The Puppet Master

Paul Ryan’s tepid endorsement of Trump underscores the very dark and sleazy nature of politics at its existential core. The recent HBO movie about Pres. Lyndon Johnson––”All The Way”––has a scene in it where LBJ is sitting on the toilet conducting business with his VP Hubert Humphrey. Johnson was famous for holding meetings while he was taking a dump. That’s the perfect metaphor for modern politics.

To me, politics is the fine art of lying. It’s opportunistic and filled with half-truths and plain old falsehoods. Competition gets in the way of competence. It’s opportunistic and exploitive. I draw editorial cartoons because I don’t like politics. Sure, sports are competitive, but the difference between sports and politics is that in sports, it ends in the playoffs. In politics it ends in war.

Unfortunately, I don’t have an alternative system to suggest for choosing our leaders. I’ve always considered my readers to be smarter than I, so someone out there will know if there is a better way. Not voting isn’t an option, but it sounds like voters are coming around to my way of thinking in this election year. It’s not about voting for who you like; it’s about who you loathe the least.