In another post yesterday, I flagged a truly idiotic and dishonest (or ignorant) cartoon posted by a history professor, of all people. (Steve did an excellent job fisking the stupid thing—thanks, Steve—in another superb comment.) My old historian friend subsequently conceded that the cartoon was crap, and I assume, if I pressed him on it, he would protest that he didn’t endorse the false facts, just posted it as “speaking for itself.” But the cartoon attracted all manner of “likes” and dumb anti-Trump comments, and my freind knows his bubble. He deliberately abused his perceived authority as a historian to pander to the mob. I called him out on it. He is abashed. He should be.

Obviously President Trump is the most prominent example of an influential public figure who too frequently is absurd. The only metaphorical silver lining in that cloud is that he so often does it for effect that not everyone takes him seriously every time. Still, too many do, or in the case of his fanatic foes, choose to pretend that he’s serious when they know he’s not.

There is no silver lining when the leader of the Democratic party in the House says, as Rep. Jeffries did last week, “The last thing that the American people need is for untrained ICE agents to be deployed at airports all across the country, potentially to brutalize or in some instances kill them.” A sane party would demand that the House Minority leader retract that absurd statement. A sane Congress would rebuke him. A sane voting public would reject a party that has such a lying creep as one of its leaders.

One admirable aspect of Queen Elizabeth’s long reign was that she recognized the importance of being careful about what she said. King Charles appear to have learned from her example: he was a royal loose canon in his youth, but has avoided absurdity nicely since ascending the throne. The King of England, the Pope and the Dalai Lama hold the oldest positions of power and influence in the 21st Century world now. Two of them have the sense and the ethical compass not to abuse their posts. The third, by not following their example, is proving that his position not only does not deserve the influence it still holds, but also that that influence is dangerous.