Power Creep

Another day, another wild claim of powers he doesn't have. The President has now decided that his squeaker of an election win entitles him to to throw out some of Joe Biden's pardons--specifically those he issued for members of the January 6th Committee--because autopen.

Above: the real vilian here.

Isn't X already his propaganda platform
of choice? Why does he need both?

Behold:

"The Pardons that Sleepy Joe Biden gave to the Unselect Committee of Political Thugs, and many others, are hereby declared VOID, VACANT, AND OF NO FURTHER FORCE OR EFFECT, because of the fact that they were done by Autopen..."

-a petulant man child 

throwing a tantrum

Because if autopens are invalid, so are
his giant Sharpie's. Buy a real pen, man.

Ok, I have notes. For one, he needs to knock it off with the Sleepy Joe. Trump's like three years younger than him, and also nods off. Unselect Committee? Wow. Sick burn. Oh, and using hereby doesn't make it sound official, and enough with the all caps. We've talked about this. Now, were any of them signed by autopen? Who knows? Trump doesn't. Like so many of his wild claims, he produced no evidence of this. And even if they were, that's never been grounds for throwing out pardons. For that matter, has anything? 

But I suspect that won't matter. He simply proclaims things, and that needs to stop. He's like Louis XIV declaring "d'état c'est moi" or perhaps more appropriately an octogenarian Judge Dredd slurring "I am the law!" Which is not the case. 

He is emphatically not the law, there's a
whole judicial branch for that. Speaking of... 

Seriously, is he holding every member
of the GOP's pets hostage or something?

I'm no Constitutional scholar, it seems to me that the President's authority--and any authority for that matter--is derived from the law. So when he, you know, defies a Federal Judge or makes shit up about what he can and cannot (mostly can) do, he should face consequences. And I think that's the frustration we're all feeling: half the people charged with holding him accountable are evidently totally cool with all this, or too cowed to do anything to stop it.

"We're looking pretty good right 
about now, aren't we?"

-an actual king

People seem to be rolling out the slogan No Kings, and I 100% support this, but I can't help but point out that an actual king wouldn't pull any of this nonsense. Charles III, the current monarch of the monarchy we fought a whole war over, would never deport people in defiance of a Federal Judge, or tweet decrees about pardons. And he would certainly never do a car commercial on the White House lawn. This is petty dictator shit and it seems to be getting worse by the day as he tests the limits of what we're willing to tolerate and we've yet to see a wall. He's like a spoiled toddler who needs to be told no.

A veritable smoothie of similes!
A melange of metaphor! A potpourri
of parallels! Sorry, I'll stop now.

And since I'm just piling on the metaphors here, why not one more? There's a phenomenon in comics called Power Creep. It refers to the way writers, over the years, increase or add to a particular characters power set. Usually out of plot convenience or expediency, but the result is the character becomes less interesting because they can do anything. For example, early Superman just sort of leapt tall buildings in a single bound, but now he can fly into space, shoot lasers from his eyes, and throw his "S." 

My point is, he's a lawless dystopian super-toddler puppy murderer with delusions of kingship and someone needs to do something. And he's a creep, so the title works on a couple levels.

Pictured: what happens when someone isn't told "no."