This election season, the presidential candidates won’t show their tax returns, their foreign policy plans, or transcripts of their speeches. But they’re happy to show their long-forms.
America the Beyootiful
Ted Rall
Ted Rall is a syndicated political cartoonist for Andrews McMeel Syndication and WhoWhatWhy.org and Counterpoint. He is a contributor to Centerclip and co-host of "The Final Countdown" talk show on Radio Sputnik. He is a graphic novelist and author of many books of art and prose, and an occasional war correspondent. He is, recently, the author of the graphic novel "2024: Revisited."
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Trump wears his hair that way to hide his circumcision scar. (okay, it’s a recycled comment – but it’s relevant in this case)
Write back when Herr Drumpf does show his long form in prime time, Ted !
Henri
On Donald Trump.
First, I’m being serious. Meaning there’s no punchline or whatnot.
1. Notice that Trump almost never actually answers a question simply, directly and completely? His responses usually consist of a string of statements with no real substance and a whole lot of repetition. So, his Mexican border wall response is “We’re gonna build a wall. It’ll be huge. The wall’s gonna be huge. It’ll be beautiful. And in the middle of the beautiful door, there’ll be a door. And we’re gonna send Mexico the bill.”
Now, come on, I can’t be the only one who has ever had to have something built. First, you take bids. Then you sign a contract. The contract contains terms about payment. For smaller jobs, there’s a “when it’s done, I pay you” clause. Sometimes, it’s “as you complete milestones, you’ll be paid for the work to that time.” Or you pay for the materials upfront or as needed and then, at the end, you get a bill for labor and odds and ends.
But I have never, ever, seen a contractor build a patio deck for Mr. Jones after being told “Mr. Sanchez next door will be paying for it. What? No. I don’t have his agreement. No, I don’t have his signature on a contract. You just send the bill to him.”
Any contractor who ran his business this way would be laughed out of town. But Trump presents this like it’s going to work. The term is delusional, I think.
You can disagree about how Bernie Sanders is going to pay for universal single-payer healthcare (hint: he’s got at least a dozen countries that have perfectly good systems he could copy right off of; and if he cuts the bloat — not even the necessary stuff, just the bloat — in the military, he could probably give us all hot- and cold-running appendectomies for a nickel), but his notion is realistic. It is, in fact, much more realistic than telling people: “We’re gonna build a rocket. It’s gonna be huge. It’ll be a beautiful rocket. And we’re gonna put three great guys in it. And they’re gonna go to the Moon. And we’re gonna bring ’em back. And we’re gonna get it done before the end of the decade.”
2. Again, in all seriousness. I’m not after a cheap laugh. Think about whether there’s anyone in your personal circle of friends and acquaintances who sounds like Trump. Go on, take a couple of seconds. I have two persons in my circle. One’s the cousin of an acquaintance. He’s a recovered drug addict. He thinks we’re living in the End Times. He credits his recovery to Jesus. He shouts a lot when he’s excited. He thinks Fox News is telling the truth. He smokes (I can never figure that out; the people who scream the loudest about how Jesus loves them are also the heaviest smokers I know) and drinks (but not to excess on the drinking). The second person? She was a full-blown alcoholic. She finally sobered up. But when you play Trivial Pursuit against her, it’s like watching a computer hard drive trying to recover damaged data. “Oh, give me a minute. It’s, uh, uh, oh, give me a minute.” That goes on for two minutes (by the clock). And it’s heartbreaking to realize that she put the bottle down for the last time maybe just a couple of months too late. i have never heard anything that says Donald Trump was a heroin fiend or a raging alcoholic, but I do wonder why his patterns of thought and his speech patterns seem to be so similar to people I know who have pickled their brains.