Ted Rall did this better, but it reminded me of something I've been noticing for a while. Just as both Americans and South Koreans
oscillate between seeing North Korea as a weak, pathetic, ineffectual clown show on the one hand and an existential threat poised to rain nuclear missiles on Washington, D.C., so liberals can't quite make up their minds whether Donald Trump's laughable campaign has been doomed to fail from the beginning or is a sleek, streamlined fascist steamroller that will take Hillary down and impose a Nazi dictatorship on America if we don't clench our fists, squint real hard, and
mock him on Facebook a dozen times a day.
Now that I think of it, such
doublethink characterized the World War II-era
propaganda cartoons that were recycled on TV when I was a kid: Hitler was a terrible threat, but mainly a clown, so we all must join hands and unite to destroy him without breaking a sweat. One must simultaneously convince oneself of the danger, and deny that there's any danger. But it gets comical when the contrary ideas are put side by side.
