The Right-Cheek Ass Clown for August, 2024

The month of August brings new opportunities to bestow the tinfoil and toilet paper crown for excellence in ass-clownery to worthy recipients both new and old. This being an election year, the field of potential awardees has increased exponentially, but - perversely - it sometimes makes it easier to make a selection.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Dear Readers, our award for

The Right-Cheek Ass Clown for August, 2024

is presented to the GOP presidential ticket:

Der Furor

and

Senator JD Vance (R, OH)

Der Furor is now a 17-time winner of this award, including Ass Clown of the Year for 2015, and his increasingly angry and unhinged rhetoric gives every indication that his potential for future ass clownery detrimental to the nation is vast. From his nakedly misogynistic and racist attacks on Democratic candidate Kamala Harris to his impressive list of criminal indictments and convictions, six bankruptcies (including casinos, if you can imagine that), and style of convoluted speaking in bizarre word salads devoid of meaning or discernible rational content, he has earned his place as the worst former president and the worst possible choice* for a future president.

But wait ... it gets worse!

It's difficult to imagine anyone making Ohio look worse than Jim Jordan**, but JD*** Vance has stepped up to the challenge.

Since the announcement last month of his selection as Der Furor's running mate, Mr Vance has gone out of his way to insult every economic, social, religious, or ethnic group to which the GOP might wish to broaden its appeal. 

In a now-notorious 2021 interview on Fox News, Mr Vance characterized Vice President and presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris as one of the "childless cat ladies" who "want to make the rest of the country miserable, too" ... ignoring the fact that Ms Harris is the stepmother of two children, many women without cats choose to remain childless for various reasons, and lots of women with children like cats, too. He has also denigrated women who do not have children, whining that "... the entire future of the Democrats is controlled by people without children.”

His cringe-worthy attempts to deflect attention from his racist dog-whistling toward Kamala Harris as a mixed-race person while he is himself married to a woman of Indian descent were undermined when he stated that "obviously she's not a white person, but I love Usha ... she's such a good mom."

He has exhibited a world-class willingness to change his positions on important issues, as in his 180-degree turn from  previous denunciations of Der Furor, who he once called "a morally reprehensible human being" and "America's Hitler," to rank opportunism, telling the New York Times in a June interview that 

"I allowed myself to focus so much on the stylistic element of Trump that I completely ignored the way in which he substantively was offering something very different on foreign policy, on trade, on immigration."

In addition, his selection adds nothing in terms of the traditional considerations (such as geographic, religious, or philosophical balance) that go into the choice of a VP ... he was apparently chosen solely because of his slavish buy-in to the most extreme MAGA positions and his willingness to play an utterly subservient second fiddle to Der Furor.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Dear Readers, the tinfoil and toilet paper crown for this period goes jointly to Der Furor and to Ohio Senator and Vice-Presidential wannabe JD Vance ... a man who should never be a heartbeat away from the presidency in service of a man who should never again be president. Vote wisely in November.

Have a good day and come back tomorrow for Cartoon Saturday. More thoughts then.

Bilbo

* Admittedly, it's a deep bench.

** The recipient of five Ass Clown Awards: three solo and two shared.

*** He prefers to use the initials without the periods.