This cartoon is drawn by the wonderful cartoonist Jenn Lee. (And doesn’t that carpeting in panel four look amazing?)
“Athwart” is such a great word. I should look for chances to drop it into everyday conversation. (“I’m athwart live-action versions of Disney movies.”)
Hey, remember when J.D. Vance was a self-identified “Never Trumper,” who called Trump reprehensible and compared him to Hitler? Funny how things change while remaining exactly the same.
Although Vance is an extreme case, he’s representative of the way a lot of “Never Trumpers” have done complete turnarounds. Few if any conservative principles have survived the age of MAGA.
Today, being pro-free trade or pro-immigration is almost unthinkable for a Republican candidate in any primary. In the same way, the foreign-policy outlook of the party has drastically changed: dominated by hawks and neo-conservatives in the past, it is now much more influenced by isolationist and inward-looking imperialist elements (those have always existed within the party, but had been marginal in the past, in particular during the George W. Bush years in the early 2000s).
Pete Hegseth, the nominee for Defense Secretary, is a serial adulterer and stands accused of sexual assault. Matt Gaetz, the nominee for Attorney General, is alleged to have had sex with an underage girl, paid for sex, and ingested copious amounts of illegal drugs—and then to have lied about this. Disqualifying conduct? Not as far as Trump’s religious Right supporters are concerned. Meanwhile, these same supporters have been pushing for the posting of the Ten Commandments in classrooms. Apparently, some of the commandments are optional.
Marin Thielen, in Baptist News, asks: “Why aren’t evangelicals offended by Donald Trump?”
By his numerous adulterous affairs? By his porn star payoffs? By his bragging about “grabbing women by the pussy”? By a jury of his peers finding him liable for sexual assault? By his rampant sexism? By his lack of character? By his lack of decency? By his endless lies? By his criminality? By his threats to democracy? By his admiration of dictators? By his mocking of disabled persons, POWs and victims of violent assault?
Last week me and some friends recently saw a terrific local production of Assassins, Stephen Sondheim and John Weidman’s wonderfully cutting 1990 musical about people who have murdered (or tried to murder) U.S. Presidents.
Afterwards, my friend Charles made an interesting point, which is that Assassins plays differently in the age of Trump and MAGA. In the play’s telling, what the various assassins have in common is that they’re outsiders driven by spitefulness and nihilism, in opposition to the traditional American dream. But that same spitefulness and nihilism is now entirely mainstream; it rules the U.S. and runs the government.
TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON
This cartoon has four panels. Each panel shows the same two characters, wealthy men, as they relax inside an exclusive country club. Servants wearing butler tuxes wait on them.
PANEL 1
One of them – let’s call him RACQUET – is waving a racquetball racquet and ranting, while his friend – let’s call him FRIEND – listens patiently.
RACQUET: William F. Buckley wrote “A conservative is a fellow who is standing athwart history yelling Stop!”
PANEL 2
The two are now playing darts.
RACQUET: “Prudence” is the conservative watchword! But today’s republican party is the opposite of prudential. January sixth, reinterpreting the constitution, destroying old alliances… and the tariffs! Dear God!
PANEL 3
They’ve moved to the club’s fancy dining area. Racquet pounds his fist on the table while Friend is looking at his phone.
RACQUET: it’s obscene! it’s what conservatives have always opposed! What’s become of our principles?!
PANEL 4
Now in what appears to be a demonic sacrifice room, they talk while Racquet prepares to plunge a dagger into one of the butler-like guys.
FRIEND: So you’ve stopped voting for Republicans?
RACQUET: I would, but I want the tax cuts.
CHICKEN FAT WATCH
“Chicken fat” is a long-obscure cartoonists’ term for unimportant but hopefully fun details in the art.
Panel 2: The mounted heads of Rocky and Bullwinkle are on the wall. The dartboard is being held up by one of the butler dudes; there is a dart sticking out of his head.
Panel 3: Both the silverware and the pheasants they’re eating are sparkling as if they’ve been plated with gold.
Panel 4: The two of them are now wearing red and black robes and are preparing to sacrifice a butler, who is tied to a stone table. The butler seems surprisingly calm about this. Displayed on a shelf in the background are the decapitated heads of George Washington, Batman, Underdog, Sherlock Holmes, Dick Tracy, Garfield the cat, and the Monopoly Man.
I’m glad you enjoyed Assassins!
I’d say one other thing the assassins had in common (aside from Boothe and, to a lesser extend, Czolgosz) is that their reasons for wanting to kill the president really don’t make sense at all. I recall seeing the 2022 revival of Into the Woods, and the actress playing the female giant mentioned in her bio that she had previously played Squeaky Fromme.
At the time, I half-jokingly said that Fromme and the giant are similar characters: they both want to kill someone on behalf of the man they love. The giant wants to kill Jack because he killed her husband. Fromme wants to kill Ford because, um, uh, hold on: there’s gotta be a reason.
We had one attempted assassination of Trump that was carried out by a conservative. But it wouldn’t shock me if we got another Czolgosz-like assassin, attempting to kill Trump out of genuine anger for the state of their life and the country.