For the past almost twenty years, I've seen numerous memes and jokes about the importance of punctuation. One of the more famous ones is the inspiration behind Lynne Truss's grammatical primer, Eats, Shoots and Leaves. There's also the traumatically (non) punctuated issue of Tails magazine, featuring a cover story of Rachel Ray's apparent psychopathic enjoyment of cooking her family and her dog (see the sadness in the image on the left).
Years ago The Simpsons hopped on this issue when Marge and Homer consulted Lionel Hutz as an attorney. When he tells Marge the fee is a thousand dollars, Marge presents his business card saying that he works on contingency. Hutz clarifies that the printer made an error and the truth is he does not work on contingency as the poorly punctuated card indicates.
It was this I was thinking about when I saw a Trump/Pence lawn sign not far from my house.
It got me thinking. I understand differing on policies. Trump signed a new tax bill during his term. Some people think this is great; they get more money in each paycheck. Others think this is bad; the already wealthy should not be the primary beneficiaries from this change. Trump withdrew the United States from the Paris Climate Agreement, the Iran Nuclear Deal, and the Trans-Pacific Partnership. These are issues that are at the heart of isolationist/globalist policy conversations. Trump greenlit the assassination of Iranian General Qasem Soleimani at Baghdad International Airport. Supporters say Trump removed a serious international threat; others think he had no right to assassinate a general on the grounds of another sovereign nation. These are all literally debatable points, and I have no problem having the discussion with those who support him.
However, the irony in that lawn sign is palpable. I cannot fathom the idea that people believe that those other than Trump are the primary spewers of the majority of bullshit in politics. I'm not naïve; I would never deign to imply that other politicians are immune from the projectile vomiting of bullshit. Both sides are guilty of this, but Trump takes it to a new level. I am forced to ask myself who believes Trump when he says he has a plan to replace Obamacare. He's been saying for over four years that he has a plan, yet he has brought forth nothing. He's been saying for months that Coronavirus is a hoax, yet he contracted it; also, it's got to be one hell of a hoax if the rest of the world is in on it. He's been saying for months that we're turning the corner, yet the rates of positive cases continue to increase (we've turned so many corners, it's as if we're doing laps). He posts videos of the horrific future we can expect in "Biden's America", yet all the footage is from his administration.
Donald Trump has 144 "Pants on Fire" ratings at PolitiFact.com. That's 16% of all his claims. Compare that to Obama's 1%. Compare it to McConnell's 3%. Compare that to Biden's 3% (of his 173 ratings in total). Of everything Trump is rated on, over 1.5 out of every ten is bullshit. Trump has a mental disconnect with reality; I honestly believes he believes what he's saying. The sad part is others believe it, too. But, to that end, I fixed the punctuation in the lawn sign to make it accurate:
