Fifty years ago, Richard “If The President Does It, It’s Not Illegal” Nixon ran roughshod. If not for the tapes that the Supreme Court (of all people!) decently, sanely, and UNANIMOUSLY forced him to fork over, our governance of/by/for the people might not have survived.
Still in his mid-twenties, Trudeau drew a stonewall-blockaded White House (Nixon within). Doing so, he became the first (and still only) comic strip artist to win a Pulitzer Prize. Facing impeachment and conviction (mainly due to the “smoking gun” tape), Nixon quit. Enter Gerald “Long National Nightmare” Ford. Not to suggest Tricky Dickie’s effectively hand-picked successor lacked a dark side. But even Ford (who pardoned Nixon, thereby setting the stage for Trump) praised Trudeau as a nonpareil source of sorely needed facts. Information. Truth. And (safe to say) such light as shines from Lady Liberty’s torch.
Fast forward. Spewing, through time, lies by the tens of thousands (lately, while echoing Adolf ‘Vengeance On Vermin’ Hitler, no less), Trump eclipses even Nixon’s fraught nightmare. Not to mention, he seems to have taken The Talking Heads at face value- to the point he’s Stopped Making Sense (and then some).
Voila: Trudeau’s current “Doonesbury” strip (dated 4/28). Breaking the fourth wall, a versatile, broadly qualified veterans’ psychologist speaks some widely memory holed truth about The Former Guy straight to the reader.
Shades of Trump’s niece. Dr. Mary Trump (a psychologist herself) finds her uncle severely narcissistic/sociopathic/arrested development/self-entitled. (Not that one needs a doctorate to do so, of course.)
In said current strip, the psychologist’s name is Elias. He marshals linguistics. Neuroanatomy. Implicit gerontology. And (above all) Common Sense 001.
He sees Trump speedily disintegrating. In the end, so does Trudeau. Quoting a gibbering Trump salvo (evidently from a 3/2/24 rally in Richmond), Trudeau’s 4/28/24 concluding panel shows Trump (returned to power) burbling, in the White House, “DEE, BOOM! THIS IS ME! I HERE! BING!”
To which a nearby lackey bobbleheads “YES, SIR! RIGHT AWAY!” (Sad.)
Blame it on plague induced brain fog. Basic ineptitude. Rio. Or too many nuggets, burgers, and fries. Fact is (as Elias points out), Trump’s imbecility extends to conflating President Biden with ex-President Barack Obama. And Nancy Pelosi (D) with Nikki Haley (R). Plus (let me add) WWII with WWIII. And the American Revolutionary War with conflicts involving “airports.”
And this once great nation with a moronic monarchy of/by/for King Donald I.
His cult believes he speaks in code. For that to be true, alas, his inanity would have to actually stand for something.
Moving forward, given his fatuities, fibs, and fiascoes, can Dems make bold to point out that someone who raves as if hit on the head by a falling tree should NOT be resolved as Presidential timber? With Trump now reprising Nixon (but on steroids), and with Big News sandbagging Mr. Biden to a fare-thee-well, can Dems at last make bold to start to inform the electorate that GOP gibberish, narcissism, and non compos mentis cannot bode well at all?