Just about every media outlet has done a story about President Trump’s first one hundred days. Some made an attempt to be different and did his next 265, or next 1360 instead. It came down to the same thing though.
If you’re a regular reader, you’ll know there’s not much about Trump or his presidency that I have a good word for so far. It also seems a bit pointless to repeat much of what professional journalists have already said.
So, I thought I’d present a collection of what US cartoonists came up with to “celebrate” Trump’s presidency.
The First Few Weeks
The way President Trump was governing the country has always been a bit different. To be fair, that’s what his supporters want. However, things didn’t always go to plan. As Trump famously told Reuters the other day, “I thought it would be easier.”
Slideshow: The First 100 Days
Here’s a slideshow of what various US cartoonists (and one French one) came up with for Trump’s first 100 Days.
Whatever section of the Trump administration you name there is a slew of cartoons, brilliant and otherwise, illustrating the event. This post is already going to be very slow loading because there are so many pics, so I’ll just do one more short slideshow. I’m unlikely to want to include any of these in a future post, so it’ll give them an outing!
Trump’s Golf Weekends
During the Obama Administration, Trump was a constant critic of what he saw as Obama’s constant golf trips when Trump thought Obama should be working. He loudly proclaimed during his campaign that he wouldn’t be playing golf when he was president – he’d be at work in the Oval Office.
However, a president is never off duty, and wherever they go, a huge part of the administration goes with them. In my opinion, being president is a difficult job and incumbents should have an outlet from the pressure to help them cope.
During Obama’s Administration I also found the constant complaints about the cost of keeping the president safe frustrating. We all know there were people whose wish was to see Obama dead (and still do), just as there are people who feel the same about Trump. That disgusts me. No matter how awful someone is, wishing them dead is just wrong.
And I don’t like the current complaints about the cost of keeping Trump safe either. Keeping the president safe from physical harm is the right thing to do, whatever you think of them of their politics.
However, I dislike the blatant hypocrisy Trump constantly displays even more. Obama had been in office three months before he had a game of golf. Trump has had 20 games in his first 100 days. It also costs a lot more to keep him and his family safe than it cost to keep Obama and his family safe. The right thing to do would be to apologize for all the times he made complaints about Obama golfing, or the cost of Obama’s safety. I won’t be holding my breath.
Message For Trump Supporters
If you’re a Trump supporter, you are probably upset by this post. You probably think it is unfair. Perhaps, though, pictures will work on your delusion that Trump is a great man in a way that his words and actions obviously didn’t. He is not a great businessman, he is not a good man, and he probably won’t Make America Great Again.
Donald Trump is a liar. He lies so much he comes to believe the alternative reality he creates. People who support him believe his lies. That is dangerous for both the US and the rest of the world.
The US is the most powerful country on the planet, and now she has a very unpredictable president. Many of you think that’s great, but it’s not. The US is supposed to be the country that the free world can rely on to lead it and keep it free. We can’t do that any more.
No one can rely on President Trump, least of all his allies. He has a penchant for dictators. The leaders whose praise he has sung include Vladimir Putin, Saddam Hussein, Xi Jinping, and Rodrigo Duterte. He’s even given praise to Kim Jong-un in the last few days calling him a “smart cookie” and defending Kim’s murder of his own uncle.
There will come a time when Trump will need the support of leaders like the prime ministers of Great Britain, Canada, and Australia. He will need to be able to persuade his own people to trust him and stand behind him. The longer he carries on lying, bloviating, and whining that everything is someone else’s fault, the harder he will find it to ever get a majority on his side.
He was never a business success. He was successful at building a brand and at creating a reality TV show. The problem with reality TV is that it isn’t realistic. Succeeding there does not prepare you for actual reality.
The comedians and cartoonists are often the ones doing the best job in fighting back against Trump, and they’re important. They can bring attention to topics in a way more serious voices don’t.
Some of the best voices in fighting back against Trump’s efforts to destroy his country are Trevor Noah, John Oliver, Samantha Bee, and, following his success at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, Hasan Minhaj. Ironically, they were all born outside of the US.
All power to them and all the others in the media who are telling us the truth. The truth will keep us free.
If you enjoyed reading this, please consider donating a dollar or two to help keep the site going. Thank you.
Here’s to 100 glorious days of forgetting about that nincompoop what’s his name, and thanking our lucky stars we dodged the dreadful what’s her name. At some point the sore losers will exhaust themselves, won’t they? If not, enjoy the spectacle.
Most Americans couldn’t tell you who Trevor Noah, John Oliver or Samantha Bee is. Does looking to TV personalities for political analysis make any more sense than electing one?
I’m sure there are plenty of people out there who are sore losers. Many are disappointed for genuine reasons like Russian hacking, Comey’s interference, and Clinton winning the popular vote by a huge amount. However, Clinton losing is irrelevant to whether or not Trump is a competent or capable president. For me, and I’m sure many others, it’s got nothing to do with the candidate I preferred losing. Trump was not prepared to be president, and does not appear to have learned much so far. I’m sure he will get better. However, he’s starting from such a low base that I can’t imagine he’ll ever be a good president.
Just yesterday he screwed up bigly again re Andrew Jackson. Every president reads up on their predecessors to help them. Trump obviously hasn’t. It’s well known he doesn’t read – he doesn’t have the attention span. I doubt he’s ever even read his own books – books that he didn’t actually write.
Stephen Hawking’s description of Donald Trump: A demagogue who seems to appeal to the lowest common denominator. I’m quite sure most Americans have never heard of him either.
I remember Ike was said to always be playing golf during his presidency. I note that:
“Mr Obama played about 300 games in 8 years; that’s about once every 9 days. Considering Dwight Eisenhower played 800 rounds of golf in his 8 years – or about 1 round every 3 days”.
Trump’s method of what he calls “negotiating” (but really just means turning up unprepared and winging it, while pitting his subordinates against each other, and while licking the boots of those above him) is a method that is not in any way at all related to running a government.
His base will always stick to him, and unless the opposition to him can find a way to bring significantly more than 40% on board, he will stay there for 8 years until Ivanka takes over.
People like Warren and Sanders need to realize that hysterical shrieking will might make their side shout louder than Trump’s but it instantly excludes all those who are not already on board. I’m happy to see massive numbers of people taking to the streets, but rage and “hope” and “struggle” etc will never appeal to enough people to create a successful opposition.
I think it’s blinkered not to see this, and I suspect many in the “resistance” simply haven’t accepted that they suffered a catastrophic loss last November, and it was (in large part) using exactly that kind of strategy.
I haven’t watched many of the comedians (and I’m not American), but while I like them, I also think they have at times been part of the problem. Too much of liberal / left media (including comedy) takes a form that must be inherently repellent to a huge swathe of the population.
The only comedian I’ve seen who makes a point of including Republicans and right wingers on each show, letting them have their say, taking them seriously *and* challenging them in a reasonable fashion is Bill Maher. (Maybe some others on Heather’s list also do this — I don’t know.)
Maher also challenges Democrats as well. I was glad to see him cut Elizabeth Warren short last week when she was starting to launch into a rant about how inspiring the opposition is, and challenged her that she has avoided the fact that they lost. This is exactly my impression too. Warren’s attitude that it is all so wonderful to see so many people marching skips over the fact that they are marching because Warren’s side failed and lost. My impression is that this defeat has been too painful for them to swallow. (Same with the NYT. They stated it was their “mission” to make sure Trump is not elected. They raised the stakes, picked an open fight, and lost. But instead of admitting it, they are crowing about how their sales have skyrocketed.)
I admit I flinched a bit when Maher playfully called Warren Pocahontas, but later realized he was exactly right to do so. Getting so upset about this stuff leads to fake outrage, and fake outrage runs out of steam eventually.
If Maher seems curt with Warren it shouldn’t be a surprise. He’s been advocating for the dems to nominate a thug as tough as Trump. Warren furrows her brow and shakes her fist like a librarian trying to quiet rowdy children. He wants a street brawler from the New Jersey neighborhood who doesn’t mind getting down and dirty – like a Lyndon Johnson or Bobby Kennedy. Trump taunts Warren because he thinks she’s weak and would like to run against her. He gives her visibility and hopes she’ll appear to be the logical next choice.
I like the Michael Moore idea of running Oprah. Celebrities win, even when they’re clearly incompetent. The GOP has run a view successfully. The number of people who believe Reagan was a great president never ceases to amaze me. Oprah is smart and beloved and highly capable. I think she’d be great.
And Oprah has better ratings than Trump, so that would take care of all the Apha-animal stuff. She could just laugh at anything he throws at her. (All I’ve ever seen of Oprah in the past is when she’s promoted the most atrocious and dangerous New Age swindlers, so my opinion of her is extremely low. But obviously I’d overlook that in an instant if it meant getting rid of Trump.)
President Reagan was hands down among the greatest. He won the cold war and restored America’s dynamism, optimism and prosperity.
The prosperity of the US during Reagan’s administration came from the tech revolution. That would have happened with or without him.
The end of the Cold War had a lot more to do with Gorbachev and Glasnost than Reagan. It too would have happened whoever was president.
Reagan was clearly in the process of losing his mind due to the onset of dementia during his second term and he was kept away from the cameras in a way that wouldn’t be possible today. However, I’ll never forget film of the Queen visiting. It was obvious Reagan had little idea what was going on. It was very sad.
Nancy Reagan protected her husband a great deal. She also had enormous influence over him, including persuading him to use things like astrology in his decision making.
To believe that fantasy, you have to believe that if Carter had been given a second term, it would have turned out the exact opposite of the first. Possible, but highly unlikely.
“Reagan bolstered the U.S. military might to ruin the Soviet economy, and he achieved his goal,” said Gennady Gerasimov, who was the top spokesman for the Soviet Foreign Ministry during the 1980s.”
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/world/2004-06-07-reagan-world_x.htm
As for prosperity, yes, of course it always comes from private initiative, not politics or politicians, but Reagan created the necessary preconditions by cutting taxes and regulation, and by decisively reversing, once and for all, the default consensus in favor of political meddling in the economy.
And by sheer dint of his sunny personality, Reagan reinvigorated America’s spirit, confidence and resolve. (A stark contrast, needless to say, both to his predecessor and to the years 2009-2016.)
The US military was not weak before Reagan came along. Russians need someone to blame for the weakening of their country. The perception of Russians has been managed to enable the blame for any failure to be placed wherever a leader chooses. Currently, most Russians think Putin is a successful leader despite the fact he is destroying his country’s economy while simultaneously hoarding huge wealth for himself.
And like many USians, you believe the myth that Reagan reduced taxes. Check again. Further, check the history of your economy in relation to taxes. The economy has succeeded more often when they have been raised, especially on the wealthy.
“After the fall of the Berlin Wall, many people remembered having had views similar to Reagan’s about the vulnerability of the Soviet Union. But Reagan, as Robert Gates wrote in his 1996 memoir From the Shadows, ‘nearly alone truly believed in 1981 that the Soviet system was vulnerable not in some vague, long-range historical sense, but right then.’…
“…To put the case in the simplest possible terms, the Soviet Union didn’t fall; it was pushed. The push that Gorbachev gave it was the proximate cause, but it reflected pressure that Reagan began to apply four years before Gorbachev came to power… [Reagan’s push] was intended to produce the outcome that followed, [an outcome that Reagan] was nearly alone in thinking possible.”
https://jrbenjamin.com/2016/02/29/appraising-reagan/
I wouldn’t expect Bob Gates to have any other opinion.
Defense fact check:
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/bal-te.pentagon08jun08-story.html
Taxes fact check:
http://www.heritage.org/taxes/commentary/reagans-tax-cutting-legacy
Whatever it was that Reagan achieved, the current administration has openly and proudly abandoned it and is openly replacing it with a pay for play system for despots.
Which, of course, is one of the things he accused Clinton of and said he was running against.
A librarian, yes. I was thinking Kindergarten teacher, but she is more like a librarian. I don’t think she realizes how many people she immediately excludes with all this talk of struggle, etc. The dems would be mad to let her run for pres.
I agree. I like her, and I think she’d be a good president, but she’d be a bad candidate imo.
She’d be an improvement on Hillary, not that that would be difficult.
I think Biden is talking sense here.
http://www.newyorker.com/news/john-cassidy/joe-bidens-sound-advice-for-democrats
Hard not to gag on the thick irony of The New Yorker of all places — THE NEW YORKER!! — playing up creepy Uncle Joe’s supposed benevolence toward us Little People. Uncle Joe, the handsy septuagenarian who managed never to earn a dime from honest toil.
The piece quotes Joe as claiming to “abhor the abuse of power” — an obvious and amusing typo. Referring to the Democrats’ overarching agenda to concentrate power in the hands of politicians and bureaucrats, he actually said they “adore” the abuse of power.
My purpose wasn’t to defend Biden for any misdeeds, real or imagined, though I must now note that some supporters of the so-called president wouldn’t know real irony if it fell on them like a collapsing Trump real estate deal. I was referring to his advice to Dems that to win again, they shouldn’t choose between “champion(ing) progressive policies that will energize its liberal base, or … focus(ing) on winning back some of the persuadable voters it lost to Trump”, but must do both.
Oprah???
No comment…
I don’t actually think she’d be a good president. As Yakaru says, she’s made a lot of woo popular amongst other stuff. It’s the principle that’s perhaps worth considering.
However, she’d be better than Trump.
My dog would be better than Trump. He’s US-born and 78 in dog years. Is there anything in the Constitution that specifically requires a Homo sapiens?
😀