Lack of Civility Is Nothing New

When Representative Wilson shouted “You lie!” during a speech by President Obama a few years back, his bad behavior was quickly denounced. What most people did not comment on, because we forget our history, is that Representative Wilson was not the first congressman from South Carolina to behave badly on the floor of Congress.

When the Wilson story first broke what got my attention was the implication that this rude behavior was something new. In the back of my mind there is a U.S. News and World Report article from the 1980’s about America’s “epidemic of rudeness.” If you do a Google search on the phrase “epidemic of rudeness” you’ll find 354,000 web pages on the topic.

One editorial on Wilson’s behavior seemed to justify it by saying the Democrats did it, too, when they booed remarks by President Bush during a speech in 2005. Since when is my bad behavior justified because someone else behaved badly?

As we look at the Trump and Biden years, this kind of thing shows no signs of letting up. During Trump’s 2020 State of the Union address, Democrats interrupted when he discussed legislation  regarding prescription drug pricing, reacting vocally to his call for bipartisan support. This was noted as a breach of decorum, though not explicitly labeled as heckling.

Democrats’ protests during Trump’s addresses were often framed as reactions to his provocative rhetoric, but sources note these actions contributed to perceptions of a divided and undisciplined party response.

In a bit of tit-for-tat, Republicans repeatedly interrupted Joe Biden’s 2023 SOTU address with jeering and booing, particularly when he accused them of wanting to sunset Social Security and Medicare. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) shouted “Liar!” during this segment, echoing Rep. Joe Wilson’s 2009 outburst. Other Republicans also heckled, creating a raucous atmosphere. These interruptions were seen as part of a growing trend of heckling, with Biden responding ad-lib, engaging in a back-and-forth that some viewed as a rhetorical victory for him.

In return, during Trump’s return to Congress in 2025, House Democrats again engaged in disruptive protests. Rep. Al Green (D-Texas) heckled Trump early in the speech, questioning his claimed “mandate,” leading to his removal from the chamber by the House sergeant-at-arms after ignoring Speaker Mike Johnson’s warnings. Other Democrats, staged a walkout, displaying “Resist” on their shirts. These actions were described as an “extraordinary display of partisan scuffling,” with Democratic leaders appearing pained by the lack of decorum.

Both parties have contributed to the erosion of decorum in Congress, with heckling and protests becoming more common. The 2009 incident with Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) shouting at President Obama set a precedent, after which interruptions became less shocking. Democrats and Republicans alike have justified their behavior by pointing to the other side’s actions. However, historical incidents like the 1856 assault by Rep. Preston Brooks on Sen. Charles Sumner illustrate that extreme breaches of decorum are not new, though modern instances tend to involve verbal rather than physical confrontations.

In May 1856 South Carolina Rep. Preston Brooks demonstrated less than model behavior by assaulting Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner with a cane while he sat in the Senate Chamber. The beating was so severe that Sumner was blinded by his own blood and passed out whereupon the South Carolina representative continued to beat him. It's clearly one of the more infamous moments in Congressional history. 

Brooks' brutal assault of Sumner after Sumner delivered a fiery antislavery speech, “The Crime Against Kansas.” In his address, Sumner mocked pro-slavery senators, including Andrew Butler, Brooks’ relative. Days later, Brooks entered the Senate chamber and struck Sumner repeatedly on the head and shoulders until the cane shattered, leaving Sumner bleeding and unconscious.

The attack shocked the nation, deepening the already fierce sectional divide. In the South, Brooks was celebrated as a defender of honor, receiving gifts of replacement canes. In the North, Sumner became a martyr for the antislavery cause, his lengthy recovery symbolizing the violence of slavery itself. The incident intensified hostilities between North and South, fueling the polarization that would soon ignite into the Civil War.

In short, civility in Congress has often been fragile, strained by deep divisions and personal animosities. While the tools of disruption have changed—from canes to shouted insults—these incidents reflect a recurring struggle to maintain decorum in the face of passionate disagreement.

We imagine that our nation has never been this polarized before, but guess what? It a bit of deja vu of sorts, isn't it? By remembering our history, we can better recognize that today’s challenges are not entirely new, but rather part of a long, complex narrative of conflict and confrontation in American governance. 

What do you think?

EdNote: The illustrations on this page are AI-altered versions of my original paintings.

The Trump-Biden Debate: Yikes! What next?

Is this Ali-Frazier? The End of the World? Some were saying the the future is at stake like never before.

Yes, some were saying it would be the biggest prize fight ever, something akin to the Thrilla from Manila, or Ali-Frazier. Some wondered whether the president could survive 15 rounds going toe-to-toe with his arch enemy.

Once the pre-game show was over we were live in Georgia. Moderators Dana Bash and Jake Tapper looked ready to go.

The President walks to the podium looking lost.

The former president is introduced and walks out looking testy.

The opening. The heavyweights have entered the ring.

President Biden sounds hoarse. Trump, the former president, appears restrained, makes an effort to appear friendly while wearing his traditional scowl. I turn to the peanut gallery (X, formerly known as Twitter) and listen to the comments.

* * *

--This has to be a set up to get rid of Biden! DEMs want him gone and have allowed this humiliating debate! Mission accomplished!

--One has to think they allowed this to happen so they could have reason to replace him at the convention. Seriously that was painful to watch.

--Really America? 
Are those your only options?

--What a terrible time to stop drinking. #debatenight

--https://x.com/rustyrockets/status/1806527566490067351

* * * *

Analysis
Many in the media were ready for this, but some Americans were not. Had they be reading and listening to media from a wide spectrum of viewpoints, they would have known how much the President's mental acuity has deteriorated. The majority of mainstream media seemed determined to conceal Biden's public rambles and muddled moments while conservative commentators, podcasters and radio hosts collected these clumsy stumbles for highlight reels. 

When articles commenting on President Biden's declining mental faculties would appear in the Wall Street Journal or elsewhere, you could count on immediate denials from a Liberal source saying, "It ain't so." (I think here of how the media avoided showing FDR in a wheelchair lest he appear weak.)

Now the question is why Dem insiders aware of his decline allowed this debate to happen at this time. Can it be that the first debate took place so early in this year's election cycle in order to set up a maneuver at the Dem's National Convention in Chicago this year?

Conservatives have been making hay with the polls showing Trump ahead in swing states. The fact that his lead is only marginal should be a signal that all is not well in the "Grand Old Party" either. Will Trump as candidate make it easier or harder for Republicans further down the food chain? 

* * * *

The response to Biden's performance was swift. "Joe, maybe it's time to hang up your cleats." Four of the five stories in today Atlantic enews skewered the President. The influential New York Times editorial board made an appeal for Biden to step out of the way.

Trump, who is accustomed to making news simply by being outrageous, was overshadowed by the swirl surrounding the President's embarrassingly poor showing. This was to be Joe Biden's moment. Unfortunately, with the bases loaded he struck out.

Who Was the Worst President In U.S. History? I Nominate This One

Warren G. Harding was one of the worst they say.
His sex scandals weren't even a consideration
By that measure we'd see FDR, JFK, Bill C
and others listed as well.

When it comes to voting for the best and worst presidents in our history, one must first establish some criteria. Currently there's no doubt a large contingent who say there's no point asking the question. Trump is most obviously such an odious president that there's no point in going further with this discussion. C'est la vie.

What triggered this blog post, though, was a book title that caught my eye on Amazon.com with the title: The Worst President in History: The Legacy of Barack Obama. 

Really?

According to the promotional info on this book the author compiles more than 200 "inconvenient truths" to support his assessment including "his shocking abuses of taxpayer dollars; his bitterly divisive style of governing; his shameless usurping of the Constitution; his many scandals and cover-ups; his policy failures at home and abroad; the unprecedented expansion of government power...and more."

Now to be honest, in my opinion many of these accusations could be made against many presidents. Divisive? Abuses of taxpayer dollars? Policy failures? And as regards the last, "the unprecedented expansion of government power" I would suggest that the past 120 years of this nation has seen a continued and ongoing expansion of government power. The past three presidents have made "executive orders" a modus operandi for expanding the power of the executive branch. It's an innovation that frees presidents from bipartisan wrangling altogether. "Let's Make a Law" is practically a new program on The Game Channel.

So, I decided to ask Google and was directed to a U.S. News & World Report page that claimed it was able to identify our worst presidents.

The first listed was Zachary Taylor. His crime? He was a war hero who was utterly forgettable. He died in office and failed to complete his term, so I'm not sure he got a fair shake when it comes to making his mark. There are plenty of presidents who did more damage than that

Herbert Hoover gets the second nod, assuming we're going from worst to first. A poor communicator is his crime, as well as ushering in the Great Depression. Big problems create big opportunities for those who succeed in tackling them. Some of his decisions exacerbated, rather than alleviated, the challenges we faced as a nation. 

USN&WR gives John Tyler and Millard Fillmore a tie for 7th worst. Tyler was a defender of slavery and abandoned the party platform he was elected on. "You voted for me on this, but guess what? I am going to do my own thing now. Sorry, you losers." Fillmore's sins were greater still, beginning with the Missouri Compromise that permitted the spread of slavery. 

Warren G. Harding is tagged as sixth worst in this list. Scandals permeated his presidency I'm not sure he knew what his primary responsibilities were. "When the cat's away, the mice will play." 

William Henry Harrison died 30 days after giving his unnecessarily long inaugural address in the rain. I have a hard time saying he was a bad president. He never really had a chance to get any traction. 

Franklin Pierce. 

Franklin Pierce  is another of those presidents a majority of our citizens would be unable to identify in a final exam. It was his view that pursuing abolitionist would be a threat to the Union. Therefore, he acquiesced to the pro-slavery Southern Dems. "Staus Quo is the way to go," must have been his motto. "Don't rock the boat."

Andrew Johnson takes the #3 slot in this list. He opposed Reconstruction, was an enabler of carpetbaggers and scalawags, among other things. Ultimately there was an attempt to impeach him, but he was acquitted. These were turbulent times and it didn't help that he had a somewhat obstinate personality. Those first years after the Civil War would have been a trial for anyone.

USN&WR lists Donald Trump as #2 in this list of "worst" presidents. Whereas it's true that he never had more than a 50% approval rating, there were numerous presidents with a lower approval rating at the end of their service in the White House. Gallup Polls (measuring only since FDR) show Truman, Nixon, Carter and both Bushes to have the lowest approval ratings at the end of their tenures. In light of the ongoing media hostility toward the 45th president it's quite surprising his ratings were as high as they were.

According the this list, James Buchanan (1857-1861) gets to wear the moniker of "Worst President." He did nothing to stand in the way of the spread of slavery and set the stage for the secession by the Confederacy.

* * * 

Personally, I believe Millard Fillmore can't be far behind as an instrument of stupidity with regards to these matters. The absence of Andrew Jackson and his treatment of the Native peoples that resulted in the "Trail of Tears" seems an error somehow. 

You can probably poke a few holes in the inflated importance of Woodrow Wilson as well, in my estimation, the Ivory Tower President who really couldn't grasp the significance of many of the events unfolding in the aftermath of the First World War. His unrestrained use of propaganda to generate a hatred of Germans (our largest immigrant population) and Germany had consequences that extended far beyond his visual horizon. 

* * * 

Harnessing the Wind Can Be Harrowing for Birds

Last night's presidential debate included a brief exchange regarding wind power and energy issues. President Trump, overstating with his usual hyperbole as he often seems to do, said, "Wind energy will kill all the birds." 

Joe Biden made fun of this, as if it were ludicrous. (OK, yes, the statement as it stands is ludicrous.)

Having read quite a bit about wind energy, and having worked at a company that served that industry, I was well aware of the issue the president was referring to. Wind turbines not only kill birds, the companies that run these wind turbines get fined big bucks when they're equipment kills endangered species.

I remember a number of years back when a North Dakota company was fined a million dollars because its turbine (or turbine blades) killed some species of golden eagle or falcon. The following headlines appeared when I did a Google search. 

Wind Power Co. to Pay $2.5 Million for Killing Golden Eagles, Other Protected Birds

The Endangered Species Act And Wind Power: A Rule, Or More Of A Guideline?

Wind Turbine Company Heavily Fined for Killing Birds at Wind Farm in Wyoming

To put things in perspective, all kinds of human activity endangers birds. According to the Clean Grid Alliance, cats kill more than 10% of the birds. (This is why we do not have a bird feeder. Our barn cat Chirps is a very effective hunter, ever on the prowl for the unwary chickadee. (His eye is on the sparrow as well.) 

More than half of all birds killed by humans die by flying into windows and buildings. 14% die by power lines, 7% by pesticide and 9% by cars. I remember how my dad would occasionally have to remove a bird from the grill of our car after that one hour drive to my grandparents house. (I also remember the Burma Shave signs on that route.)

The Audubon Society counters with this article: Will Wind Turbines Ever Be Safe for Birds?

It may be Green Energy, but currently the turbines kill between 140,000 and 328,000 birds each year in North America alone. 

Actually, though, when I look at those numbers, it seems quite low. If there are 50,000 wind turbines in the U.S., that means (according to the above numbers) that each turbine kills between 3 and 8 birds a year. If it were three, then this would be one every four month. I think the windows on my house--and a small house at that--kill about three birds a year.

It's the bald eagles and golden eagles that Audubon Society cares about most, though. 

For more on this topic check out:

Ten Myths About Wind Energy and Birds

Wind Energy and Birds

(Above link goes to documents from the Clean Grid Alliance)

Top of page: "For the Birds"--painting by the author, 24"x 24" 

Election 2020: A Rude Awakening is Coming. Will It Be for Trump's or Biden’s Supporters?

Yesterday my Medium feed (recommended articles) included a story titled A Rude Awakening is Coming for Trump and His Supporters.  Now generally I do not have time to read everything that gets sent to me in this fashion. Nevertheless, some things do catch my eye. The article essentially outlined all the reasons this author believes a Biden/Harris landslide is coming. More interesting to me, however, was reading the comments that followed. 

The 5 minute read explains why Trump and his zealous followers will soon be facing the biggest disillusionment of their lives. 

After reading half the comments, I thought it might be fun to play off the title of Frank Lucacovic's essay because the confidence on both sides seems to be so strong that it will indeed be a rude awakening for one team or the other when this thing is over.

Here are some of the comments, extracted from over 130 attached to the original piece. You can read the whole article here first if you prefer, or start with these excerpts. Or skip these excerpts and read the growing river of responses there if you like.

What's interesting to me is hearing people on both sides talk about this election as if it won't even be close. That may be the biggest surprise for some. My own personal fear is that whoever wins, the results will be disputed.

13 SELECT COMMENTS

1.

I appreciate your confidence but you may have overlooked two key factors. Many Trump supporters are either shy in their political opinions, or outright lie to pollsters for fun. This factor will decide many of the swing states that Democrats think are in the bag.

2.

Your wishful thinking lost me in sentence two - which contains two parts pure opinion and one fact.

For the coming Biden landslide you describe to be true, we'd be on the verge of a 1984-style Reagan win. Not even close - Reagan had momentum, near hysteria - he could draw 10k to small towns in blue states. Biden can't draw his entire family to an event.

Like recent past, this will be a tight election decided by one or two states.

The early voting numbers seem to be muxh stronger with Republicans than Democrats, so I think you may be surprised there.

Proclaiming victory 2 weeks before the election is just not smart. But, please, go ahead.

3.

As a mere observer from the other side of the pond, I find this piece and the comments on it a bit depressing - because so predictable and emotive. A word like 'evil' should be weighed very carefully and to dismiss all your President's followers as 'ignorant and selfish' shows a huge contempt for those who think and feel otherwise. And no, I'm not a Trump fan!

4.

Much as I dislike Trump and all he stands for, right now, after Giuliani's latest revelations regarding the contents of Hunter Biden's hard drive, I wouldn't put a cent on Biden winning. Neither he nor his family deserve to be near the White House any more than the Trumps do. US politics is one giant swamp.

5.

Biden is corrupt, senile and a patsy for the elites who lost control when Trump came in and messed up their swamp.

The biden family along with many politicians on both sides are deeply fincanced by foreign interests and I don't think americans want to go back on the plantation.

There is no energy in Biden or the so-called democratic platform that is consistently veering further left and offering nothing but hate and fearmongering.

Remember what the talking points were in 16? WW3 is coming and NATO will fall apart, bla. bla.. and now NATO is stronger than ever, North Korea and Islamic State are pacified. There are peace deals being made with Israel and Arab nations. China has lost its grip. US is energy independent. Pedofile rings and human trafficking being unraveled like never before.

The screeching leftists have the microphone and are supported by mainstream media and big corrupt money. But they don't stand a chance against the calm and thoughtfull people who still are the majority and will decide the vote.

6.

I wonder if this was written before or after the bombshell news about Hunter Biden's laptop and the implications of corruption it portrays for Joe Biden.

7.

Trump is going to win ... in a landslide. The Biden-Harris ticket is the weakest in the history of presidential elections. See you in two weeks.

8.

Frank I pray you are correct but I fear you are placing too much faith in polling numbers. Almost all political polling in the past 50 years has leaned heavily on telephone polling. We have reached a time where the overwhelming number of households no longer own a home phone and even among those with a home phone it is there for emergencies and rarely if ever gets answered for fear of telemarketers. A good number of those who just use cell phones also don't answer if they don't know who it is or they will let it go to voice mail and return the call if it is someone they actually do know. Additionally, one of the strongest parts of Trump's base is white males without a college degree. From the research I have done, it is a demographic almost impossible to quantify in polling data and they will come out heavily for Trump.

9.

This article, and others in mainstream media, is truly remarkable. EVERYTHING TRUMP DOES IS WRONG AND EVERYTHING BIDEN DOES IN RIGHT!! Remarkable indeed. Biden does not even have to campaign and he will win. In other words, the media elites who graduated from Ivy league schools and other universities are so much smarter than the average American, they will effectively pick the president for the people and tell them which box to tick. The strategy? Constantly report negative news on the guy they don't like, suppress and hide the bad news about the guy they like. Do this constantly, day in day out for 3-years, and then say the voters chose. By the way, any voter of public figure who strays from that narrative should be cancelled. That is the cesspool of pathology that palms itself of for American journalism as they lecture China and Russia about freedom of the press and propaganda. I haven't even dealt with the world's number one propaganda and indoctrination machine-Hollywood.

10.

You realize Clinton was up more vs Biden in swing states last election and Trump won. You also realize nbc and wsj polls in 2016 also had clinton at +11 in same first half of October time period. Common sense says just look at turn out and parades for Trump.

11.

It’s stunning how many people still feel that the spoiled man-child currently sitting in the Oval Office is acceptable to be the leader of this nation. Really? He’s an incompetent embarrassment, a narcissist and a liar. Only the wealthy seeking tax breaks and those who would aspire to be like him will vote for him. It’s frightening to think anyone admires him enough to see him continue his plunder of this country. They have truly set their bar very low. The dumbing down of America & celebrity worship is directly responsible for this debacle.

12.

Sure Biden is going to win, you can see the support in his rallies.

Also, he thinks he's running for senate:

“that’s why I’m running as a Democrat for the Senate” (min 25:20).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kouqhEQCjoI

13.

I've spent time reading articles from both sides. What I've noticed is that both sides are anticipating a landslide victory. Both sides believe that if they do lose the election, it will be because of fraud and corruption.

Emotions are running sky high on both sides and both sides believe the other side to be morally flawed at best, and an enemy to be defeated and cast aside at worst.

What should be very concerning to us as the American people is that we are being set up to be even more divided after the election than before - regardless of the outcome.

To quote Abraham Lincoln who quoted Jesus, "A house divided against itself cannot stand."

As we allow ourselves to become more divided, the house begins to collapse from the inside out.

* * * * 

Did Trump Borrow a Play from the FDR Playbook?

Did Donald Trump do something original when he started his Twitter feed? Or is his Twitter feed simply a 21st Century version of a play from the FDR playbook?

This week I re-read David Brinkley's story in the June 1988 Journalism Review. In some ways it's good to be reminded that there's nothing new under the sun.

The image on the cover is familiar to most, a headshot of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, with the blurb announcing the magazines feature story: "David Brinkley on Roosevelt vs. The Press." The actual title of the feature is An Age Less Than Golden: Roosevelt vs. the Wartime Press.

David Brinkley served as an American newscaster from 1943 to 1997, an era of remarkable change that included wars, rumors of wars and walks on the moon. When I was a kid growing up he was the Brinkley half of the number one news program The Huntley-Brinkley Report with Chet Huntley. In 1988 he published a bestselling book titled Washington Goes To War, hence the appearance of this feature article in the Washington Journalism Review. that begins, "Franklin Roosevelt exercised more power for more years than any president in American history."

The article begins by detailing the manner in which FDR exercised power over business and the unions. When the war was underway Roosevelt went so far as to tell car manufacturers what they were to produce, and it wasn't cars. The automakers went to Washington to lobby for the right to make cars because people needed them and public transportation was inadequate. The meeting was supposed to be a public meeting, but Roosevelt shut the doors and locked the reporters out. In the meeting GM president Charles Wilson explained that Detroit had 75 million dollars of inventory in engines and car bodies, drive shafts and chrome bumpers. The president essentially said, "You can build the cars but they won't have any wheels because there is no rubber for tires." After Pearl Harbor Roosevelt brought the unions in line as well, forbidding strikes until the war was over.

But from the beginning of his presidency the media nettled him, harassing him daily, "the one major element in American society still beyond his control," Brinkley wrote.

From the first of his four terms FDR would start his day reading "fat bundles of newspapers" that were brought to him from across the land. The newspaper editorials were harsh and he would get quite torqued about the things many of them were saying, so much so that Senate Majority Leader Alben Barkley asked him, "Why don't you just ignore those sons of bitches?" Brinkley asserts, "But he never could."

Their chief gripe was that the president won political power with "false campaign promises to reduce the size and cost of government," among other things.

Rather than have his message filtered through the newspapers, FDR came up with an end around. These were the early days of radio. This was the birth of his "Fireside Chats" (which often didn't match what his scriptwriters wrote because I liked to ad lib.)

What's interesting to me is that FDR's frustrations with the media took place at a time in history when they still played nice to some extent. That is to say, they showed respect for the president by not showing him with a disability. His wheelchair was concealed. The long affair with his mistress was shoved into a drawer. But as sportswriter Jane Leavy noted in The Last Boy, her bio of Mickey Mantle, "His time in history was a period of innocence in which the sportswriters knew he was a man different from his iconic image. In those days the sportswriters could lose their jobs for writing some of the things they knew. And today sportswriter might lose their jobs for not writing about what they knew. We live in a different time, a time of innocence lost." (emphasis mine)

There has never been a president like our current one. Loose cannon? Bull in a china shop? Epithets readily come to mind. Some of his behavior makes me think of the kid who had the words "Kick Me" taped to his back in sixth grade. (oh, that was me.) Easy target.

But the Twitter move was brilliant. And I've been told he had the best and brightest embedded in the Facebook war room, or something of that kind. Social media was the powerful weapon he used and it hamstrung his media enemies while fermenting a loyal base.

Does social media work as a marketing tool? Ask the POTUS. You can follow him on Twitter @realDonaldTrump or you can frequently find a ringside seat at the various Trending Topics in which are recurring as the seasons. Enjoy the show.

Disclaimer: I tend to be cynical about political solutions and consider politics a false hope and a distraction. Like other forms of entertainment -- sports, movies, etc -- it helps to keep things in balance. 

Trump Humor

I realize that even though late night talk show comics are having a field day with this year's presidential race, there are some folk who see nothing funny about the current political reality show. The New Yorker, naturally, wanted to prove the contrary position and did so by having every single cartoon in its April 25 issue be about Donald Trump.  Inasmuch as it came out the weekend before the New York primary, it did not have a great impact on the outcome in the Empire State.

Last night before heading to slumberland I got a little late night reading in, and it was this April 25 edition of The New Yorker. Now I realize that reading the cartoons first is probably akin to young men looking at the pictures of women in Playboy first, but I'm willing to confess that I did that last night. (I don't usually do that, because what I usually do is look at the cartoons as soon as my magazine comes in the mail.) Some of the cartoons were pretty hilarious.

I knew right away that something was up wen I hit the second cartoon and it was about Trump like the first had been. The third confirmed my suspicions. By the end I felt like I'd just finished a nice dessert after a long day.

Here are a few examples, described.

1) It shows a scene at the beach in which a little boy has made an absolutely gigantic sand castle that spells out his name: Trump. The letters are taller than he and it's about 18 feet wide. The caption reads, The Formative Years At Rockaway Beach.

2) The second is a table of bridge players looking at their cards. The caption reads, "One no-trump. Oh, please, God, no Trump."

3) Two women sitting in a diner holding wine glasses and chatting. The one says to the other, "If Trump becomes president, I don't care how high he builds that wall -- I'm going over it."

So against this backdrop, when I woke in the middle of the night I found that all those cartoons only served to feed my subconscious. Upon waking the first thing in my head was a Trump cartoon. It went like this.

The image is of an unemployment line, with a large sign at the top that reads, Unemployment. But the line is made up of famous monsters from Hollywood. The Wolf Man, the Mummy, Frankenstein etc. Frankenstein says, "Before Trump came along I was the scariest thing going."

After that one made me smile I thought of another one that would be a spin-off for a conservative magazine. At the end of the line we see Hillary.

O.K. you can replace Hillary and have the same effect by putting Trump in that line after Hillary gets elected.

* * *

The next cartoon features two people sitting on a park bench with the N.Y. skyline in the background. They are dressed in stylish clothes, clearly New Yorkers, and happen to both be reading this same edition of The New Yorker. Instead of a caption, they have those word clouds that contain the words they are saying. The first one says, "Wow, Trump's amazing. He not only controls the media, he controls the cartoonists, too. Next thing you know --"

The second one cuts him off: "Don't say it."

* * *

Anyways... hope something here made you smile. If you are a cartoonist and use one of my cartoon ideas, please send it my way to post here, and maybe I will send you a copy of my book A Remarkable Tale from the Land of Podd. Thanks!