Just in time for Halloween
A story about Donald Trump, Joe Biden and the world's worst comedian, Kenny Bania...
According to Friday morning’s Kansas City Star, Democrats are freaked out because Donald Trump is holding election-style rallies (a phrase whose precise meaning eludes me unless they mean attendees wear stupid hats and Trump lies a lot) and the freaked-out Democrats are afraid Trump will run again and voters (some of whom apparently miss waking up each morning to find out what batshit crazy thing Trump tweeted at 5AM while sitting on the toilet) will send Donald Trump back to the White House.
And I just might be one of those voters.
As I’ve stated on many occasions, I’m not a huge Joe Biden fan and one of the things I hold against him is the lack of high-quality cartoon material.
Under Trump I got to draw about porn stars and “shithole” countries and whether or not you could rid yourself of COVID-19 by drinking bleach.
Simple acts of stupidity easily depicted in political cartoons.
Under Biden the news is a lot more boring and I get to draw about spending bills and the inner workings of Congress and people like Sen. Joe Manchin who comes from West Virginia and according to CNN has holdings worth between $1 and $5 million – which seems kind of vague – in a coal brokering company called Enersystems, Inc., but the thing to remember is last year Joe made over $491,000 from those holdings and his Senate salary is $174,000 which is a difference of $317,000 and this guy helps set US energy and climate change policy and – surprise, surprise – is resistant to rewarding utilities for switching to clean energy sources and punishing utilities who rely on coal and gas.
And it turns out these kinds of conflict of interests don’t violate Senate rules because a lot of Senators would like to have similar conflict of interests. If you want to read more about that, here’s the link:
https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/27/politics/joe-manchin-coal-interests/index.html
As you might have already noticed (assuming you have some form of advanced OCD and are currently up for a part in a remake of Rain Man) that paragraph about Manchin contained 120 words which won’t translate easily into a political cartoon (it can be done, but you’re counting on readers knowing a lot about Manchin) and I’d much prefer a politician who shows up in a country hit by a hurricane and hands out paper towels.
As Kenny Bania once said: “That’s gold, Jerry.”
And if you don’t know which Seinfeld episode I’m referring to, you’ve got some homework to do and you can start with this short video by the actor that played the World’s Worst Comedian and Most Annoying Human, Steve Hytner:
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=631206570719225
It’s worth watching and I know because I just watched it and am now committed to answering as many questions as possible with the phrase:
“I’m huge.”
The January 6th Capitol riot
The people around Trump also provided quality cartoon material, mainly because Trump surrounded himself with people like Jared Kushner, Rudy Giuliani and Steve Bannon.
Bannon teed up a cartoon idea when he was held in contempt of Congress which isn’t easy considering their standards; it’s like Bernie Madoff thinking you’re a dick.
Condoleezza Rice handed me another cartoon idea when she said the January 6th Capitol riot was “wrong” but it was time to move on, which is an interesting position for a Republican because so many of them still want to talk about Trump getting cheated in the election, an accusation they can’t back up with any evidence.
According to USA Today, federal prosecutors have charged more than 600 people from over 40 states in connection with the riot and a lot of them got charged because they decided to commit a crime and make a video of themselves doing it and then post those videos on social media, which means there’s some some pretty good evidence that they did what they’re accused of doing and also means a lot of Republicans are saying let’s stop focusing on something that actually happened and start focusing on something that didn’t happen.
And if I ever do something really, really stupid and make a video of me doing it, I’ll probably feel the same way.
(The only missing element in that scenario are the videos because I’ve done a lot of stupid stuff, but didn’t make any videos and post them on social media, so you’re going to have to guess what those stupid activities might be, although feel free to imagine the well-thought out decisions I made back when I believed if six beers made you feel good, 12 beers would make you feel twice as good. A belief I’ve now abandoned because I’m a mature adult and now realize beer doesn’t work like that; it’s whiskey.)
All of which reminds me of the time I got a fine for running a red light because Kansas City had invested in one of those red-light video systems and I said no way I ran a red light and there was a link where you could watch the video in question so I watched it and not only did I run a red light, I ran it by a lot.
So maybe you don’t want to trust me when it comes to anything that involves me personally and right now I’m thinking that would definitely include the advisability of voting for Donald Trump in 2024 so I have better cartoon material.
Any time I enter a voting booth I have to choose between what’s good for my country and what’s good for my profession and unless Joe Biden picks up the pace on providing high-quality cartoon material he might lose my support three years from now. But unless you’re a political cartoonist you don’t have that conflict of interest so you can go ahead and vote for what’s good for the country.
Although I gotta say those Trump tweets were pretty funny and even if a politician isn’t going to provide a minimum wage increases or a clean environment at least they can provide entertainment.
Have a nice weekend.