The Right-Cheek Ass Clown for August, 2023

I sometimes wish I'd never started with the Ass Clown Awards, because they're a depressing reminder of the worst of human nature and the sorry state of our world. But I also believe that someone needs to heap scorn on those who represent the depths of boorish behavior and the worst of what humanity has to offer, and so I keep stepping up ... at great risk to my sanity.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Dear Readers, cue the flatulent blare of kazoos as we announce

The Right-Cheek Ass Clown for August, 2023

and the winner is

The Republican Party

The GOP has independently won a staggering eleven Ass Clown awards, including two Ass Clown of the year awards (in 2011 and 2017). It has shared the award with the Democratic Party* twice (in September 2011 and the Left-Cheek Award for October 2018), and the Republican National Committee and GOP groups or individual members of Congress have racked up a further five awards, for a grand total of seventeen awards between 2011 and today … a record approached only by Der Furor, who has earned fifteen individual or shared awards, including the 2015 Ass Clown of the Year designation and a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2017**.

Let me say up front, as I have many times before, that the nation needs to have a principled and vibrant conservative party to complement the liberalism of the Democrats. Sadly, today's Republican Party is not it. Today's GOP has completely rejected law, truth, common sense, empathy, and morality in its headlong tumble into angry authoritarianism, led by a man with no identifiable redeeming qualities***. 

This is my summary of the unfortunate qualifications of the GOP for today's award ...

- Using violent rhetoric without regard to its effect on public safety and order. Consider Florida Governor Ron DeSantis's crude, violent comment at a campaign function in Rye, New Hampshire, earlier this month, when he said “We’re going to have all these deep state people [members of the federal bureaucracy]. We’re going to start slitting throats on day one.” Mr DeSantis was, of course, speaking metaphorically, but in an era when many people have been spring-loaded to accept the legality of violent action by the ill-considered rhetoric of their political leaders, throats could well actually be cut.

- Claiming to be "the party of law and order" while GOP members of Congress openly support violent rioters imprisoned after the insurrection of January 6, 2021, calling them "political prisoners," and refuse even to consider that there might just possibly be real criminal activity in the upper reaches of their party.

- Ignoring court orders when they threaten Republican legislative dominance and future electoral prospects.

- Happily embracing the complete lack of gravitas and moral leadership demonstrated by the angry, self-serving rants of Der Furor. “IF YOU GO AFTER ME, I'M COMING AFTER YOU!” compares poorly to  such famous presidential quotes as Kennedy's "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country" and Franklin Roosevelt's "We have nothing to fear but fear itself."  

- Failing to deliver on promises. Der Furor's repeatedly promised "Infrastructure Week" was finally delivered by President Biden; the replacement of the Affordable Care Act was never delivered; the "big, beautiful" border wall was never finished, and Mexico didn't pay for it.

- Ignorance of the Constitution and threats to "terminate" it. 

- Advocating a chaotic foreign policy that has real and potential allies wondering if the United States can be counted upon in a crisis. 

- "Weaponizing" the Federal Government against its opponents. Although the GOP thunders that legitimate investigation and prosecution of Der Furor and those who stormed the Capitol in the 2021 insurrection reflects unfair "weaponization" of the government by Democrats against "innocent" citizens, this is the same party that has relentlessly pursued - without evidence - private citizen Hunter Biden^† and subjected former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to repeated investigations that amounted to nothing.

- Lack of workable economic policies. The entire GOP economic program consists of minimizing regulations of any kind on business, cutting taxes on businesses and the wealthy, and eliminating spending which directly helps ordinary Americans.

- Unyielding endorsement of unrestricted ownership and public carrying of guns. The Second Amendment to the Constitution grants citizens the right to "keep and bear arms," but the party's rigid opposition to the least, most unobjectionable regulations on this freedom in the face of the enormous amount of gun violence across the country is unconscionable.  

- Focus on "culture wars" that just stoke outrage, rather than on bread-and-butter issues that affect citizens' day-to-day lives and economic well-being. 

- Denial, in the face of overwhelming evidence, of the effects of climate change, and a refusal to consider policies that would alleviate the worst effects of environmental changes. 

- A focus on eliminating the "administrative state" without rational thought as to how its functions can be carried out by a Congress that can't agree on anything more important than naming post offices, if that.

I could go on, but you get the idea.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Dear Readers, the Right-Cheek Ass Clown award for August, 2023, is presented to the Republican Party ... a once-normal conservative party that has degenerated into a political mob which repeatedly shows itself unable to govern, and to thrive only in noisy opposition to those with actual ideas.

Have a good day. Think hard before you vote in future elections ... too many people won't.

More thoughts tomorrow, when Cartoon Saturday tries to lighten things up a bit.

Bilbo

* The Democratic Party has won the award on its own once, the Right-Cheek Award in November of 2021.

** That award, which made Der Furor ineligible for future awards, was rescinded when he was designated the Left Cheek Ass Clown for July, 2020. His degree of ass clownery was such that I could no longer justify giving him a pass, even after a lifetime achievement award.

*** And we haven't even discussed Ron DeSantis.

† To be fair, Hunter Biden is a deeply flawed individual who has engaged in questionable conduct; however, the emphasis of the GOP "investigations" has nothing at all to do with Hunter Biden's conduct but as something with which to smear his father. The open, arguably criminal business conduct of Der Furor and his children goes unremarked.