Donald Trump: the end of an error
Bad for America, great for America’s cartoonists…
Say what you will about the damage Donald Trump has done to this country; he was great for me.
Now if you’re one of those people currently saying, “What do you mean bad for America? My 401k is doing great!” congratulations. I’m glad your 401k runneth over which is clearly the most important thing on your personal agenda, but we just shot past 400,000 COVID-19 deaths, climate change is going to make sure realtors in Omaha, Nebraska have beachfront property to sell and – BTW – a bunch of lunatics took over the Capitol and we’re not sure they’re done acting out yet.
On the other hand…
Every dark cloud has a silver lining and Donald Trump was absolutely great for America’s political cartoonists.
I’ve got a joke I use whenever I make public appearances which these days are pretty much limited to CVS and fast-food restaurant takeout windows and here it is: “When I vote, I’m never sure whether to vote for my country or my profession.” (Went over big last time I visited McDonald’s.)
Here’s the deal.
As a political cartoonist the last thing I need is a competent, good-looking president with a long name. I need the people in charge to screw up on a regular basis, have some semi-hideous feature that makes them easy to caricature (an elaborate orange comb-over will do the trick) and a short name so it will fit on whatever item needs a label.
Donald Trump rang the bell in all three categories.
He pushed the limit with a five letter name: T-R-U-M-P (get up above six letters and it’s a pain in a cartoonist’s ass, four-or-less is ideal), but more than made up for his name faux pas with solid-gold cartoon material.
Good cartoon material has to be about stupid stuff that everybody is already aware of, which is why you don’t see too many stand-up comedians doing hilarious bits about Keynesian Economics. The audience needs to already know what you’re referring to so you don’t spend a lot of time setting up the punchline.
Any joke that starts: “So the other day my wife and I were discussing macroeconomics…” has about as much chance of surviving as a fourth-class passenger on the Titanic, assuming they had fourth class and most of my information about the Titanic involves Leo DiCaprio so I wouldn’t bet on it either way.
Also…there was room on that goddamn piano, which is a different subject that we may return to later – we’ll see.
Anyway…
Donald Trump worked overtime making sure I was well supplied with cartoon material by sending out random tweets about 142 times a day and saying and doing stupid stuff in-between tweets and all of them were comedy gold. Now let’s take a brief walk down Cartoon Material Memory Lane.
Remember:
Attacking peaceful protesters so he could do a photo-op holding up a Bible?
Calling African countries “shitholes?”
Visiting a country devastated by a hurricane and handing out paper towels?
Sending out a tweet welcoming his wife home and getting her name wrong?
Bragging that since he was a celebrity, women didn’t mind if he grabbed them by the “vagina” although he didn’t say “vagina” and any time a president is more profane than a cartoonist it’s pretty fucking weird and I’ll end this sentence with a question mark just to keep the pattern going?
Paying off a porn star?
Calling white supremacists “fine people?”
Suggesting we inject bleach into our bodies?
Telling a child that at his age, believing in Santa was “marginal?”
Using a sharpie to change a weather map?
I could go on and I’m guessing you could too, but by now you get the point: Donald Trump wasn’t a president for all of America’s people, but he was a damn good president for all of America’s cartoonists.
Now let’s just hope we get through today without somebody doing something batshit crazy.
And as we tread the icy water we’re swimming in, let’s all hope Joe Biden makes room on his piano. (Told you I’d get back to it.)