2024 Election Thoughts - # 1

It’s Election Season...again...and thanks to a couple of readers who actually encourage these rants and my inability to keep quiet, I will post cartoons and commentary. We started this in 2012 and the political landscape since then has certainly gotten more _____. (insert your expletive here).

Even though I’m a bit of a news junkie, I’m starting to resent the idea of 24/7 news networks. When every hour has the next anchor and guest talking head giving their take on the same story/issue, I’m ready to switch to a music station.

 

Non Sequitur by Wiley Miller

And I really resent that, in order to justify their existence, they have focused on the next presidential election as soon as the last election ends. Being an old fart, I miss the time when there really was an ‘Election Season.’ Every four years, the party conventions nominated candidates in the summer, serious campaigning began on Labor Day and it all ended on the first Tuesday in November. Those were the days.

The networks have to fill the air time with something (besides expensive ads) and while Donald Trump can be a reliable dispenser of outrageous nonsense and ignorance, the Balkanization of news programs convinces me that audiences tune in for confirmation more than information. MSNBC and FOX/Newsmax audiences are not interested in learning anything that doesn’t reaffirm their positions. Thus, the needle doesn’t move much.

Not that the right is ever interested in making their case based on FACTS and TRUTH. Tune in for their take on the Baltimore bridge collapse and you’ll learn[?] that despite all the infrastructure spending that they didn’t vote for, Republican officials are blaming the Biden administration for the tragedy because they’re all consumed by diversity and inclusion rather than safety.

Last night, Uncle Joe had a little fundraiser in New York City. Popular former two-term presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton were there and it was reported that they raised over $25 million for the Biden campaign. The media couldn’t help but note that the one-night haul might exceed what Trump will raise in a quarter...bibles and sneakers included.

Of course, Trump needed to horn in on the event coverage as he also was in New York to politicize the wake of a city cop who was killed in the line of duty. I’m sure he was disappointed that the shooter was not Black or an undocumented immigrant. At first, I couldn’t recall ANY time when then-president Trump even bothered to visit disaster or crime scenes since the malignant narcissist is incapable of empathy. But wait. I was wrong. In 2019, following the mass shooting in Dayton, Ohio, he went there to take thumbs-up selfies with hospital staff but then complained that state Democrats were criticizing him.

By David Fitzsimmons, Arizona Daily Star (2016)

Since that was a banner week for mass murder, the president went from Dayton to El Paso where a White supremacist / Republican voter had blown away 22 Latinos in a Walmart. Since the victims refused to see him, he again posed with first responders and complained about not being treated right. This total lack of sympathy and capacity for shared grief is Reason # 213 this cretin should not be elected.