I’m in a musical mood. Cue Joni Mitchell:
All the news of home you read
Just gives you the blues
Just gives you the blues
Having taken a short vacation from the news, I’m tanned, rested, and ready to report that the fundamentals of our nightmarish and unwanted presidential tourney haven’t changed much since Saturday night, when a registered Republican white boy armed with an AR-15 wreaked havoc at a MAGA hate rally. (Easy access to AR-15s is an all-American staple, thanks to MAGA Republicans. But I digress.)
The state of play basically remains the same:
1. The guy who’s on the cusp of another GOP nomination is the same fascist threat to our teetering democracy as he was before the kid shot at him. I’m relieved that Trump wasn’t killed – the national trauma, from every angle, would’ve been so much worse had that happened. But whereas many members of the mainstream media (having still learned apparently nothing) have been sucking up to his brush with blood martyrdom by suggesting that he has been “humbled” and “changed,” certain facts remain stubbornly self-evident.
He’s still a convicted felon. He’s still under indictment for plotting to violently overthrow the peaceful transfer of power. He’s still on record using Nazi rhetoric, railing that undocumented immigrants are “poisoning the blood of the country.” He’s still thirsting to use unchecked power, granted to him by the MAGA Supreme Court, to prosecute political opponents. He’s still the guy who boasts about restricting women’s bodily autonomy. He’s still a pathological liar at war with factual reality. He’s still the vehicle for Project 2025, the right-wing blueprint (crafted by scores of his allies) that intends to erase anti-discrimination protects for women and gays. He’s all that and much more, and no ear bandage can retroactively beautify him.
Only a fervently unified Democratic party, led by a fervently energetic presidential candidate, can dispel the dark clouds looming on the horizon. Which brings me to what else hasn’t changed.
2. Joe Biden, whom I’ve long boosted and supported, is still sucking us toward the abyss. With each precious passing day, with each new release of dire poll numbers (a new sampling shows him sliding ever further in seven swing states, while another new sampling says that nearly two-third of grassroots Democrats want him to withdraw), he nevertheless grows more delusional.
Copyright 2024 Dick Polman, distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.