Tom Toles for July 23, 2020

104 more days til we vote 104 more days til we vote

Live through one, and gird up our loins: 103 more days til we vote!

Regression, thy name is one I refuse to utter.

1775 King George 3rd

He can count backwards from 100 by seven too, maybe, possibly. He got the elephant question right too, maybe, possibly. I really sure he could draw a clock showing the big and little hands at eleven ten, well, maybe, possibly. I’m double really sure he likes living in 1860’s.

Wait til he gets back to the 1920’s when the KKK marched in front of The Capitol Building. Wonder if he’ll see his Dad ?

If we could go back to 1940 he won’t have been born yet. And maybe his mother would have said “not tonight dear, I have a headache.”

Not really fair to Herbert Hoover, who was a devoted and able public servant who just had the horrible luck to become President just when the metaphoric dam broke, and no one knew what to do about it.

Trump’s Brain – {3 beats/line}

His ego is big but fragile,

so he claims that his brain is agile

and wise and functionally intact

{tho’ in fact, with feces it’s packed}.

. . . . . . . . . . . . .

{Off-topic:}

Trump Must Be Curbed – {limerick}

The prez is mentally disturbed,

and this has our nation perturbed.

The danger is real,

as soon he’ll reveal.

We mustn’t leave him uncurbed.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

If he goes back to the 20s he can have the KKK marching down Pennsylvania Avenue. Of course, at that point, he’d swoon.

1920: Ponzi scheme

{Off-topic:}

So MUCH is Wrong – {1.40 limericks}

So MUCH is wrong; so MUCH is, …

… when Trump’s tiny hand it clutches

our nation’s throat, -

- while the Trumpites dote

on their spunky hero

{although he’s a Nero

who screws up all that he touches}.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

I’m sure he would have been a big fan of Father Coughlin.

“Social Justice.” I wonder what would Jared have to say about THAT??

”If Time Leased Us a Garden”

If Time leased us a garden, each decade re-seeded

To our current taste cultivated and weeded,

How would each era be laid out, what then grown,

Each decade’s Zeitgeist personality shown?

.

First, grains and vegetables, just for practical use,

And many types of fruit trees for sweetness of juice,

Chosen species for hardy growth and high yield —

Instead of a pretty though useless flower bloom field.

.

Next, some would plow under that field, judged too wild,

Considered as chaotic as an undisciplined child.

Formal shaped gardens then arise with plant heirlooms,

Stone paths between plantings, no untamed wild blooms.

.

Then, a thick deep forest might appeal to some,

A tangle of plants that compete for the sun,

Crowding together in relentless green muggle,

The strongest and tallest surviving the struggle

.

In some decade the field is deemed such a mess

That a clear burn-off is needed to start a redress,

The field lying plant-less till compromise is worked out

As to what type of plantings will then come about.

.

Each decade a gardener, by himself or in congress

With community input will newly address

What type of garden will grow in that field spot —

And next season will erase all, more likely than not.

.

Time flows as a stream, and Time runs through that garden,

Humans tend them both, so we think ourselves warden

To all that exists in the short years of our lives.

But it’s Time as the Overseer that ever survives.

You forgot one… 1860: Confederacy

He could keep on counting back clear to the know nothings.

Because his behavior borders dementia he is tricked into taking a cognitive test.. they gave him a gold star and a happy face and now like a little kid is ever so proud.. Reminds me of potty training my daughter..

So many ways to ‘make America great again’. Don’t give him the chance.

“The years may have flown / But the memory stays / Like the hopes that were dashed / When the stock market crashed / Yehaha, those were the good old days / I’d walk a million miles more / For some of the gore / Of those good old days!” Applegate (the Devil) in Damn Yankess: music and lyrics by Jerry Ross and Richard Adler; book by Abbott and Douglass Wallop (1955).

Trump left out the “sizzling seventies” and the “Ecstatic Eighties”. The Nineties were when he was still a “businessman” (if you can believe that one!).

Not to mention the way 19th century leaders who used troops on the labor movement.

Sick and tired of the evil and racist dictatorial Republican thieves dragging the USA backwards to its death.

Interestingly, Roy Cohen was McCarthy’s lawyer, before he was DJT’s.

“Gee, our old La Salle ran great!”

Someone remind me, when did America stop being great? Hm, let us ponder this, shall we?

Oh c’mon Tom, he may be backwards, but count backwards?!!

Now there’s some cognitive dissonance!

And even he is amazed about how well he can do it…

Have you ever seen those photos of mass Nazi rallies at Madison Square Gardens in the late 30’s and early 40’s? I’m wondering if Daddy Trump could be recognized in one of them.

{Off-topic:}Here’re a shortish article and a 24-minute interview in which a “Fascism expert explains … Trump’s ‘authoritarian playbook ….” https://www.alternet.org/2020/07/nyu-fascism-expert-explains-the-next-moves-in-trumps-authoritarian-playbook-hes-a-fundamental-break-from-american-tradition/

{Off-topic:}

Camouflaged Thugs – {4 beats/line}

His fans ignore the nasty bugs

which sycophants scurry to sweep under rugs; -

- f’rinstance, their dissemblings’ mendacious fibs

detract from the fact that their hero {His Nibs}

is depioying storm troopers and camouflaged thugs.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Last thought bubble is wrong. Trump thinks Herbert Hoover invented the vacuum cleaner.

more like, “1930: Rise of the Nazis. So many good, brown-shirt wearing people.”

{Off-topic:}

Genghis Trump – {3 beats/line}

We fervently hope that Trump’ll

stumble and falter and crumple

before our democracy’s gone.

{ We hope that we can hang on

while this cold-hearted genghis khan

bullies us hither and yon. }

. . . . . . . . . . .

All I know is, if we’re a truly just society that we live in, that receiving the services of a fellator would be known as getting a Clinton instead of a Hoover…..