Although deadly serious and potentially extremely damaging to our nation’s security, the discovery and seizure of a trove of classified documents at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club initially evoked plenty of satire and (gallows) humor.
Satirists such as Andy Borowitz and many political cartoonists have had a field day.
Referring to the possible compromise of nuclear secrets, Borowitz quipped (in part):
Trump Dismisses Fears That He’d Build Nukes: “I Couldn’t Even Build a Wall”
“There’s math, there’s science. Not gonna happen,” the ex-President said.
Below is a great Cagle cartoon throwback to an earlier Trump attempt at demonstrating his alleged mental acuity.
This writer, too, tried to make light of an alarming situation, when I, in a piece focusing on Trump’s ludicrous claim that he, willy-nilly, could declassify anything and everything, referred to such a far-fetched presidential power, as Trump’s “magic wand.” .
But, in an “update” to the story, this author illustrated how Trump — even as president and commander in chief — had absolutely no respect for state secrets and hence for the nation’s security.
The example involved Trump’s 2019 tweeting of a highly classified image taken by one of America’s premier secret spy satellites of an Iranian missile launch site, giving “U.S. adversaries keen insights into the U.S. capabilities to spy from above.”
Trump’s ludicrous view then, “Look, I’m the president, I can declassify anything,” should have been a warning for what was to come when he begrudgingly moved out of the White House three years later.
In addition to Trump’s mythical “standing orders” to magically deem declassified anything he took out of the White House, a myriad of excuses have been thrown at the proverbial wall by Trump and his defenders, hoping one or more would stick.
They range from “It was an accident,” blaming it on the chaos of Trump having to pack in a hurry, as he had been planning to stay in the White House beyond January 20, to allegations that the FBI “planted’ the evidence at Mar-a-Lago, to the fairy tale that Trump was planning to use the documents to help him write his memoirs. Apparently, Trump needs the Top Secret, Sensitive Compartmented Information(SCI) that he refused to read as president to now embellish his resume as a civilian.
Then there is Don Jr. on why it would have been smart for his dad to take nuclear weapons information to Mar-a-Lago: “If Donald Trump actually still had the nuclear codes, it’d probably be good.”
Finally, most hilarious of them all, is the hoax that a work-obsessed Trump was just taking his work to his golf club resort. “like so many hard-working Americans.”
Political cartoons and political satire can be very funny, but – as an essay in Anchor makes clear, “one won’t find them in the comics section.” Anchor adds, “Their main purpose, though, is not to amuse you but to persuade you.”
And indeed, while we may smile, most of the cartoons and satire on this sad chapter in our nation’s history may help us understand the issue better.
Today, we learn that Trump absconded with not just “a few” classified documents, not just a few dozen, but rather hundreds of classified documents. In total, more than 300 — more than 700 pages — “including some at the most restricted level.”
We may soon learn the exact nature of the documents seized during the most recent search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago basement — “protected” by merely a lock — and of more grave malfeasance in office. Then, finally, the full extent of the damage to our national security and our democracy will become jarringly clear.
When this happens, it will become increasingly difficult for political cartoonists, satirists and comedians to paint such in a humorous way, to make us smile. But they’ll succeed, for just as we can see the rainbow through our tears, we’ll be able to see and judge evil even as we smile.
