With apologies to the cartoonist, I present an op ed cartoon stolen from friend of the blog Tengrain over at Mock Paper Scissors who apparently got it from Jimmy-T, and no telling where Jimmy-T got it from. But, no matter; it sums up our current political situation perfectly.

Great Memes, Cont.

It brings to mind two things.

(1) She’s A Witch!

In Monty Python and the Holy Grail, some villagers bring a witch they’ve captured to Sir Bedevere for permission to burn her.

The parallels to the scene are just uncanny:

, just like the unfortunate woman in the scene, democracy tries to defend itself from the fiery blood lust of the MAGA mob:

  • They dressed me like this! Democracy defends itself from the fiery blood lust of the MAGA mob by calmly and confidently pointing out that all doubts about the efficacy and veracity of our elections are entirely based on the wild accusations that the mob is making.
  • She turned me into a newt! Um… uh… I got better. Our courts throw out every case brought against the 2020 election results because of a lack of evidence that the plaintiffs admit in a wide variety of venues, including to the courts themselves and each other.
  • If she weighs as much as a duck, then she is made of wood, and, therefore, a witch! The MAGA mob is satisfied by the same illusion of truthiness that contorts logic and stands reality on its head to justify their destruction of our democracy.

If Trump ever compares our democracy to a duck, you know we’re in real trouble.

And (2) the Witch Hysteria

What are the lessons we can learn about our current pandemic and stolen election hysterias from the Witch Hysterias of Medieval Europe?

The Medieval Witch Hysteria Teaches About Today’s Pandemic and Stolen Election Hysterias

As noted in the 2021 post, The Medieval Witch Hysteria Teaches About Today’s Pandemic and Stolen Election Hysterias, there are many similarities between the MAGA anti-democracy hysteria of today and the European witch hysteria of the Late Middle Ages:

  1. Religion was an important galvanizing force of those suffering from both hysterias.
  2. Scapegoating an Other was an important factor in both hysterias.
  3. Those affected by both hysterias have been living for decades with extreme stress and experiencing continual fear and outrage.
  4. The world had changed so radically for both groups of hysterics that they had to take radical steps to feel as if their world hadn’t changed.
  5. Not everyone living in Medieval Europe was equally affected by the hysteria just as the hysterics surrounding the pandemic and the Big Lie have only affected a significant minority of our own population.

And, as noted then, it took almost four hundred years for the hysteria to fully die down, so we can expect a whole lotta more crazy outta our MAGA faithful before our democracy is saved.

Yeah, that op ed cartoon is certainly spot on. The only improvement could be by mixing in the Wizard of Oz hiding behind a curtain urging the mob on.