Thoughts & life experiences of a Chicago area graphic artist

02 February 2017

My First Post-Election Political Cartoon

Trump gives new meaning to the term "Bully Pulpit". © 2017 O. Douglas Jennings. All rights reserved.
"Bully Pulpit" is term coined by President Theodore Roosevelt for unique role a POTUS has in public discourse. The word "Bully" meant something more positive in TR's day than it does in ours. To call something "bully" in the late 1800s was akin to the overused term "awesome" today. Even earlier it had a very sweet connotation. According to Google:

The word "bully" was first used in the 1530s meaning "sweetheart", applied to either sex, from the Dutch boel "lover, brother", probably diminutive of Middle High German buole "brother", of uncertain origin (compare with the German buhle "lover").

 But that affectionate meaning of the term could hardly be applied to our the "Bully-in-Chief" that currently resides in the White House.

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