CARTOON: “Darling Nikki”

From Clay Jones on his political cartoon “Darling Nikki” and how South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley sucked up to Donald Trump even faster than Mitt Romney

I have one newspaper client in South Carolina. When they read the first panel of this cartoon, they’ll probably think, “Hey, alright. He did something on our governor,” and then they’ll hit the next panel and say, “Oh God, no.”

Sometimes I like to tease my readers on social media on what my next cartoon will contain. Today, I teased that it would contain nudity. Normally, when I say something like that, you can expect something disgusting with Donald Trump, Newt Gingrich, or Chris Christie. Sometimes I draw stuff you can’t unsee. I’m a stinker.

But today, I promised my followers nudity, and now I’m delivering. None of my newspapers may run it, but hey look! Naked lady! Booty! My online clients will run it. They’re freaks. I normally save these type of things for a weekend cartoon.

The statement in the first paragraph was delivered by South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley as part of her response to the State of the Union delivered by the president. A lot of Republicans were very unhappy with it. Nikki was standing her ground. She endorsed Ted Cruz, then Marco Rubio and wasn’t having any of Trump’s hatred. She was resisting his “siren call of hatred.”

And then the Republican convention rolled around. Nikki was out of Cubans, and she fell in line faster than Mitt Romney in a chocolate milk line. And yeah … faster than Mitt. According to some sources the Trump team wants him to apologize to the president-elect publicly. Just eviscerate himself in front of the entire world and then he can be Secretary of State. It doesn’t cost much. Just your soul and integrity. If they don’t like the taste of Trump’s butt in their mouth, they can borrow some mouthwash from Chris Christie. He’s buying it wholesale.

You often see politicians join the team of a candidate they criticized in the primaries. That’s politics. George H.W. Bush referred to Reagan’s economic plan as “voodoo economics,” and then he became his running mate and eventually vice president and advocated voodoo economics for eight years. But nobody faced as much repulsion and backlash as Trump, and now all those people, the ones with morals and convictions, are no more ethical than a corner prostitute hanging outside Trump Tower.

“Darling Nikki” is a song by Prince, and it was on the “Purple Rain” soundtrack. It’s nasty. It is oh so nasty. It is one of the few songs from that album that wasn’t played on the radio as the rest of that soundtrack was all over the radio when it came out. You couldn’t escape it. They played those songs almost as often as they did when Prince died.

Years later, the Foo Fighters covered it as a b-side (that’s normally a song an artist records that they don’t put on their album but place as candy on the flip side of a single). A few years later, Prince performed in the Super Bowl and covered a segment of the Foo’s “Best Of You.” Prince was well known as being very protective of his songs. If you don’t believe me, try to find one on YouTube right now that’s not an official video. Weird Al never did get to parody any Prince music. Many people felt Prince’s covering of the Foo’s tune was a dig back at them, but I don’t think so. You don’t insult someone by covering their song at the Super Bowl Halftime Show. I think Prince was saying thank you.

And yes, Darling Nikki is nasty.

claytoonz.com/2016/11/25/darling-nikki

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