My dog Pongo explains the hope family members hold for their MAGA relatives

Once upon a time, decades ago in a city far, far away and in a different lifetime, I had a Dalmatian named Pongo. (Don’t smirk. Pongo was named for the book, not the Disney movie!) He was what is called a liver Dalmatian, which is where the spots are brown instead of the traditional black. He was the sweetest dog ever. And the stupidest.

Despite years of the doorbell ringing and it never being for him, Pongo really thought that this time really it would be different. Sure, the last 1,000 times hadn’t been for him, but today? Today is a new day! It was like Lucy and the football, only dumber and more chaotic.

And that’s what it’s like to hold out hope that MAGA family members will finally find a Trump disgrace that’s a bridge too far.

I say this because Evangelical heads across America are exploding because Donald Trump created a meme in which he was Jesus Christ. Blasphemy? Of course it is. And they’re pretty mad today. But that will not last because it never has.

They overlooked his grabbing women by the pussy, his adulteries and extramarital fornication, his cruelty, his lasciviousness, his alleged pedophilia, his cursing, his taking the Lord’s name in vain, his cowardice, his cheating of his employees and subcontractors, his braggadocio, his utter ignorance of foreign affairs or even geography, his incompetence, his attempted coup against the United States; his attack on his enemies, real and perceived; his unrelenting grifting, and the untrustworthiness of a man who promised no new wars, lower prices, a cheaper and better universal health plan any time now, and Mexico paying for a wall that will never be built, and delivered on none of them. Each time, feathers might be ruffled, but the pigeons always flew home. And this won’t be any different.

Donald Trump claims he confused the protagonist of the meme with a doctor. If true, that would confirm that he’s so cognitively impaired that it really is time for the 25th Amendment.

But give it time! Some unscrupulous megachurch pastor somewhere will come up with a perfectly implausible excuse for why a man who cannot name a single Bible verse is God’s Most Very Bestest Christian, and, like sheep, they’ll fall into line to follow this false prophet of a shepherd.

And that’s the beauty! They don’t even have to develop excuses that make sense! I mean, the official excuse for the “grab-’em-by-the-pussy” statement was that it was locker-room talk: You know, the way that incredibly immature, insecure, shallow men brag about the very sexual exploits that God says you shouldn’t even be doing. Not someone that gives Jesus vibes to me, but clearly their mileage varied.

I hate to be a buzzkill, but if nothing that has happened so far has caused our MAGA families to come to their senses, what’s a little blasphemy among cult members?

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