Posters started appearing in Los Angeles depicting Obama as the Joker with the word “socialism” below his face. The image quickly spread throughout the internet, gaining knee-jerk liberal condemnation and making people ask things like “What does Obama have to do with the Joker?” and “What does the Joker have to do with socialism?” and “Is this racist somehow? I’m pretty sure it has to be racist.”
Well, as it’s my job as some guy on the internet, I will definitively answer all of these questions.
First off, it’s worth looking at whether the poster is racist. Liberals seem pretty certain it is. An LA Weekly blogger commented that “the only thing missing is a noose.” Now, you might be scratching your head and saying that the only people who would call this racist are brain-dead liberals who shriek “racism!” at every criticism about Obama as an alternative to thinking and only cause more problems by confusing the issue of racism and should thus be chased out of society and forced to live in the sewers, only emerging at night to feed on garbage and bugs.
And while that’s quite fair and probably true, we should still give the possibility of racism a fair hearing. Don’t you remember the long, racist history of black people being compared to the Joker? Of course not, because I just made that up — but it could be true in some alternate universe. Also, the image involves white makeup on a black person. White on black — that has to be racist somehow. I’ll bet makeup places won’t even sell white pancake makeup to black people. They’d be like “No! Get out of here, black person! We won’t sell that to you! That’s racist!”
Beyond the racism in the image that’s quite obvious to crazy people, the other question is whether there are any real substantive comparisons between Obama and the Joker. On the surface, they don’t seem at all alike. The Joker is psychotic, and I’ve heard Obama called a lot of things — arrogant, incompetent, deceitful, a Communist — but not psychotic. Obama doesn’t seem like he’s out to kill anyone — not even terrorists — and only leaves the option of killing people on the table to help make ends meet in his health care plan.
Also, the Joker seemed chaotic but was very careful in his planning, while the chaos from the Obama administration seems much more explainable by pure incompetence.
Furthermore, the Joker was actually somewhat subtle in how he tried to destroy Gotham by psychologically breaking down the will of its people, but Obama’s methods for destroying everything are a bit more ham-fisted, such as proposing expensive new programs while we’re already hugely in debt. Finally, the Joker has always been depicted with normal-sized ears.
Still, there are many similarities worth considering. The Joker was seen crashing a party, threatening wealthy elites with a knife, and taunting them with the phrases “Why so serious?” and “Want to know how I got these scars?” Similarly, Obama often threatens CEOs with government takeovers and taunts them with the phrases “Why so capitalist?” and “Want to know where I got these cars?”
The Joker also hung out with the insane and the violent, as Obama hangs out with Jeremiah Wright and Bill Ayers. The Joker is always telling conflicting stories, and so does Obama — such as whether the stimulus was supposed to stimulate the economy or not. And both have mysterious pasts (personally, I’ve seen neither of their long-form birth certificates). Plus, I hear in the health care bill there’s a plan to put old people on one ferry and young people on another ferry and give each a detonator to blow up the other (it really is the only way they can make the numbers work).
There is a major difference between Obama and the Joker, though, and it’s the socialism caption on the poster that speaks to it. I’ve never known anyone to call the Joker a socialist; he’s always portrayed more as an anarchist. The only reason Obama’s policies seem similar to anarchy is that he’s just so incompetent in instituting them, but really Obama is for socialism. So that’s the difference: the scope of Obama’s destruction is much bigger.
For instance, the Joker blew up one hospital, but Obama’s government takeover of health care will destroy hospitals all over the country. Obama’s plans really aren’t something you can throw a batarang at; he’s more on the level of a Superman villain like Lex Luthor — except Luthor is a businessman and has actual economic experience. In fact, the destructive power of Obama is something you might want to send the whole Justice League after.
But there is no Justice League; Aquaman can’t save us now. In reality, it’s up to the Republicans to stop Obama. And as they try to work with him and make some compromises with him, I have something to tell them: some men aren’t looking for anything logical, like bipartisan support. They can’t be influenced by polls, reasoned with, or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn.
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