Dispatches From the Fortress – Day 180

Today's one item about Trump is an article in The Atlantic by Peter Wehner headlined "Why Trump Supporters Can't Admit Who He Really Is." Wehner's answer is that they have become convinced that a Democratic regime will destroy everything they care about in the world. Excerpt…

This phenomenon has no shortage of explanations, but perhaps the most convincing is the terror the president's backers feel. Time and again, I've had conversations with Trump supporters who believe the president is all that stands between them and cultural revolution. Trump and his advisers know it, which is why the through line of the RNC was portraying Joe Biden as a Jacobin.

Republicans chose that theme despite the fact that during his almost 50 years in politics, Biden hasn't left any discernible ideological imprint on either the nation or his own party. Indeed, Biden is notable for his success over the course of his political career in forging alliances with many Republicans. I worked at the Office of National Drug Control Policy in the early 1990s when William Bennett was its director and George H. W. Bush was president. Biden was then chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee; he and his staff were supportive of our work, and not in the least ideological. There will be no remaking of the calendar if Joe Biden becomes president.

I voted for Bernie Sanders in the primary but you have to wonder what the prophecies of America's total destruction would be like now if the ticket was Sanders/Warren.


The weekend we just lived through brought record temperatures to Southern California. Whenever it's really cold anywhere in this country, a guy I know tweets something like "Well, so much for the theory about Global Warming" as if record cold spells prove the climate is not changing. Somehow, he does not apply this "logic" when it's 121° in Woodland Hills and a third of the state is on fire.

For some reason — age, I guess — the touchscreen on my iPhone X has become super-sensitive. It's almost as if I blow on it and it immediately loads a random app, plays a random song or calls Sergio Aragonés. They're reportedly about to unveil a new model today or any day now and I can't help wondering if Apple has changed something about my current phone to make me more interested in upgrading.

A follower of this site and my webcasts wrote to say, "Your upcoming line-up is all comedy writers. I hope you're not abandoning comic books." Not at all. It's just the order in which I get around to people. I have a couple of cartoonists and comic book people lined up for October and November. I'm also, in response to many requests, going to give a few more folks a shot at interviewing me about different areas of what I laughingly call my career.

Readers of Groo keep writing to ask when we might see more issues of everyone's favorite lunkhead barbarian. There are completed, ready-to-print issues on a shelf somewhere but The Pandemic has thrown much of the marketplace into chaos so they await the proper time. I am told we will shortly be able to announce the proper time.

Similarly and lastly, The Pandemic (and certain tariffs imposed by that gent who already got his one mention today here) have made it rough to get books printed overseas and then imported to our shores. The seventh volume of The Complete Pogo got to the printer in plenty of time for an October release but we're now looking at mid-November. I hope, I hope, I hope.