The Art Of Politics: September – Watching The World Burn On Both Sides Of The Atlantic
by Richard Bruton
Well, 2020 just keeps rolling on, doesn’t it? Is it getting any better for you? Nope, me neither. The only good thing about this plague-ridden year? The quality of the political cartooning we’re seeing. It’s time for the Art of Politics…
It’s September so was back to school. Across the world, kids are doing a mixture of school and online learning, they’re being protected as best they can be, sanitiser, masks, distanced, the lot.
Here in the UK. Masks? Nope, not mandatory in the classroom, although at least there are rules in place (sort of) about pupils being sent home for “malicious coughing” or inappropriate Covid jokes. Always good to see the government has its priorities right, eh?
Ben Jennings on the wonders of social distancing in schools –
Boris and the government seem to spend their entire week going back on things they said the day/week before. Over and over and over again… why, it’s almost like they’re totally inept.
And against all the Covid things going on, amongst all of the economic troubles we’re seeing in the UK and abroad, there’s still the whole Brexit thing looming over us. And it’s looking more and more likely that we’re going to get that ‘no-deal Brexit’, you know, the thing Boris always said wouldn’t happen. Oh, it’s going to be a long, long winter…
It took the British government till the second week of September to come out with one of their absolute best lines… Yes, the new bill proposed to amend the UK’s Brexit deal with the European Union will ‘break international law’, but it’s okay because it’s only breaking that law in a very specific and limited way’.
So yes, insanity. Does this mean it’s fine to go down to Marks & Spencers and shoplift a Percy Pig but just eat a couple before putting the bag back on the shelf? Is that specific and limited enough to get away with it – or do I need to be a Member of Parliament and specifically this government to get away with such absolute utter bollocks?
Anyway…
Steve Bell on that –
Martin Rowson on the whole lighting the whole bloody thing and letting it burn of a no-deal Brexit –
As the days went on, it was increasingly likely that the UK would tear up the Brexit deal, going back on the internal market bill, a key part of the withdrawal agreement negotiated with the EU a year ago – breaking international law in the process.
Or to sum it all up, Boris took a dump in the scales of justice this month…
Ben Jennings gives us just that –
And then we had MORE Covid chaos in the UK. The cases had been going up in England particularly and it was time to lock the country down a little more – bring on the ‘Rule of Six’.
Basically, you can’t socialise with more than 5 other people in the UK now. Sure, you can go out to the pub, eat out, get your hair done, but absolutely no chance of meeting up with your Granny if there’s already six of you.
In fact, it’s almost as if the Tory government is only allowing us to go out and meet people if we’re spending money.
And then it got even more ridiculous, even more venal and self-serving. The government decided that those everyday social activities of “grouse shooting and hunting with guns” was to be allowed. After all, when the aristocracy and the monied upper classes want to get together, why should they be stopped by a little virus.
Martin Rowson sums that up perfectly… Boris vomiting violently on the rule of law is exactly right –
And Peter Shrank on the same –
Brian Adcock on what this mess is doing & what breaking international law will mean –
And Morten Morland making the obvious comparison – it’s fine for them but wrong for us to break the law – contemptible bastards.
Around the world…
Russian opposition leader (yes, there is such a thing) Alexei Navalny was poisoned with a nerve agent from the Novichok family. The world demanded answers. Putin ignored them. So, business as usual.
Meanwhile in the USA…
Frankly, nothing sums up just how it seems Trump is handling everything now – whether it’s the election, the BLM movement, gun laws, Antifa (whatever the hell that is), all the accusations – nope, this is Trump at the moment – basking in the idea of being the only man who can deliver law and order in the US.
And of course, with the election happening on 3rd November 2020, as you’d expect, things are getting nasty…
Brian Adcock –
One big thing that’s really winding Trump up is mail-in voting. He’s convinced it’s going to be a corruption of the electoral system, despite many, many, many experts saying otherwise.
So, Trump being Trump, he decided to suggest that voters actually try to vote twice, once by mail and then in person on election day – just to test the system. No matter that it’s a Federal crime.
And then, 4th September, we had the Atlantic article on Trump’s views on the military. Well worth 5 minutes of your time to read it, but the takeaway comes in the headline and sub-head…
Trump: Americans Who Died in War Are ‘Losers’ and ‘Suckers’
The president has repeatedly disparaged the intelligence of service members, and asked that wounded veterans be kept out of military parades, multiple sources tell The Atlantic. – The Atlantic, Jeffrey Goldberg (3rd Sept 2020)
Yep, that’s about the long and the short of it. Trump denied it, of course, but the thing is – we all read it and pretty much through – “Yep, sounds like something he’d say and believe.”
Biden was about as angry as I’d ever seen him get when talking about it – yet still not angry enough, still too vague, too reluctant to actually come out and really dig into Trump. Sure, he called it disgusting and basically said Trump wasn’t fit to be President, but it still wasn’t enough.
Instead, as always, the cartoonists absolutely destroyed him…
Kal –
And of course, there’s the suspicion being thrown around the USA by parts of the media and analysts that Trump will do whatever he can to hold on to power… anything he can…
Things in 2020 just get worse and worse as well, with the sad loss of Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the USA, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, on September 18.
The usual procedure with the appointment of a new Supreme, as I understand it, would be to hold off until the new President and Senate are in place to make the appointment. But that’s not the way of Trump and McConnell, which is why we’re getting the nomination and vote being pushed through, with the Supreme Court inevitably ending up as a right-wing dominated judiciary for the next 30 years.
And right at the end of the month, 2th7 September, we had The New York Times getting hold of Trump’s tax returns and publishing their analysis of them. The long and the short of it – it’s about as bad as you think. Paying $750 in federal income tax for the first two years of his presidency, paying sod all for years before that, huge debts coming due, a history of spectacular losses – it’s all making it seem that he’s either A) an incompetent businessman but a damn good shyster with a spectacularly good accountant not afraid to get very, very, very close to breaking a few laws. Or B) unbelievably corrupt on an incredible scale.
David Rowe making the point of the US reaching the tragic death toll of 205,000 lives lost to Covid-19 whilst Trump seems far more concerned with decrying “Fake News! Fake News!”
And that’s it for this month – closing this a day early, 29th September. And of course, this usually means that something absolutely terrible will happen tomorrow, 30th September.
But right now, I’m in the USA, it’s 29th September, there’s a US presidential debate happening tonight where – according to the polls I’ve seen where 95% of people polled say that the debate will have no impact upon their voting – we’re going to draw up a debate bingo card, open a bottle of something, order in pizza, line up the snacks, and watch the President and the former VP face off against each other with the fate of the world up for grabs.
2020 – it’s been interesting so far, let’s see if we can all make it to January 2021 in one piece eh?
