The Left-Cheek Ass Clown for April, 2023

We've reached the point at which it's all but impossible to identify a single individual, or even a single group, for an Ass Clown award. Such are our politics, our unfocused, roiling anger, and our rigid insistence on freedom over responsibility that I could name an Ass Clown not just biweekly, weekly, or daily, but pretty much "morning" and "afternoon." I've been thinking hard for the last two weeks about how to limit today's choice to a single "worthy" Ass Clown, but - sadly - I just couldn't decide.

And then I asked myself, how did we manage to get to this place? When I looked at it that way, the answer became, if not obvious, at least much clearer.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Dear Readers, I give you

The Left-Cheek Ass Clown for April, 2023

The American Electorate*

When we ask how we got to this place, there's a clear answer that's rooted in the document everybody claims to revere, but few actually understand** - The Constitution.

The Constitution (as amended, in the case of electing senators) put the burden of selecting our leaders on the people as a way of avoiding a hereditary monarchy or a dictator imposed from above. But representative democracy is messy and chaotic, and many present-day voters (especially on the right) can't handle messy and chaotic, and want a strong leader who will cut through the complications and nuances and present them with simple, easily-understandable solutions to their fears ... thus the appeal of would-be tyrants like Der Furor, Ron DeSantis, and Greg Abbott***. And not just at home - many on the far right express admiration for foreign dictators like Russia's Vladimir Putin and Hungary's Viktor Orban.

As the old saying goes, we are trapped in a cleft stick of our own cutting. The world is changing, the country is changing, and a lot of Americans are afraid of what that change means for their place in the country and the larger world. Many White Americans look at how Black Americans are treated and fear that in an America they no longer control, they will be treated the same way. They look at the insane cost of health care and choose to remain sick so that they can pay rents or mortgages and put food on the table rather than demand action from their elected officials. They see medical and scientific guidelines change rapidly as new data and knowledge become available, and fault the doctors and the scientists for changing their ideas based on better information. They see hundreds of thousands of people fleeing terrible conditions in their home countries and trying to come to America, and they fear the problems that these people may bring with them rather than the conditions they fled. They form their opinions not on the basis of thought, research, and the consumption of accurate news reporting, but on the basis of the proven and admitted lies of Fox "News."

In short, the average American voter doesn't want to have to think very hard. They want simple, cheap, fast answers to problems and they vote for the people they think will provide them. They'd rather "stick it to the man" than doing the hard work of realizing the inspiring goals of the Preamble to the Constitution:

"to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, ensure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity"

They vote for tinpot authoritarians like Der Furor, Ron DeSantis, and Greg Abbott, and noisy bags of hot air like Empty G, Lauren Boebert, Kristi Noem, Rafael Cruz, Jim Jordan, and Ron Johnson ... people who make them feel better, but who have no interest in accomplishing anything of value for the nation.

They vote for candidates who share and stoke their anger and hate, without thinking of the long-term damage they are doing to the country at home and abroad.

They vote for candidates who pander to their fears and prejudices, who value the unchecked proliferation of firearms over the lives of our children.

The Founders would be ashamed.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Dear Readers, the Left-Cheek Ass Clown award for April, 2023, is presented to The American Electorate ... at least that portion of which is hell-bent on driving the nation to ruin, abetted by the portion that doesn't bother to vote at all.

We have done it to ourselves.

Have a good day, and come back tomorrow for Cartoon Saturday. You know you need it.

Bilbo 

* You may recall with some sadness that The American Electorate was the Right-Cheek Ass Clown in May of 2016, and the Ass Clown of the Year for 2016 as well. As I noted in the 2016 ACOY citation, "I think the award is justified by the credulousness of those who voted for [Der Furor] and the fecklessness of those who did not do their duty and vote."

** Except for the Second Amendment ... everybody understands that.

*** All of them are previous recipients of Ass Clown Awards, individually or as part of a group.