Cats vs. Republicans: A Cost-to-Benefit Analysis | <B>Editor's Choice</B> |Axisoflogic.com

Editor's Note:
I know this is a light-weight piece. But I live with six cats, so it resonated with me and I'm indulging myself.

- prh, ed.

A terrible thought flittered across my consciousness this morning. Could it be, I wondered, that my beloved cats—Horby, Yammy, Little Fella, and Callie—are all Republicans?

This nightmarish thought crept into my mind because of an incident last night in which Horby wanted to go out. She has trained me to know her desires remarkably well, so it was clear that my appointed duty was to open the front door so she could do a little late-night exploring. That desire, however, conflicted with rules I’m instructed to follow from the primary rule maker in my domicile. That would be my wife, Karen, who has decreed that no cat is allowed to go out after 9 p.m., and Horby’s demands had begun to be made somewhere around 9:15. So, I ignored Horby’s requests as they grew more insistent. Finally, wanting to be reasonable, I went over to where she was sitting by the door and tried to explain things to her. That led her to think that I’d come to open the door, and when that turned out to not be the case, she swatted angrily at my pant’s leg, and said in no uncertain cat terms that my obstinance about not letting her out was just entirely unacceptable. It was the most precise expression of exasperation and pique I’ve ever seen, short of the recurring spectacles of Republicans shutting down the government when they don’t get their way.

At first, I found Horby’s feline version of human petulance to be rather amusing, but this morning I woke up with the thought that she had been expressing an attitude very consistent with the way Republicans have been behaving of late. Horby’s little display of angry annoyance at being denied having her way was her way of letting me know she wasn’t going to be a nice cat, anymore. And, boy howdy, it’s been a long time since Republicans have been behaving like nice cats. They’ve stood in the way of most everything Obama has said, proposed, suggested, or even worn. When they can’t get their way, they just get surly and mean, treating Obama like he’s an entirely different species, in much the way Horby decided to remember that I’m not just another odd- looking cat she usually likes, especially when I’m bringing her treats. No, as with the current crop of Republicans, it’s her way or the highway, rather like the way Republicans are acting in so adamantly refusing to even consider Merrick Garland, President Obama’s nominee for the Supreme Court, a guy Republicans rather liked right up until Obama was so rude as to like him, too.

I got to thinking of other ways cats are Republicans, and there were more than a few similarities. That’s disturbing for a cat lover like me. Cats, for instance, generally are looking out for Number 1, much like Republicans. And they have a generally superior attitude. They think they are entitled, but that others are unworthy. That’s reminiscent of Mitt Romney’s speech to other fat cats back when he was explaining how they were all “makers,” but 47% of lesser Americans were merely “takers.” That’s a quintessentially cat-like attitude.

The fact that Donald Trump, the top Republican presidential candidate, has become popular by wearing a dead cat on his head also raises disturbing questions about the interface between cats and Republicans.

Then there’s that long series of cat fights the Republican presidential candidates have staged for months now, all that hissing and spitting back and forth at one another about stuff that has little to do with addressing the problems the country faces, but has a lot to do with their shared awareness that they’re all a pretty mangy bunch of no account cats.

But, as I thought about those candidates, and about the people who like them—from the soccer thug types to the plutocrats, from the low I.Q. nimrods to the greed heads, from the God goons to the Koch ass kissers, from the NRA cretins to the anti-abortion creeps, I realized that comparing my cats to Republicans was a base and calumnious canard. On their worst day, my cats (and most cats) bring pleasure and plain joy to millions of people, while these Republican jerks bring about an equal amount of hate, fear, and unhappiness to even more people as they continue to shrink the amount of money they allow to trickle down on the poor, seek to oppress women, gays, and ethnic minorities, and otherwise behave like the whiny and entitled assholes they’ve mostly always been, until lately, when they’ve become even worse.

I had to cease writing this for a few moments to go and make amends with Horby, petting her until she began to purr, forgiving me immediately for the outrageous comparison that had formed like a canker in my brain, equating her with Republicans. And not letting her go out when she wanted out.

She’s a Democrat, through and through, and so are my other cats. They expect—and get—health care, a complete food subsidy, and a benevolent government made up of my wife and I) that cares about their welfare. And they earn that care, repaying those benefits with the incalculable pleasures of their company, on call 24/7 to serve the general good, lending their reassuring presence to the emotional stability of the household. When it comes to the cost-to-benefit ratio, cats are nothing like Republicans. Cats give something back; heavily subsidized Republicans, corporate fat cats, bankers, and ignorant right wing yahoos? Not so much.

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