April 2, 2016

I really like Dilbert, the comic strip, but this snippet from Jake Tapper's show made me sit up and ask myself why on earth we think comic strip writers should be indulging in political punditry.

Among other things, he bases his opinion on sexist tropes.

Transcript via Media Matters:

JAKE TAPPER (HOST): You have this new theory about a Trump-Clinton general election contest that will, in your view, potentially favor Trump. What is it?

SCOTT ADAMS: So when we have Trump versus Clinton, assuming they get to the final match, it's going to look like mom versus dad. Now, they're not going to say that, but in our minds we're going to start seeing them that way.

And the thing about dad is that dad is kind of an a-hole, but if you need dad to take care of some trouble, he's going to be the one you call. You know, if there's a noise downstairs, you probably are not going to call mom, even if she's awesome.

You're probably going to call the biggest person in the room, you're going to call dad.

So in our irrational minds, if the world is exploding and we're still talking about nuclear terrorism, I think people are going to say, maybe you want the most dangerous person to protect us.

If people are saying things are looking pretty good right now, the economy's not so bad, all I need is a sandwich and a hug, maybe mom looks better. So I think people end up talking about the issues and then ignoring them and it's these big, just feelings that they have about the candidates that are going to rule in the end.

Just for the record, during the Northridge earthquake, it was this Mom making sure the kids were safe, because that's what Moms do. So if we're going to go on feelings, I wouldn't be so sure it'll be Dad people feel safest with.

But politics isn't merely about feelings. It's about who has the qualifications and the knowledge to get the job done. And if the contest is between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, that's not even a hard question.

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