America's Worst Painting

No, America's worst painting is not from "The Painter of Light™," but from Sean Hannity's favorite painter, Jon McNaughton.



It's turning out to be right-wing art history week. A few days ago we heard commentary on statues from the Tweeter-in-Chief. Today Fox News' Dumbest Anchor® tweeted the video above with the comment "Amazing video and Art! Love this." As an investor and collector of McNaughton's work, he's only coincidentally trying to increase the value of his own collection, but as an art expert I'd also like to ask Sean if the black snake being crushed under Donald Trump's heel represents who we think it represents (Hint: not Satan). If there's any doubt that the black snake is Barack Obama, all one has to do is to look at the artist's earlier "Forgotten Man" masterpiece in which President Obama is standing in the same spot with the Constitution under his foot while getting dirty looks from all the earlier white presidents as the forgotten man hangs his head sitting on his bench. Now, in the glorious Trump years, the forgotten one is off his bench and planting a tree of hope, and Barack Obama is being trampled underfoot.

Heavy-handed symbolism in representative art is always ugly, but heavy-handed racist symbolism gives this waste of canvas the prize for America's Worst Painting.

Defending Putin in the Right-Wing Media Bubble

This morning @DonaldJTrumpJr felt it necessary to retweet @FoxAndFriends' tweet about Fox News' dumbest anchor and Trump friend @SeanHannity interviewing Julian Assange about how (contrary to what the CIA and everyone else in the world seems to believe) Russia had nothing to do with the DNC documents provided to Wikileaks.

Sometimes it's helpful to get a quick peek into the completely counterfactual media bubble within which Donald Junior's father has comfortably cushioned himself. Donald Senior is not someone who seems to have a desire to dig too deeply for information on his own (or accept any information that might contradict what he already 'knows'), so this glimpse into his son's Twitter feed is like a glimpse into the President Elect's brain. Maybe he actually doesn't know, or have the ability to believe, the role the Russians played in tipping the election in his favor.