We Knew He Would Get Crazy … But This?
By DeWitt Cheng
September 28, 2024
Blowout Holofernes Posted immediately after Harris humiliated Trump in the debate by goading him successfully — despite ample forewarning of the debate strategy — into his usual litany of grievances. The image of “Judith Beheading Holofernes” springs to mind. I’ve used Orazio Gentileschi’s version, not his daughter Artemisia’s now more famous one; this was the perfect time to spring it. For the biblically challenged, Judith was an Israelite widow who saved her village from destruction by the Assyrians by seducing and decapitating their drunken general.
This Is a Job for Mamala
Trump’s increasingly infantile behavior — suggesting that his second (or third? fourth? fifth?) childhood is well under way — is reminiscent of his anecdote about bonding over Mar-a-Lago’s scrumptious chocolate cake in 2017 with China’s President Xi Jinping, which he seems to have believed made announcing that he’d just ordered Syria bombed agreeable to the Chinese dictator. Who has the largest red button, indeed? Harris’ maternal “bless your heart” expression was the perfect counterpoint.
Red Scare 2024
Laurie Loomer, Trump’s new MAGA gal pal (replacing Greene, Lake, and Noem, among others), dressed in red for her unsuccessful run for Congress. It seemed to cast her as a good cheerleader — stylish in Trump-branded gold sneakers — for our latest Red Scare. This one is supported by the International Man of Mystery, who won the intel-ops jackpot in 2016, and as a good sportsman sarcastically endorsed Harris for President. We may indeed become serfs, as ultraconservative commentators have theorized, or smurfs, just not to a socialist welfare state.
Wag The Dog, Jump the Shark
The desperate cascade of nonsense from Trump and Vance as they try to scare conservative voters back to the polls in November has reached truly epic lows. The Donald’s fear of sharks and the Hollywood island of jumping the shark — designating the silly elements added to failing TV sitcoms — is paired here with Barry Levinson’s political satire “Wag the Dog,” about the creation of an imaginary war with Albania designed to distract voters before an election. The image of Trump rescuing two kittens from hungry Haitians is a fan AI creation from the proudly pro-pet Trump campaign. “We have no plans for war with Albania” is a paraphrase of Harris supporter Dick Cheney’s lawyerly 2001 statement that there were “no plans on the table for a war with Iraq.”
Red Meat Pet Theory
A feral dog and cat stealing raw meat, an American steak and a Trump steak, respectively, for their hungry low-information pups and kittens race through the Great Elephant Graveyard of myth, including the Allan Quartermain and Tarzan adventure movies. Abraham Lincoln’s statue and aging elephants are invaded by unruly household pets and MAGA trolls.
“Esse Quam Videri” North Carolina Motto
Mark Robinson, North Carolina’s somehow Lieutenant Governor, and Trump-approved, Martin Luther King on steroids GOP candidate for North Carolina Governor, has a thrilling life history of porn addiction and proselytizing for Nazism and slavery that has to be a surefire winner with the most loyal of the loyal MAGA cultists. Who are we to judge Robinson’s moral fitness? Leave that to Justice Thomas, the first victim, according to Robinson, of a “high tech lynching” who has been exacting his revenge ever since. You can only wonder what the revenge of this new-generation Thomas might look like.
I Barely Know the Man Republican memes are simplistic and obvious, so I have to amend them occasionally; call it political homeostasis. Trump famously denies knowing people (or projects) once their usefulness has passed, likening his sudden situational amnesia to Peter’s triple denial of Jesus when the Roman centurions arrived. Politicos of a certain age will remember that Dubya conveniently forgot about his friendship with Enron’s “Kenny Boy” Ken Lay in similar terms. You might also remember the golden calf idol of Trump unveiled at the Conservative Political Action Conference in 2021.
