates the focus of the mainstream media. Every time media coverage begins to converge on one scandal, he creates another big, smelly media poop of a controversy to redirect their focus.
And while he is doing his big shoe dance on the tables in the spotlight, congress is doing his rich friends’ evil will in the back rooms.
The end result of this malevolent dog-and-pony show is patently obvious.
Unfortunately, in the 1870’s, the stupid people that Thomas Nast was enlightening had not yet achieved the profound levels of shoot-yourself-in-the-foot stupidity that Trump supporters have now mastered. Poor and middle-class Republicans, Texans, and other dim folk continue to take the Great Pumpkinhead at his word and believe every utterance of his mouth to be sacred gospel truth. I have had conservative friends arguing themselves into pretzel-knots to defend his policies and dastardly deeds.
But if cartoonists can’t succeed in shining sunlight on the bloodsucking vampiric old moneybags and kill him soon, his reign will become immortal and we are all gonna die.
Seriously. We stand at the end of a long chain of greedy b*st*rds raping and pillaging the environment for profit and not caring about the impact of their actions. We are dooming the planet to environmental collapse because the orange-faced name-stamper cares more about short-term profits for himself and his friends than he does about whether or no his own grandchildren will have water to drink, air to breath, and a place to live cool enough that metal doesn’t melt in the sunshine.
So, I hate to be a double-trouble downer about the whole thing, but the truth is if we are depending on cartoonists and humorists to save the world, we are in trouble. It is not working the way it did in Nast’s day. Cartoonists are doing their lampooning and doing it well. But more is needed. And if we don’t get that something more soon, then (to incorrectly paraphrase and misquote T.S. Eliot), “This is the way the world ends… Not with a whimper but a bang!”
Catch a Falling Star 
Apparently, What Winning Looks Like
Somebody who has an orange spray-tan on his face, a wig made out the remnants of the Scarecrow from Oz after the Wicked Witch was done with her revenge, and tiny, tiny hands once promised that if elected, he would make us sick of winning. Heck, I was sick before the battle started. And winning so far this week has meant merely that the Trumpcare/no-care/death-care plan failed spectacularly in the GOP controlled House. And why did it fail, providing me with a backhanded win? Because the Freedom Caucus couldn’t agree to a plan that wasn’t cruel enough to the old, the sick already, and the poor. Seriously, they wanted a healthcare plan that didn’t cover mental health, prescription drugs, hospitalization, or basically everything that I might need an insurance policy to cover. They want, ideally, to give us health insurance where we must continually pay premiums month by month and then, when we get sick, choose to die at home and get no benefits. So winning for me means that I can continue to get the crappy insurance coverage I already have under Obamacare to keep me perpetually on the brink of bankruptcy. And it IS a win compared to what the Evil Republican Empire wants to do to me.
But one thing that makes me even sicker about this kind of winning is that it is simply a temporary stay of execution. They are going to do it again. How many times, after all, have they voted to repeal healthcare already? I have lost count. Republicans really, really, really don’t want us to keep any of our own money when we can give it to some soulless corporation instead. And the budget that lurks around the corner is just as big, bad, and brutal as the whole healthcare kerfluffle. They mean to roast and eat Big Bird like a Thanksgiving Turkey, steal food from school children, fire everybody who works for the government and even thinks about preventing corporations from pouring poisons into our water and air, and cut funds to the State Department so that diplomacy and prevention of wars is seriously impaired.
So what, as a concerned citizen, am I gonna do about it? Well, I’m a sick old former school teacher who likes to write humor pieces while I’m busy slowly dying. So I’m going to make fun of the bad guys. Seriously, the best I can do is try to ridicule them to death.
So let’s start with the Trumpinator’s penchant for hiring evil leprechauns to torment us.
And I want to take a moment to talk about the perils of allowing turtles to do politics.
It is true that “slow and steady wins the race” but, come on! It also apparently allows you to steal Supreme Court nominations and have no clue what “hypocrisy” means. He is offended when Democrats refuse to accept and love his party’s proposals, but demonstrated absolutely no ability to say the word… you know the word… the one that means the opposite of “no”… when Democrats were in charge.
And then there’s the lovely zombie-eyed granny hater that we have allowed to eat the social security system. His plans for Medicare, Healthcare, and Social Security are all featured now on posters in the Grim Reaper’s public relations office.
So there you have it. That’s the best celebration of the recent win that Mickey can come up with in his stupid little head. It’s no wonder we are tired of winning already.
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Filed under angry rant, commentary, feeling sorry for myself, humor, politics
Tagged as evil leprechauns in politics, healthcare, humor, Jeff Sessions, Mick Mulvaney, Mitch the Turtle McConnell, Obamacare repeal, Paul Ryan, politics, Trump winning