The Ballad of Bad Vlad DeWitt Cheng
Many of you are aware that our own DeWitt Cheng has been making his memes for years, by his own account “to help me figure out what’s going on.” Now and again we’ve even included one in certain of his essays. We are pleased to present for the first time a selection of his memes as their own self-contained narrative.
“Purity of Essence!” Donald Trump looks to Vladimir Putin for illumination on the nation’s most sobering responsibility way back during the 2016 campaign. Mystically, he receives an answer [special thanks to Alex Grey, “Nuclear Crucifixion,” 1980]
“The Inhuman Cannonball.” Ukraine is not Putin’s first war; there was Chechnya, Georgia, helping out dear friend Bashar al-Assad in Syria. And, oh yes, the annexation of Crimea. His preferred war fighting is the attrition method, to pile up enemy dead while absorbing Russian mass casualties. “We have more expendable human capital than you do!”
“Degnatsification with a Human Face.” Relying on an oil-based economy, Putin invokes Nazi resistance to invade Ukraine to cross the threshold and after 20 years in power becomes a Nazi himself. Now he is truly the Lord of the Flies.
“Cannon Father.” Staring at us out of the barrel of a tank gun, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s disastrous war against Ukraine has produced about 200,000 Russian casualties. After his front line troops were decimated in the first phase of the invasion Putin, like many of the Tzars before him, scoured the back country to send rubes and criminals into the jaws of a ground war that many have not, survived. Meanwhile off camera, NATO was bolstered by the additions of Finland and Sweden.
“Wartime Consigliere.” Former Protegé Trump instructs the Putins on the virtues of revenge. It appears that Volodymyr Zelenskyy is the one extracting revenge against the present day little corporal, so he wouldn’t need the pep talk.
“If you know a lot, you soon grow old.” The recent mutiny of the doomed Mr. Prigozhin, foreseen. Revenge! Wow, he listened.
