You would think that living in a cartoon world wouldn’t be a nightmare

I’m tired of being held hostage. Aren’t you? This guy, bulldozing democracy with the same unconcern that he ravaged East Wing, says we have plenty of our own oil. In one breath, he says that we don’t need oil from the Middle East, and in the next, he threatens to bomb Iran back to the Stone Age.

This same inflammatory statement uttered by the president riled my fellow columnist-friend Art Cullen. That Stone Age reference made Cullen think about the cartoonish nature of the man in charge and his buffoonish administration. For me, it’s more like life in America has become a Pennywise nightmare.

The president’s posturing is a joke, except it isn’t.

It’s not funny that he sends a message to a centuries-old civilization saying, in effect, “I will annihilate you.” It’s not funny that he threatens a religious-extremist government that he does not understand. It’s not funny that, in one breath, he makes threats in the name of God, and in another breath, in the name of Allah.

It’s not funny that he and his Department of Defense Secretary equate God’s name with “lethality” and bandy about the idea of massive slaughter. They want to scorch the earth so that those who survive will wish they were dead.

45/47 wants to dehumanize Iranian citizens, to reduce them to scratching in the dirt, just like he wanted to dehumanize the Obamas with that monkey meme. Just like he wanted to dehumanize the protesters of No Kings II with the airplane dumping liquid poop in that tasteless cartoon.

What sort of person does such things?

An old phrase, “cock of the walk,” comes to mind. The Cambridge Dictionary defines it as “a man who is too confident and thinks he is better than everyone else.” A definition which recalls the cartoon character, Foghorn Leghorn, who thought he ruled the roost, that is, I say, that is until the Barnyard Dawg gave him a good whoopin’.

Where’s our Barnyard Dawg? Congress? That’s a joke, son.

Shucks, Art was right, as usual, going for the cartoon angle of this wacky — but dangerous — scenario. He went for Hanna-Barbera; I went for Looney Tunes.

Oh, how I wish we were all watching 45/47 wave goodbye, saying, “That’s all, folks!”

Joan Zwagerman writes from Storm Lake.