Shaping the SPLC story.

I'm taking a position of cruel neutrality and see myself spending much of the day observing how the 2 sides are shaping the story.

Let's just start with the way things look at Elon's place:

"Maybe Mr. Adams was an early Trump supporter because 'Dilbert' was itself proto-MAGA."

"The strip’s everyday resentments and cynicism added up to a now-familiar worldview. 'There’s no such thing as expertise. It just doesn’t exist,' Mr. Adams said. Mr. Adams thought this extended even to issues like international trade. 'In these big, complicated situations, no one really knows if we have a good deal. It’s best just to negotiate from ignorance and hope the other side gives in,' he told me. 'In the real world there is a fog. In a world where nobody knows, the loudest person is going to get the most.' From his point of view, I had lived so long among the well-credentialed languishing in abstract thoughts that I was fooled into thinking complex problems required expert solutions. 'In your movie,' by which he meant my perception of reality, 'there’s a big, incompetent guy who doesn’t know the details,' he told me. 'I’m telling you it’s the best thing possible. When President Trump acts without all the information and his facts are not accurate, he’s operating on a higher level, not a lower level. He’s operating in the real world.'"

Writes Joel Stein, in "'Dilbert' Was Always MAGA" (NYT).

"Many of my Christian friends have asked me to find Jesus before I go. I’m not a believer, but I have to admit the risk-reward calculation..."

"... for doing so looks so attractive to me. So here I go. I accept Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior and look forward to spending an eternity with Him. The part about me not being a believer should be quite quickly resolved; if I wake up in heaven, I won’t need any more convincing than that. I hope I’m still qualified for entry."

Wrote Scott Adams, just before dying.

It's an impressive mix of intelligence, respect, humor, and honesty. He implicitly concedes that he doesn't really believe, but anticipates instant arrival in a state of true belief if he finds himself waking up in Heaven. He acknowledges that that form of belief might not count as sufficient, but he expresses hope. And he did have that part where he incanted the key phrase: "I accept Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior." That might be what it takes, and it's worth the risk — no risk. It will make some of his friends feel better, and if there are others who don't like it, they can take comfort in his assurance that he's not a believer. 

ADDED: In the preceding post, Paul Zrimsek said: "His support for Trump probably means he's been darned to Heck, and that Phil, the Prince of Insufficient Light, is poking him with that big spoon now." That nudged me to find this:

Goodbye to Scott Adams.

He shared his dying with us right up to the end. We knew he was going, and now, suddenly he's gone.

I received the news through my son John, who's put up this post at Facebook that provides a gift link to the Washington Post obituary, which has a headline that I don't like, "Scott Adams, ‘Dilbert’ creator who poked fun at bad bosses, dies at 68/His three-panel comic strip was once published in more than 2,000 newspapers. Publishers cut ties with Mr. Adams after he made racist comments on a YouTube live stream."

From the obituary: "His former wife Shelly Miles announced his death in a live stream Tuesday morning, reading a statement she said Mr. Adams had prepared before his death. 'I had an amazing life,' the statement said in part. 'I gave it everything I had.'"

Coffee with Scott Adams moves to The Scott Adams School 01/13/24 https://t.co/RsXWMvV6yA

— Scott Adams (@ScottAdamsSays) January 13, 2026

"I caused so much trouble yesterday. But it worked out."

Said Scott Adams on his live show this morning.

Coffee With Scott Adams 11/3/25 https://t.co/Vie6dMg9Dw

— Scott Adams (@ScottAdamsSays) November 3, 2025

On his X feed:

Best President ever.

Thank you, President Trump.

— Scott Adams (@ScottAdamsSays) November 3, 2025

That follows this, yesterday:

Can't understand the haircut? It's Maude Frickert!

I'm seeing Scott Adams assert "I can't get past the haircut."

He's looking at this:

🔥BREAKING: Media Matters is on the brink of collapse.

After two decades of smearing conservatives, the Soros-funded attack dog is under siege—from lawsuits by @elonmusk, FTC probes, & state AG investigations. Why? Donor fraud, defamation, & LYING to destroy Twitter.

Thread🧵 pic.twitter.com/LfYzbt7Rsb

— Rod D. Martin (@RodDMartin) July 30, 2025

I'm seeing Maude Frickert:

Sorry about the sexism! I just wanted you to see the wig Jonathan Winters wore back in the 1960s.

"I have the same cancer that Joe Biden has... that has also spread to my bones.... My life expectancy is: maybe this summer...."

Coffee With Scott Adams 5/19/25 https://t.co/miG4jySdsD

— Scott Adams (@ScottAdamsSays) May 19, 2025

"Weirdly, since it's old news for me, I've just sort of processed it.... And I have to say, you know, everybody has to die... and it's kind of civilized that you know about how long you have...."

"Your brain knows bullshit," said Joe Rogan.

"You could kind of bullshit someone for an hour, but... hour two and hour three.... that's when the real you comes out.... How much are you bullshitting the world?...[T]he narrative about Trump has always been that he's bullshitting everybody.... But that's him, that's the, the guy's right there. You could talk to him about everything and anything. He's right there.... Your brain knows bullshit...."

Context (from the full transcript at Podscribe, which I edited a bit for accuracy):

Larry Charles talks to Marc Maron about Scott Adams and Bob Dylan.

This is an excellent episode of Marc Maron's podcast, with Larry Charles talking about "Seinfeld," "Curb Your Enthusiasm," "Borat," and his new movie "Dicks: The Musical," but what I'm writing this post to highlight is something that surprised me: a discussion of Scott Adams, which is followed immediately by a discussion of Bob Dylan.

This isn't random opining about celebrities. Larry Charles worked with Scott Adams to develop the TV show "Dilbert." And Larry Charles directed the movie "Masked and Anonymous," which he co-wrote with Bob Dylan.

Start at about 1:23:00 in the podcast and you'll be at the first mention of "Dilbert," which prompts Maron to ask, "What do you think of that guy going a little off? Did you see that coming?"

"[O]n March 13, Adams plans to launch 'Dilbert Reborn' on his subscription site, Locals."

"The first strips will feature his character Ratbert as a 'context removing editor' at a media outlet that spoofs newspapers like The Post, he said via text. (He declined a request for an extended interview.)..."

I'm reading "The bewildering descent of Scott Adams and ‘Dilbert’/‘I shook the box intentionally,’ Scott Adams told The Post about the comments that prompted newspapers to drop his comic strip" (WaPo).

"When California was drawing up its Constitution to join the Union, the state debated excluding Black people."

"The delegate who brought forth an exclusion resolution said that with migrating free Black people, the state could find itself 'flooded with a population of free Negroes,' which would be 'the greatest calamity that could befall California.' In that way, what [Scott] Adams said, while racist, was less outside the bounds of America’s troubled ideological canon and more in step with it on the question of having a functional, egalitarian, pluralistic society."

The last 2 paragraphs of "The ‘Dilbert’ Cartoonist and the Durability of White-Flight Thinking" by Charles Blow (in the NYT).

They cancelled Roseanne Barr for a lot less.

I don’t agree with everything Scott says, but Dilbert is legit funny & insightful.

We should stop canceling comedy!

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 27, 2023

"Twitter and Tesla chief Elon Musk defended Scott Adams... in a series of tweets Sunday, blasting media organizations for dropping his comic strip..."

I'm reading "Musk defends 'Dilbert' creator, says media is 'racist against whites'/The Tesla and Twitter chief blasted media outlets for dropping Scott Adams’s comic strip after the cartoonist’s rant against Black people" by Will Oremus (WaPo).

Replying to tweets about the controversy, Musk said it is actually the media that is “racist against whites & Asians.”... 

In further tweets Sunday, Musk agreed with a tweet that said “Adams’ comments weren’t good” but there’s “an element of truth” to them, and suggested in a reply that media organizations promote a “false narrative” by giving more coverage to unarmed Black victims of police violence than they do to unarmed White victims of police violence.... 

Here's the Musk tweet, responding to someone who tweeted that the MSM had concluded that Adams is racist:

"Newspapers across the United States have pulled... 'Dilbert'... after the cartoonist called Black Americans a 'hate group' and said White people should 'get the hell away from' them...."

"The once widely celebrated cartoonist, who has been entertaining extreme-right ideologies and conspiracy theories for several years, was upset Wednesday by a Rasmussen poll that found a thin majority of Black Americans agreed with the statement 'It’s okay to be White.'... [O]n his YouTube show Saturday... [Scott Adams] offered a long, quasi-Socratic defense of his comments, which he said were taken out of context, and seemed to define racism as essentially any political activity. 'Any tax code change is racist,' he said at one point in the show. He denounced racism against 'individuals' and racist laws, but said, 'You should absolutely be racist whenever it’s to your advantage. Every one of you should be open to making a racist personal career decision.' In the same show, Adams suggested that he had done irreparable harm to a once-sterling career. 'Most of my income will be gone by next week,' he told about 3,000 live-stream viewers. 'My reputation for the rest of my life is destroyed. You can’t come back from this, am I right? There’s no way you can come back from this.'"

 
From "'Dilbert' dropped by The Post, other papers, after cartoonist’s racist rant" (WaPo).

Here is today's episode, the one with what WaPo calls "a long, quasi-Socratic defense." You can judge for yourself:

"Mr. Musk bought Twitter because he’s a Twitter addict and, more specifically, an extremely online attention addict."

"On his first day at Twitter he hauled around a bathroom sink to make an obscure, very online joke likely poking fun at a certain earnest kind of Twitter user (usually a liberal) who posts something appalling but also banal and says, 'Let that sink in.' The graph of Mr. Musk’s Twitter posts over his time on the platform looks like the hockey stick graph of global temperature. He can’t stop himself. This is someone with millions of followers who is deep in the bowels of his own replies and mentions, clearly spending inordinate amounts of time looking at what people are saying about him. I can tell you from experience that this is a path to madness...."

Writes Chris Hayes, in "Why I Want Twitter to Live" (NYT).

1. Thanks to Hayes for explaining the "Let that sink in" joke so clearly. I nearly lost my mind trying to listen to Scott Adams explain it as a reference to the expression "Everything but the kitchen sink." And it wasn't even a kitchen sink, Scott. It was a bathroom sink. 

"Maybe this will end the 'Dennis the Menace' reign of terror. I've read it every day for fifty years and haven't laughed yet."

That made me laugh, from the comments section of "Is the print newspaper comics page in trouble?" (WaPo).

That comment prompts someone else to say: "Insert GenX rant about 'Family Circus' from the 1999 movie 'Go.'" Okay, I will insert it:

Ha ha. That reminds me of a famous thing somebody once said about the comic strip "Nancy": "It's harder not to read 'Nancy' than to read it."

The article has some material about Scott Adams — whose strip was cut from 77 Lee Enterprises newspapers and who has had individual daily strips censored in other newspapers. 

Adams had recently satirized environmental, social and governance (ESG) policies and workplace diversity efforts, and had introduced a Black character named Dave who identifies as White....

Some commenters are taking shots at him, including this: "To be fair, Scott Adams also went crazy seven years ago and stopped being funny when he started being political... not unlike Charles Schultz stopping being funny when he started being religious, or the Family Circus guy stopping being funny when he drew his first comic, which has been repeated twice a week for the last century." 

Scott Adams madly loves his dog, but "she lowers the quality of my life by 40%."

"It really is terrible to live with a dog.... You just can't live and work in a house that has a dog. 'Cause the trouble is: I have too much empathy...."

He says he goes on vacation to get away from his house — which is a burden — and his dog — who is always needy and who is his prisoner. "Every moment I'm not playing with her, she's in jail."

"It's horrible having a dog. I so don't recommend it."

"Searching for a strategy to avoid a 2022 midterm disaster, advisers to President Biden have discussed elevating a unifying Republican foil not named Donald Trump...."

"Biden confidants worry that House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy is too unknown, that Biden won't demonize Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell because of their longstanding and collegial relationship and that elevating Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis could backfire.... [S]ome Biden advisers are reluctant to contest every midterm race on DeSantis' signature issue — COVID-19 — because the Biden administration's approaches on vaccine and mask mandates may be a political liability with some swing voters.... [T]here's close to a consensus that Democrats can't hold Congress by focusing on Trump.... Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) told Axios: 'I wish that we could just find one face that we could point to, such as with Donald Trump... maybe a composite.'"

Axios analyzes.

Here's the TV Tropes article on "composite characters." 

Certain media, including Real Life, tend to have the time and space to utilize Loads and Loads of Characters, a large number of individuals with significant and/or necessary contributions to the storyline. But in an adaptation it can be difficult to offer adequate time and space.... A solution is to invoke artistic license and compress two or more such figures into a single character with traits drawn from all of them.... Instead of having three different smart guys on the team divided up into distinct fields, you make one of them an Omnidisciplinary Scientist and discard the others....

I don't know how well that will transfer into political discourse, but here's something about "Dilbert":

Dilbert revived LOUD HOWARD, a character who'd proved quite popular with readers of the strip but who the author thought was too flat to make much use of. To make him more interesting, the show merged him with Nervous Ted and had him shout constantly about trivial worries. 

How many Republicans would you have to merge into a composite character as useful to demonize as Donald Trump?

Sounds? I listened to the sound and paid no attention to the substance, and the answer is clearly "no."

How many of you think this Rogue Doctor sounds credible? https://t.co/dqcEOoMXwe

— Scott Adams (@ScottAdamsSays) December 14, 2021

People are telling Scott Adams to "kill his cat."

Gotta love all the people commenting to tell Scott to kill his cat by putting it down and to just donate the money...his money! And then proceed to tell him that he would feel better...

Wow just wow

— Adam W (@AdamBoBadam3440) September 23, 2021