Stop Me If You've Heard This One
So Donald Trump is giving a speech in Latrobe, Pennsylvania and decides to start things off with a 10-minute story about Arnold Palmer’s dick.
I did not make that up, but if it sounds unlikely, go ahead and Google it – I’ll wait here.
See?
Nobody loves a good digression more than me (wait, should that be more than “I”?...hmmm…apparently me don’t care) but while me don’t care it turns out Trump’s handlers are getting concerned about his inability to stay on topic and his tendency to meander around verbally and talk about whatever incoherent thought enters his mind like the “late, great Hannibal Lecter” who Trump seems to think was a real person and at one rally described the fictional serial killer as “a wonderful man.”
And we thought Joe Biden was losing it.
On another occasion, while supposedly talking to a possibly-fictional boat maker about electric vehicles, Trump started free-associating and speculated that an electric-powered boat would sink under the weight of the battery and then added an imaginary shark to his story and wondered if you’d be better off staying near the sinking boat because you might get shocked by the boat’s battery so maybe you’d be better off swimming toward the shark instead and Trump asked the possibly-fictional boat maker what he thought and the possibly-fictional boat maker didn’t have an answer and supposedly said:
“Y’know, nobody’s ever asked me that question.”
And the fact that nobody before him had ever thought to ask about that bizarre scenario made Trump think he must be brilliant because he’s the only guy who thought of it and if Trump’s right then I gotta ask:
If Flying Monkeys were real and big enough to carry human passengers, what would their baggage policy be?
And I’m probably thinking about that because I just flew Southwest Airlines to LA and they let you check two bags for free which doubles your chances that they’ll lose some of your shit and one bag will wind up in Opa-locka, Florida while the other bag wings it’s way to Chugwater, Wyoming and meanwhile you’re enjoying a four-hour layover in Molunkus, Maine because the 72nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution states no American citizen is allowed to fly directly from anywhere to anywhere because the people who actually run things have turned our airports into shopping malls and demand we show up two hours early and have 90-minute layovers in connecting airports so maybe we’ll get bored and buy some overpriced crap we don’t really need like those neck pillows which might actually make you more comfortable on an airplane if you don’t mind walking around the airport looking like you should be pulling a wheat farmer’s plow.
(Let’s face it: Donald Trump is a fucking amateur when it comes to digressions.)
Trump has explained his tendency to wander hither and yon verbally by saying: “I do the weave.”
Which he says is talking about nine different things and then “brilliantly” bringing them all back together and I say is how he constructs that dead animal on his head he calls hair.
One of the unfortunate people who pay attention to this sort of thing, says Trump use of digressions and false claims – and he uses a lot of them – helps him avoid scrutiny on Real Issues because people are busy fact-checking Hannibal Lecter’s Wikipedia page and the eating habits of sharks and never get around to Real Issues like Trump’s threat to revoke broadcasting licenses for the TV networks he doesn’t like.
American politicians have a long and proud history of offering the public distractions like dog-eating immigrants and Jewish space lasers to keep us from focusing on the fact that they haven’t done jack shit about real problems like…and here let’s go with…raising the minimum wage or maybe doing something about climate change besides kicking that Humanity-Threatening can down the road.
As he has made abundantly obvious…
Donald Trump will say and do anything that advances his cause (and I’m pretty sure his cause is Donald Trump) and his main method of campaigning seems to be talking about all the awful things going on – pet-eating illegal alien Mexican rapists giving abortions to nine-year-old nuns (the claim doesn’t have to make sense) and then telling the people who adore him that he’s the only one that can stop these awful things from happening.
So Trump gets those gullible people worked up and believing false claims and pretty soon they’re willing to accept that the government controls the weather which ignores the fact that if the government actually controlled the weather it wouldn’t be so goddamn hot and humid in Washington, D.C. every summer.
Creating false dilemmas and encouraging a mob to take action and then retreating to the White House to drink Diet Coke and see if the idiots you got excited go ahead and overthrow the government seems like a dangerous way to go about your business.
In any case…
For about the billionth time I had to figure out a new way to say reelecting Trump might be a bad idea and with Halloween just around the corner the above cartoon is what I came up with.
The cartoon you just looked at was inspired by an article about a Black minister criticizing Black men who don’t support Kamala Harris because she’s a woman.
Feel free to disagree, buuuuut…
We’ve come a long way when it comes to race relations and now pretty much every TV commercial family has to be interracial which I’m totally fine with, but come to think of it, those interracial spouses are rarely depicted touching or kissing, maybe because us White males are still afraid that Black men are after “our” women (although I’m not sure why we would ever think they were “ours”) and being depressingly-familiar with the White male demographic, I can see why White females might be looking for an alternative.
The point being I think a lot of people are still racist and sexist, but have learned not to express those feelings out loud because these days you can get fired for it, but those prejudices are still there and Kamala Harris is going to have to overcome both of them.
Today’s Lesson
If you’re giving a speech in Latrobe, Pennsylvania don’t start out with a 10-minute story about Arnold Palmer’s dick – close with it – don’t buy an electric boat unless you want to meet fictional sharks and don’t dress as Donald Trump this Halloween because that’s just too scary a character.
Go as Freddy Krueger instead.
YES