Humor – The Wrongologist

Cartoons of the Week Plus Commentary – October 6, 2024

Cartoons this week were mostly about Vance failing to answer the “Who Won?” question. Here’s one Wrongo liked:

There’s always something in October:

Wrongo wants to update his last column about why Harris needs to speak with more empathy to Gen Z and younger voters. Friend of the Blog John S. left this comment:

“I believe Harris is speaking but perhaps not loud enough or Gen Z isn’t listening. Her plans do include downpayment money for new housing, tax incentives for builders to sell to first time home buyers, 3 million new homes constructed, business startup credits, earned income credits for low wage earners, newborn tax credits, food price regulations, and reduction of medical debt. Maybe you can say it won’t be enough or that some of these things can’t be implemented but nonetheless they are in “the plan”. Perhaps if her message was stronger on social media, as you mentioned in another column, the “Z’ers” would listen.”

He’ s right but Harris like most Dem politicians, isn’t offering sufficient “feel your pain” context to get people to listen. Obama was one of the few Democrats to place policy in a human context, but most of the time, the Democrats are relying on a laundry list of policies that may or may not ever be enacted.

America had good economic news yesterday, but no Republican was willing to cede that to Biden or the Democrats. Sen. Rubio (R-FL) claimed in a post on Twitter/X that the great jobs numbers were “fake” because past months had to be revised (most jobs reports are revised in subsequent months).

It’s true that the economy added jobs. But most were low-income service jobs. Meanwhile, the pathways to the middle class, manufacturing and white collar jobs, actually shrank. The Gen Z and younger workers suspect that the American Dream is fading because middle class jobs are going away, and they’re precisely correct in that intuition.

The GenZ’ers can’t square their lived reality with the commentary that comes from on high, particularly regarding the economy. Over time, they’ve come to distrust institutions. That’s true at a social level—levels of trust have cratered over time. And this is a key reason why this gulf between what young people live, experience, feel, and the skin-deep recitation of the miracle of the “Booming Economy”. It doesn’t reach deeply enough into their lives.

Harris shouldn’t cede any of this ground to Trump. Wrongo quoted Vance during the VP debate:

People are struggling to pay the bills. Times are tough.
The American Dream is fading, and feels unattainable.
We should stop shipping jobs offshore.

And Republicans understand the task at hand is to peel younger voters in swing states away from Harris. FWIW reports that a constellation of Right-wing groups are spending millions online to get their messaging in front of swing state voters. Probably the biggest line of attack being used against Harris has to do with inflation and the state of the economy: (brackets by Wrongo)

“For example, Duty to America is specifically targeting Gen Z and Millennial men in battleground states with ads bemoaning the state of the economy, saying: ‘According to…Harris, the economy is fixed [repaired]…at our age, our parents owned a home, had kids, saved for retirement, and we can barely buy groceries, gas, or pay our rent.’”

“This ad is running across platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Google, but also on Roku devices and streaming services where young people actually watch TV shows. Duty to America has spent the majority of its ad dollars targeting Michigan, Pennsylvania, Georgia and North Carolina.”

“Similarly, Preserve America is running direct-to-camera video ads on Facebook and Instagram from a trio of white women who are complaining about high inflation and grocery prices, sometimes tying the issue to illegal immigration. You can browse through some of those ads here.”

FWIW adds a chart about ad spending: (note that the red and blue here are 100% pro-Trump spending)

A few other groups have also emphasized economic attacks among younger members of the electorate. One from Our American Century says “Kamala Harris thinks young people are stupid” when it comes to the economy, and Right for America is also running with the “stupid” line.

FWIW notes that Harris is outspending Trump on Facebook and Instagram: Harris spent $8.1 million to Trump’s $1.1 million between September 21 to 28. Meanwhile, political campaigns spent $40.3 million on Google and YouTube ads last week, with Harris and affiliates spent $10.8 million to Trump’s $2.8 million.

Here’s a recap of spending by both campaigns:

The Democrats instead should invest more money where the young people are. They should challenge the Republicans by admitting that things look pretty dire for Gen Z and younger people. That over time, the American Dream’s faded. That times are rough. That people are struggling.

They should use exactly those words like Vance did, because they’re the ones that count. They resonate. You have to hope that the Harris brain trust will match Trump’s initiative by spending some of this money targeting Gen Z and younger voters with empathetic messaging like the Republicans are already doing.

The policy details can come once they’re listening.

Cartoons Of The Week – August 4, 2024

On Friday, Kamala Harris secured enough votes in the DNC’s “virtual roll call” of delegates to secure the Democratic nomination for President. She’s was only a candidate for ten days in July, but she raised $310 million, the largest single fundraising month for any presidential candidate ever. Importantly, two million donors gave for the first time to the presidential race.

And Harris dominated the news cycle for two weeks, something that hasn’t happened for Democrats in a long time. That is, until Trump played the race card against Harris at the National Association of Black Journalists in Chicago, saying in his tone-deaf way that she turned “Black”. That will haunt him throughout the election cycle.

But Harris returned to a prominent place in the news cycle with the prisoner exchange with Russia. That deal was brought together by multiple countries over two years. The WSJ has a detailed story.

It’s interesting that on the very Sunday Biden announced that he was withdrawing his candidacy for President and endorsing Harris, the negotiations on the prisoner swap were coming to a head. We won’t know exactly how involved Biden was for several years, but we do know that Kamala Harris also played a part. She made the final pitch to Germany’s Olaf Schultz to release his prisoner, a Russian hitman Vadim Krasikov, who was jailed in Germany, and without whom, the deal would have fallen apart. She also briefed the Slovenian officials regarding the deal at the Munich Security Conference.

Overall, prisoners from the US, Germany, Slovenia, Norway, and Poland were sent to Russia. The deal’s done, and Trump is grumpy. This is a huge improvement over where we were before Biden pulled out of the race. On to cartoons.

There’s good news and bad news for the Russians heading home:

The “Weirdo” charge seems to be sticking:

Orange is the new weird:

Painting a happy face on the Trump train is about all that’s possible:

Their words show the disconnect from the rest of us:

MAGA has been reduced to a fairy tale:

Finally, an interesting piece of music played on an instrument that is rarely heard. Take a few minutes to watch and listen to Brandon Acker performing the early 17th-century piece “Canario” by G.G. Kapsberger (1580-1651). The instrument is called the Theorbo, a type of lute:

Cartoons Of The Week – July 28, 2024

Mark it down as something Wrongo never thought he would see: Snoop Dogg as a commentator for the Olympics. The rapper helped host the opening ceremony with NBC Today’s Hoda Kotb and Savannah Guthrie, NBC’s Mike Tirico, singer and talk show host Kelly Clarkson, and former NFL player Peyton Manning.

Those who watched the opening ceremony saw Snoop carry the Olympic torch like it was a giant marijuana joint, chat with Simone Biles’ family, and set the mood for the 2024 Olympic Games by busting out dance moves while wearing his Olympic outfit:

This edition of the Olympic torch looks very blunt-y. There were a few cartoons that referenced the Olympics, along with many that documented the state of play in the US presidential election. On to cartoons.

We live in a world of two torches:

Some think of the Olympics as a moment of unity:

Trump overestimates his base:

Kamala changes GOP strategy:

Harris strikes fear:

It really is this easy:

Saturday Soother + Cartoons Of The Week, July 21, 2024

The Daily Escape:

View from the Rancho Nicasio roadhouse, Marin County, CA – July 2024 photo by Dave Alvin

Did Wrongo miss anything? From here, it seems worth noting that the attempted assassination of Trump has landed like a rock in a pond; it made a big splash and then sank to the bottom. Even the press seem to be realizing “wait, nobody cares? For real?” It’s largely in the rear view mirror, if Trump could leave it there.

The shooter has given the press and Republicans nothing to chew on (no manifesto, nothing on social media, no obvious radical affiliations, nothing more than a party registration and an old donation). Perhaps we’ve become so normalized to the lone shooter in America that we’re at the point where we say, “oh yeah, some dude just took a shot at Trump.” And people say: “OK, makes sense“, like saying “stranger things have happened“.

And JD Vance as the GOP VP candidate also makes sense, because Republicans always buy into bad stereotypes about poor White people. Vance capitalized on the fact that White people, especially suburban, rich ones who buy books, are mostly out of touch with the realities of rural, poor White folks and are disdainful towards them. He sold White America a story of helplessness/failure to “bootstrap” that spoke directly to their stereotypes.

His book asserts that because one person made it out of “broken” Appalachia, everyone should be able to do the same. Its primary argument is that poor people suffer because they don’t know any better. From NY Mag:

“Vance says he is fighting a class war on behalf of workers, but his record suggests otherwise. When he does intervene in matters of class, it’s often on the side of the elites. He showed up to a UAW picket line in Ohio, but opposes the PRO Act, which would shore up collective bargaining rights for millions of workers….”

And what have Vance and the GOP actually done for rural folk? They cut off their healthcare. They eliminate government services, and refuse to pay for their educations. They now want to force them to have babies against their will. What else will Vance’s “help” do for them if he’s elected?

And did Trump’s acceptance speech help him? It doesn’t help when you have the longest recorded acceptance speech by a major Party nominee in our history. His chat wound up being more than 12,000 words and clocked in at an interminable 92 minutes. It broke the record for longest acceptance speech in history by 18 minutes. But that shouldn’t have been a complete surprise since the second and third longest acceptance speeches in history are Trump’s from 2016 and 2020.

The WaPo reported that toward the end of his speech a woman sitting with the Illinois delegation was heard saying, “Wrap it up, Don!” The only real surprise is that he gave a MAGA rally speech at a moment that should have been tailored to a bigger and less unhinged target audience.

From Jonathan Alter, who said Trump’s bad speech gave life to the Dems:

“Theodore Roosevelt was shot in Milwaukee, just a mile from where the GOP Convention took place. The assassin’s bullet went through Roosevelt’s eyeglass case and the text of a 50-page speech (TR was long-winded, too…) and lodged in his chest. Because he didn’t cough up blood, the former president finished his speech before receiving medical attention.

Roosevelt, too, was attempting a comeback four years after he left the presidency….He was the popular candidate of the Progressive “Bull Moose” Party, and many of his supporters believed his life had been spared by divine providence.

Here’s how the story ends: The shooting took place less than three weeks before the election. By the time Americans went to the polls, it was old news, and Roosevelt finished 14 points behind the winner, Woodrow Wilson.”

Finally, Kamala Harris. CNN has a piece today that says the Democrats are actually coming to a consensus that Kamala Harris has to be the nominee if Biden steps aside:

“No one quite knows what the process of picking a new nominee would be if Joe Biden did step aside – but many Democrats say that any process is likelier than ever to quickly end with Vice President Kamala Harris as the nominee.”

How and if that happens is still (weeks later) dependent upon Biden deciding to step aside. But as Tom Sullivan says:

“Admit it. You’d love to see the Democratic former district attorney debate the helmet-kissing, multiply convicted, sex-offending, Republican presidential candidate currently out on bail in three jurisdictions.”

As the NY Intelligencer reports:

“Republicans are bracing for the fact that Harris will be a more effective campaigner than Biden and certainly a better debater. And they think that should Harris ultimately become the nominee, she will be awash in positive media coverage from outlets like the New York Times and the Washington Post, which Republicans believe have been on a crusade to replace Biden. The positive media coverage will likely result in a modest polling bump for Harris — but Republicans believe it will only be a temporary one.”

Trump’s proclivity for spouting racially coded and misogynist comments would be on full display daily if Harris became the nominee, further turning off college-educated voters and women.

On to cartoons. Another terrible display of hive thinking by America’s cartoonists, but here’s the best: Still the state of play for Democrats:

Judge Cannon is on the case:

Trump and Vance have something in common:

Tech billionaires rush to help the GOP:

On to the weekend! With the Republican convention behind us, we can get back to picking tomatoes from our backyard garden. Not only did the Trump fever break, but the weather has turned cooler here on the Fields of Wrong. So grab a chair outdoors in the shade.

Since we’re going to war for the soul of our democracy, watch and listen to Richard Wagner’s “Die Walkure – The Ride of the Valkyries” performed here in 2016 by Jaap Van Zweden and the Hong Kong Philharmonic.

The “Ride of the Valkyries “refers to the beginning of Act 3 of Die Walküre, the second of the four epic music dramas constituting Richard Wagner‘s Der Ring des Nibelungen.

But surely, music isn’t politics, it’s simply art! Wrongo is of an age that when he hears this played, he sees Huey gunships and Robert DuVall assaulting a Vietnamese village:

Cartoons Of The Week

Every cartoonist tried to pile on the “Biden’s too old” story this week. Some were ok, most were obvious and mean-spirited, including many depicting the First Lady as the power behind the throne, manipulating a doddering Biden.

Yesterday, Wrongo said that since the election will be determined by turnout of a very few votes in a very few states. He likes this question from Robert Kuttner: Do the Democrats have the energy to turn out enough voters for down ballot races? Will those voters also vote for the top of the ticket?:

“Think of it as reverse coattails. One impressive feat, especially since Trump’s election in 2016, has been a massive effort to increase the size and turnout of potential Democratic voters. Most of this has been done outside the institutional Democratic Party, though in a few states such as Wisconsin the party has been a major force.”

Better turnout on the Democratic side, especially among “low-propensity” groups, such as young people and voters of color, far more than trying to win over swing voters, was key to helping Biden win in 2020. It also allowed Democrats to do better than expected in the midterm elections of 2018 and 2022. It can work again.

On to cartoons. The last convention that Chicago hosted wasn’t a win for the Dems:

The fundamental question still isn’t resolved:

Memory problems exist my friends:

Heritage takes aim at you and me:

The only book Republicans won’t ban:

The one candidate with a mugshot:

The real question for November:

Cartoons Of The Week – June 30, 2024

It’s no surprise that all of the cartoonists arose from their slumbers to draw various scenes of
the Biden and Trump debate and its aftermath. In most cases they magnified Joe’s decrepitude or show streams flowing from Trump’s mouth. Few are genuinely funny.

But before cartoons, a few more words about the debate and where we are going. The NYT has an editorial saying that Biden should stand down for the good of the country. Even though the idea has been rejected by Biden, that thought is alive and will play out over the next few weeks. And for better or for worse, it will largely gain or lose traction based on poll results, by those same people who we’ve been saying for months that we shouldn’t trust their numbers.

That’s the dilemma facing Democrats. Interestingly, Biden’s poll numbers went into positive territory in a post-debate poll yesterday and he had his best fundraising day ever. The viewing numbers show that only about 30% of those likely to vote this fall watched or streamed the debate on Thursday night.

That historically small audience was likely comprised mostly of partisans on both sides, particularly given that CNN allowed Fox to run a simulcast of the debate on its network, giving Trump supporters a safe space to watch.

That so few undecided or persuadable voters checked into the debate could explain why a new 538/Ipsos poll taken entirely after the debate, found little movement from a previous poll of the very same people. Note: Biden leads today by 2.7 points, 46.2%-43.9%:

Why is it that Democrats collapse in terror when their guy gets a cold? Republicans rally around their guy when he’s found civilly liable for sexual assault; when he tries to overthrow the government and loses more than 60 lawsuits before doing so; and when he’s convicted of a felony based on his desire to conceal paying off a porn star that he had at least somewhat coerced sex with, while his wife was recovering from childbirth.

The pundits would have you believe that Democrats have to “acknowledge reality.” Instead, that says Democrats are cowards looking for a place to hide from the big, bad NYT. It doesn’t matter if the Dems replace Biden or not, the media is going to harp on the shortcomings of whoever it is, no matter what.

So circle the wagons and not the firing squad. The administrations of both of these two men have track records that are easily predictive of future performance. Make this a choice between one or the other of them rather than the media’s default position of it being a referendum on Biden. Discipline yourselves and focus on what is really at stake. This election isn’t a casting call for a reality TV show. It’s an election where the candidates represent fundamentally different visions of the American future. And those visions are the only thing that matters. On to cartoons.

Contrasting platforms 2024:

The only choice?

What happened to the Biden’s taking drugs narrative?

Monday will bring new horrors:

How it really works:

Few things are as difficult to swallow as Louisiana’s new policy:

Scrawling by a pavement Plato telling us what to do this fall:

Cartoons Of The Week – June 23, 2024

Wrongo was asked if he thought the presidential debate would be watched by many Americans. Here’s a report by CivicScience about the expected viewer demographics that show many will be tuning in:

“Exclusive data from CivicScience reveal that just over 4-in-10 US adults plan to watch or listen to some or all of the debate as it broadcasts live on CNN next week, with an additional 12% intending to catch the debate after it airs. That brings total intended viewership to just over half of the population. The other half is split between those who will be following coverage of the event in the news and those who don’t plan to follow the debate at all.”

Here’s CivicScience’s chart:

Note that there is zero data above for Independents or moderates. More from CivicScience:

Consumers who prefer to watch CNN for national news are the most likely to follow the debate live (59%), although Fox News viewers are not far behind (56%).
Wealthier earners ($100K or more yearly) are significantly more likely than lower-income earners ($50K or less yearly) to watch the live debate or follow the debate at all.
Americans who are concerned about inflation are twice as likely to tune into the live debate compared to those who are not concerned, ranking as the top election issue voters are following.

Less than a third of undecided voters (particularly younger ones) plan to watch the debate live, while a larger share will rely on social media clips and news coverage afterward. All that means is their perspective on the debate will be shaped by the people and outlets who curate their news for them. That’s the nature of politics today.

Younger audiences (under 35) are more likely than older adults to have cut the cord on cable for streaming, so they are the least likely (by a narrow margin) to watch the debate live. In fact, the percentage of the under-35 crowd who will watch or listen to the debate after it airs, or just plan to follow news about it instead, outnumbers those who plan to watch it live (see red dotted line box:

On to cartoons. Debate preview:

Should the GOP maybe reconsider their Biden attacks?

Two sides of the same political coin:

Supremes go off the deep end:

A mind is a terrible thing to waste:

The Olympics are coming. This might happen:

Remember what the words really mean:

Cartoons Of The Week – June 9, 2024

(There will not be a Monday Wake-up Call column this week)

The WaPo wrote about a recently-retired DC Circuit judge David Tatel, who had some harsh words for the current justices on the Supreme Court. Tatel says that he stepped down from the US Court of Appeals in January in part because he was tired of having his work reviewed:

“….by a Supreme Court that seemed to hold in such low regard the principles to which I’ve dedicated my life….It was one thing to follow rulings I believed were wrong when they resulted from a judicial process I respected. It was quite another to be bound by the decisions of an institution I barely recognized.”

“Tatel’s commentary is notable because he only recently left the bench, and because he prided himself on judicial restraint and for his friendships with judges nominated by Republican presidents while serving on the influential federal appeals court in DC.”

The majority of the justices on this Court have lost most, if not all, of their credibility. When you take money from vested interests with issues before the court, fly partisan flags on your homes and blame it on your wife, or when you state you will not overturn judicial precedent in your confirmation hearings, and then turn around and do just that – that is when you lose all credibility.

On to cartoons. It is difficult to know which is more stunning, the hypocrisy or the ignorance:

But let’s cast a vote for hypocrisy:

And still more hypocrisy:

Must keep our priorities in order:

If only:

Few of the WWII vets remain:

We may never again see this kind of heroism or putting country above self:

Cartoons Of The Week – June 2, 2024

Too many Trump’s guilty cartoons this week. This isn’t a cartoon, but it’s timely:

The response by Republican leaders to Trump’s guilty verdict is unnerving. In the Senate, Mike Lee (R-UT) led a total of ten Senators in a revolt against the federal government by issuing a public letter saying that they would no longer pass legislation, fund the government, or vote to confirm Biden’s appointees because “the White House has made a mockery of the rule of law”. Here’s the letter:

The Senators are Lee, J. D. Vance of Ohio, Tommy Tuberville of Alabama, Eric Schmitt of Missouri, Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, Rick Scott of Florida, Roger Marshall of Kansas, Marco Rubio of Florida, Josh Hawley of Missouri, and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin. So these ten say they will not do the jobs they were elected to do because a private citizen, Trump, was convicted in a state court by a jury of 12 people in New York, a trial that had nothing to do with Biden and everything to do with Trump.

A number of these senators were also involved in the attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election. In a way, they’re sowing the seeds of the GOP’s destruction. Who thinks that these threats of retaliation are a winning strategy to get the votes of average Americans?

In a discussion at CNN, Trump conviction heralds a somber and volatile moment in American history, historian Timothy Naftal opines that Trump’s call to arms for a campaign against the legal system will mean that every Republican will be forced to put it at the center of their 2024 campaigns. We’ll see whether that is a winning strategy.

Will Trump be dragged off the political stage?

Trump’s Georgia plea returns, but in the opposite direction:

Trust the lawyers to look on the bright(er) side:

Trump’s first argument when sentencing comes around:

Who except the most committed MAGAs will vote for this guy?

Alito won’t recuse:

And finally:

Cartoons Of The Week – May 26, 2024

The Republican War against women continued as Louisiana became the first state to criminalize abortion pills. The state’s Republican governor Landry signed a bill classifying mifepristone and misoprostol, two drugs used to induce medical abortions as controlled substances.

That puts the abortion pills in same category as anti-anxiety medications Xanax and Valium. The law makes it a crime to possess them without a prescription or outside of a professional medical practice, punishable by one to five years in prison and fines of up to $5,000.

The law will also make it harder for people who need misoprostol for other conditions. The drug is used to induce labor, treat miscarriages, reduce the risk of serious bleeding from ulcers and other indications. This is yet another reason for women everywhere in America to turn Republican legislators out of office.

And we’ve ended another week of decidedly ordinary cartoons, with many about Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito and his flags. On to cartoons.

What the future is for women in Louisiana: