An Old Joke About Republicans

Screen shot of Emma Withrow reporting for Al Jazeera

Many readers probably know by now that I regard Al Jazeera as one of my reliable news sources, whether the article is about the Middle East or anywhere else in the world. That “anywhere,” of course, includes the United States, which means that I looked forward to having Al Jazeera cover that bizarre midterm convention cooked up by the Republicans. The reporter was Emma Withrow, and there is now a Web page of a video clip of her account of the event. That said, what particularly appealed to me was a sentence in the caption for that Web page: “Republican speakers portrayed Democrats as a threat to America on night two of their midterm convention in Dallas.” That led me to wonder about whether or not Withrow had ever heard the old joke about the difference between the two political parties: “Democrats think Republicans are stupid; Republicans think Democrats are wrong!”

Those thoughts were then reinforced by another Al Jazeera Web page with the following caption: "US President Donald Trump has jokingly asked Republican voters to ‘cheat like hell’ in the midterms, ‘like Democrats’.” I was glad to see the word “jokingly” in that caption. Nevertheless, I can never be sure whether or not to take what the President says seriously. Running a country that is guided by the electoral process is no easy matter; and I must confess that it is difficult for me to speculate over whether or not the President respects that complexity enough to really take it seriously, rather than making jokes about it!