Auchtoon!

The President expresses himself in superlatives: The transcript was perfect, I am the chosen one, I have the best words, and so on. It’s an effective rhetorical device. The absolute certainty projects a pseudo-strength that many find very appealing. And the ridiculousness always offers a backdoor escape — if it is received as too over-the-top, supporters can always say, “it was a joke” or “he didn’t mean it literally. Duh!”

Trump has done this his whole public life, and he will continue to do so as he clings to the presidency, so it’s not a surprise. But it is upsetting — one of the things that triggers people. (Quick aside: This whole celebrating “triggering” people is like a schoolyard bully faking a punch to your face, exclaiming, “You flinched!,” and then taking two free shots to your arm as a reward. OF COURSE you’re gonna flinch! In what stupid world is pulling back to protect your face the wrong move?)

But what can you do? Well as with any bully, persevere. Persevere by continuing to hold the bully accountable and not be overwhelmed by the sheer volume. So in among the fountain of recent rants, Trump has been selling hard the idea that all (superlative) Congresspeople voting for the impeachment articles are hopeless leftists. This is simply not true, and Michigan offers three of the best examples of why: Justin Amash from the 3rd district, Elissa Slotkin from the 8th, and Haley Stevens from the 11th.

The toughest part is that there will never be tangible evidence that calling out his lies and exaggerations has done any good. Of all of Trump’s moral deficiencies, the worst (and arguably the least Christian) may be his utter lack of humility. There never is a moment of self-reflection, so he will never apologize or ask forgiveness. He will not — and seemingly cannot — admit to an error. This is especially apparent in this season of Advent when Christians prepare themselves for Christmas. (Publicly insulting the recently deceased to trigger a widow is generally not how this is done.)

First, let’s acknowledge that the Dr. Seuss’s book How the Grinch Stole Christmas is perfection. And his collaboration with the great Chuck Jones on the animated special somehow took the story up another level to pure genius. But the Jim Carrey movie and everything after is an abomination. We good? All right. Let’s move on then.

NPR broke a story this week on Michigan’s Betsy DeVos. From the very beginning of her tenure as U.S Education Secretary, DeVos has been in battle with her own department over what to do about the more than 200,000 students defrauded by for-profit colleges in recent years. You should read the article for details, but the short story is this:

The department’s Borrower Defense Unit recommends full loan forgiveness for defrauded students. DeVos does not recommend that. It’s hard to say exactly what she wants (probably by design), but the idea is to provide only partial relief to those who deserve it under the guise of fiscal responsibility. The NPR report demonstrates clearly that DeVos has been willing make up lies and make them up quick to get her way.

DeVos testified before the House education committee Thursday, which is after I drew the cartoon and wrote this. Perhaps she was able to explain her side to some satisfaction. But given the convoluted (and probably illegal) bureaucratic mess of a plan she’s been peddling so far, I doubt it.

Every once is a while I come up with a cartoon that says all I have to say about a topic, so I don’t really have any backstory or additional commentary. I’m just truly mystified why this is the way it is.

So you’re vacationing with a large group, and you’re hungry. You’ve rolled up to, through, and now well past dinner time. Several plans have been suggested and (you thought) agreed to, but never quite executed for reasons that run the gamut from passive-aggressiveness (“Oh, I guess seafood is fine. I usually break out in hives and my throat closes, but that’s okay.”) to over-the-top rejections (“NO! Absolutely not! Applebees is dead to me! They know what they did!”)

It is at this point that somebody suggests that perhaps it’d be a good idea to consider Somali food, even though nobody has ever had it or knows where a restaurant might be. Know that hangry feeling?

That’s kinda what I felt like when I read that the Michigan Senate is proposing a study to look into whether toll roads make sense for Michigan. Seriously? You’ve been supposedly working on a long-term plan for our infrastructure, and you’re just now floating this idea? I mean, I’ve got nothing against considering tolls (or Somali food), but isn’t it a bit late in the game? Good heavens, what else don’t you have figured out? 

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Who knows? By the time this cartoon is published, maybe Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey and Governor Gretchen Whitmer will have worked out the state budget for 2020. But I doubt it. For the very reasons why the budget was not really done on the October 1st due date: Political posturing has priority over actual work. The pollsters, the advisors, the party insiders are making the decisions.

Let’s not be naive — these folks have always been part of the process. It’s politics, after all, right? And it’s not necessarily dirty politics. Partisans gonna partisan. They are going to advocate hard for their sides and they won’t have any problem stepping over (or even slowing down for) lines that divide civility from zealotry. It’s just that, ideally, the shouldn’t be in charge.

And over the past decade, they have not only been put in charge, they’ve been supercharged. It’s been a deeply cynical, highly orchestrated national phenomenon, and Michigan is taking cues. Party over country. Bias over law. Campaigning over legislating. Control over constitution. Special interests over general good. And without exception, the end justifying the means.

I don’t think there is a term for this. But my suggestion is that henceforth we refer to it as McConnellism. What do you think? Credit where credit is due.

I was at a training conference this week for my day job. It was about the future of communications (specifically public relations and marketing communication), and while I would say that it was definitely worthwhile and I learned a lot, the best conversations I had weren’t about the conference topics. That seems often to be the case with me — what I find most enjoyable is not what I’m actually supposed to be doing.

But let’s leave my flaws there for now and move on to why I bring this up. One of the people I met was a former Michigan Wolverine football player. He is a relatively recent graduate, so in the course of conversation I asked about the new California law aimed at compensating college athletes, particularly those in high-profile, high-revenue sports like football. (This week two Michigan lawmakers introduced a similar law for our state.)

He had a number of very interesting insights and was able to speak with firsthand experience about the intensity of playing on a Division 1 team. He had concerns about how exactly athletes would be compensated and when. One method he pitched was to award a lump sum of money at the end of a collegiate career based on the amount of time spent in the system. Sort of a profit-sharing thing. It would include counseling on what to do with the money (with an emphasis on saving some for future health issues).

Interesting. I’m not sure whether that’s the best way to go, but my opinion really doesn’t matter. What mattered was to listen. Maybe I did learn something at the communication conference.

I know this is a fairly obscure reference but hang with me — there is a point to it: Thirty-ish years ago the  late great Phil Hartman had a reoccurring character on Saturday Night Live called The Anal Retentive Guy. A sketch would have him as an instructor demonstrating how to do something. For example, a chef showing you how to create a certain dish. The humorous conceit was that he was so overly meticulous that he would never get around to doing what he was actually supposed to do. In the end, he’d pleasantly acknowledge that he’d run out of time as he continued to be sidetracked.

You kind of have to see it to understand. Unfortunately NBC has those sketches locked down, so it’s not just a simple trip to YouTube.

But anyway, the point: If the continuum goes from Totally Spontaneous Guy on one end to Anal Retentive Guy on the other, I’m more on the latter. And that can be really frustrating to people who just want to get stuff done. Especially if it’s something that seems way past due. Like, say, legalizing marijuana for recreational use. I can understand that. But I also understand that there are consequences for moving ahead too fast.

If I’ve lost you either with the cartoon or what I’ve written here, please let me be clear about one thing: I’m NOT saying that marijuana is the same as opioids and vaping. I’m saying that there are lessons to be learned from experiences with legal use of opioids and vaping mistakes should be considered and avoided. That may slow the process, but I think we’ll be better off for it.

A few years ago when Trump was elected, I made a joke that Grand Rapids should be very grateful because they’ll be able to power the city with electricity generated by Gerald Ford spinning in his grave. (Well, along with Betty Ford spinning there right beside him.) A bit of an inside joke. First, you have to know that the Fords are buried here in GR (right next to the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum). You also have to understand how very different Ford was as a Republican (and, frankly, as a human being).

Ford was a moderate Republican. And you can easily forgive anybody younger than 30 (let alone a child like in the cartoon) for not having any idea of what that is. “Moderate Republican” was never an official club, and I won’t attempt my own definition. Better to offer (in addition to Ford) an example: the recently deceased Gov William Milliken.

Milliken was many things but most significantly for Michiganders he was the governor from 1969 to 1983. If you don’t know much about him, I encourage you to read one of his obits or at least visit his Wikipedia page.

Now, whether you liked or disliked his politics as a moderate Republican, that’s really not the point. What’s remarkable is their extinction. It truly feels like Bill Milliken may have been the last one.

So after the University of Wisconsin’s football team crushed Michigan State last week (after also crushing both University of Michigan and Central Michigan this season), the Twitter handle for the Upper Peninsula tweeted, “It’s official, I belong to Wisconsin now.” And then as if to drive the point home, the Packers (and arguably the officiating crew) beat the Lions Monday night.

All this after the same U.P. handle got quite a bit of attention when the U.P. was in fact included as part of Wisconsin on a map used in a Mountain Dew promotion. This is not an unusual occurrence. Less usual but not uncommon is the U.P. being left off a United States map entirely, as it was on the Weekend Update portion of the most recent Saturday Night Live.

I went to school at Michigan Tech (or now, apparently, Wisconsin Tech), and I can say firsthand that Yoopers take all this stuff in stride. If you’ve never been there (and not may people have), you don’t know how special it is. But as good-natured as Yoopers are, I gotta believe they have a breaking point. And having to be associated with a country that carelessly sells out its allies and cozies up to tyrants just may be it.

This week the US Supreme Court heard cases involving the firing of gay and transgender people from their jobs. The defendants claimed they lost their jobs because of their sexual orientation or gender identification and that this constitutes sexual discrimination. The prosecution argued that sex means strictly whether you’re a male or female, not whether you’re gay or straight. 

The transgender woman, Aimee Stephens, is from Michigan — she worked for six years as a funeral home director, but was let go two weeks after telling her boss she was transgender and would be dressing as a woman.

NPR had excellent coverage of the trial, and I would encourage you to read it if you want to know details. But the particular part that struck me was the focus on the 1964 Civil Rights Act and its Title VII, which addresses employment discrimination based on sex: Justice Samuel Alito noted that Congress in 1964 didn’t have gay and transgender employees in mind at all. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg chimed in that sexual harassment was not even a legal concept in 1964, and yet the court decades ago found it to be prohibited conduct under the 1964 law.

It’s both fascinating and agonizing to see the legal gymnastics performed in the decision-making process. It may seem very obvious to us what the right thing to do is. But there has to be justification. The case has to be built and tested if that “right thing” will eventually stand. 

And that’s just to get it right legally. Putting it into practice is even more difficult. Remember the lyric for the Bruce Hornsby song?

Well, they passed a law in ’64
To give those who ain’t got a little more
But it only goes so far
Because the law don’t change another’s mind
When all it sees at the hiring time
Is the line on the color bar, no
That’s just the way it is