The Cartoonist’s Best Friend

A "fact"-filled essay...

When Jimmy Carter was still alive Donald Trump called him the Worst President in History and when Jimmy turned 100, Trump mocked the terminally ill ex-president and said Jimmy must be happy because now Joe Biden was the Worst President in History, but for my money Trump is totally wrong because he’s now going to be the 45^th and 47^th American president so the most Jimmy and/or Joe could possibly hope for is third place.

BTW: One of my sons, who somehow has more opinions than I do, told me I was wrong when I called Donald Trump the Worst President in History and my son said that because Trump didn’t start an unnecessary war and get thousands of American kids killed, so in my clearly over-opinionated son’s opinion Donald Trump isn’t the Worst President in History, he’s just the Worst Human Being to Ever Be President.

I’ve checked and the Judges will accept either answer.

(I hope you appreciate the incredibly bad pun contained in that last sentence and assuming you’ve recovered, we will now move on.)

In any case, Jimmy Carter died and Donald Trump announced he was going to Carter’s funeral, but then – in a display of the incredibly classy moves he’s known for – Trump complained that they’re going to fly the flags at half-staff in honor of Carter which pissed off Trump because they’ll still be flying at half-staff on his Inauguration Day and on Truth Social Trump wrote: “Nobody wants to see this, and no American can be happy about it.”

I’ve re-checked the election results and it looks like 75,019,257 Americans wouldn’t mind it all that much.

According to the infallible internet either 19 or 27 or 69 women have accused Donald Trump of sexual misconduct and the confusion about the number of accusers might be due to the difficulty of defining exactly what constitutes sexual misconduct because Trump has been accused of a wide variety of inappropriate behavior, including, but not limited to:

• Attempted rape

• Groping

• Kissing

• Molesting

• Butt squeezing

• Sticking his hand up a woman’s skirt

• Thrusting his genitals at a woman

• Forcing his tongue into a woman’s mouth

Aaaaaannnnd…

• “Rummaging around” a woman’s vagina

I’m not 100% sure what “rummaging around” a woman’s vagina consists of, but it sounds like you definitely ought to ask a woman how she feels about it before you start looking for your car keys South of Her Equator.

Now here’s an article from the Baptist News that lists what Donald Trump has been accused of:

https://baptistnews.com/article/69-women-have-accused-trump-of-sexual-misconduct-but-hes-changed-the-definition/

The article says with the exception of E. Jean Carroll “who won millions” in court, most of Trump’s accusers have faded into obscurity mostly because the media has the attention span of a two-year-old who just chugged a six pack of Red Bull and has now moved on to other stories and apparently one of those ignored stories is the fact that, at last report, E. Jean Carroll has yet to receive one red cent from Donald Trump.

And there’s the problem with trying to make a billionaire accountable: they’ve got enough money to just keep paying lawyers and appealing cases as long as possible and sometimes even longer than that.

Anyway…

When Trump got convicted of 34 felonies for falsifying business records in an attempt to cover up payments to a porn star, I imagine some of the women who accused him of sexual misconduct thought:

“Finally, someone’s going to make Donald Trump pay for being a shitty human being.”

But turns out that’s not going to happen now either because Judge Juan Merchan bought the argument that it’s just too difficult and complicated to sentence a president to jail time, so Merchan announced he was going to grant Trump an “unconditional discharge” which is a sentence imposed “without imprisonment, fine or probation supervision.”

And even though Judge Merchan planned on handing Trump a Get Out of Jail Free card, Trump asked the Supreme Court to stop the sentencing because it would “do a grave injustice and harm to the institution of the presidency” which sounds like complete bullshit because I’m 100% sure Donald Trump has already done that.

In the cartoon you just looked at I imagined the reaction of the women who have accused Trump of sexual misconduct and then found out he was going to get an “unconditional discharge” in his hush money case, but if you’re looking for the Dark Cloud every Silver Lining contains, assuming everything goes as planned and we don’t invade Greenland first, Donald Trump will be Our First Felon President.

A Historical Moment those of us in the Political Cartooning Community deeply appreciate.

People (and right here I’m hoping you don’t realize that includes me) often lump Republicans together or Democrats together or Politicians together (it’s what political cartoonists do every time we draw an elephant or a donkey or use Uncle Sam to represent all Americans) but in reality there are very subtle differences:

LIKE NOT TRYING TO OVERTHROW THE GOVERNMENT BECAUSE YOU’RE A LYING, WHINEY SORE LOSER.

As I’ve said on more than one occasion: I’m not a Kamala Harris fan and only voted for her after considering the alternative, but recently, after she did her job and certified the 2024 election results, Kamala told reporters:

“It’s a peaceful transfer of power. It’s a good day.”

Mark Zuckerberg recently announced Meta – the company that owns Facebook and Instagram – would no longer use third-party fact checkers and instead use a “community notes” system which depends on users to correct misinformation.

Which means the loudest and most strident voices will now determine what’s true and what’s not true and if you’ve got better things to do than correct some moron’s social media post that says that Paul McCartney died in 1966 or we didn’t land on the moon in 1969 or Donald Trump won the 2020 election, then from now on, Paul McCartney died and was replaced by an incredibly-talented look-alike, we didn’t land on the moon and Donald Trump was elected president three times in a row.

From here on in, say whatever you feel like saying and now that “facts” are up for grabs:

• I was the American League MVP in 1974…

• I dated the Young Helen Mirren, but had to dump her because she was just too needy…

• And won the Academy Award for my stirring portrayal of Moe in the Three Stooges classic, Whoops, I’m an Indian!

P.S. That last entry on my now highly-fictional resume was an actual Three Stooges short made in 1936 in which the Stooges disguised themselves as American Indians and I’m guessing that involved a lot of the racial stereotyping that we now find politically incorrect.

Which means the Cleveland Indians had to become the Cleveland Guardians and exceptionally sensitive people are disgusted by the Kansas City Chiefs, but the majority of people seem to be A-OK with Norte Dame’s The Fighting Irish whose mascot appears to be a Drunken, Fist-Fighting Leprechaun and I’m guessing that the majority of people seem to be A-OK with it because many of us with Irish heritage – my great grandfather Hugh immigrated here in the 1880s – took one look at the Drunken, Fist-Fighting Leprechaun and thought, “Yeeeaaah, that’s about right.”)

Now here’s an article about fact-checking and why people who lie and exaggerate (a description that comes uncomfortably close to home) don’t like it and are happy Meta will no longer be doing it:

https://apnews.com/article/fact-check-politics-trump-verification-misinformation

In any case, my cartoon was based on Through the Looking-Glass and what Alice Found There (a book that seems to indicate Lewis Carroll had access to some high-quality mushrooms and from the looks of that photo, Lew was tripping when the photographer snapped it and from here on out, that’s a “fact”) and once you go through the Looking Glass everything is reversed so Donald Trump no longer needs fact-checking.

Today’s Lesson

Political correctness is in the black eye of the beholder, facts are now determined by the nutcases on social media, the Democrats have many faults, but at least they didn’t throw a tantrum on January 6^th and Jimmy Carter is spinning faster than an Olympic figure skater.

Also…

I’m clearly set for cartoon material over the next four years and eagerly look forward to Donald Trump’s attempt to rename the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America and when I told a friend about that actual news event, she responded “You can’t make this stuff up” and I responded “With Trump in office you don’t have to.”

Donald Trump is the Cartoonist’s Best Friend and from now on, that’s a fact.

http://kingfeatures.com/comics/editorial-cartoons-a-z/