Putting Lipstick on a Pig

One of my favorite colorful expressions is putting lipstick on a pig ... for my  readers not fluent in colloquial English, it refers to making useless cosmetic changes to something ugly in an attempt to fool observers into thinking it's beautiful.

Back in April of 2015, I presented the Right-Cheek Ass Clown Award to the writers of North Korean school textbooks for their laughably obsequious descriptions of the incredible sporting and intellectual feats of the Kim family, designed to make a clan of murderous thugs seem like monumentally brilliant and praiseworthy figures that every starving North Korean should revere and emulate.

But now we're in 2024, a tremendously important election year, and lipstick factories are working overtime to cosmetically enhance Der Furor, the likely GOP nominee for the presidency despite his manifest unsuitability for the job. Consider all the overblown artwork and language being churned out by the MAGA propaganda mill to make Der Furor seem like a steroid-enhanced heroic figure rather than an overweight, narcissistic, petulant blowhard ...

I've always thought this one was particularly rich for a guy who avoided military service because of "bone spurs" and referred to military members killed in action as "losers" and "suckers" ...

 

This one's just as good ... the only thing Der Furor has in common with the tank is the weight ...

This one is particularly silly, comparing the heroic figure of Washington crossing the Delaware to Der Furor crossing the DC swamp. George Washington is probably rolling over in his grave ...

You may recall the I-love-me series of non-fungible token* trading cards that Der Furor hawked a year or so ago to his credulous followers, proving P.T. Barnum's observation that there's a sucker born every minute ...

One of the most amazing examples of weird thinking in recent memory is the adoption of the poster child for each of the Seven Deadly Sins as a shining example of god's will. An appropriate caption for this image seen online was, "A short time later, Jesus realized his watch was missing" ... 

And, of course, there are those who believe that Der Furor will prevail against his 91 criminal charges in court because he's got the right co-pilot at his side. This is important, because reputable lawyers concerned with their professional standing (and with actually getting paid) are not exactly flocking to his bench ...

Putting lipstick on a pig ... it doesn't work for rational people who actually see what's in front of them, but it seems to work really well for the MAGA crowd. Let's hope against hope that they smarten up before November.

Have a good day. More thoughts coming.

Bilbo

* Speaking of things attractive to the credulous.