It's the Day's Day of Days! Because Uneasy Lies the Crown.
I'll say this--while this might be the latest example of 'Muir thinks his cast acting like sociopathic assholes is charming and heartwarming', at least it's not whatever word salad he's got coming down the pike to explain how it's a good thing Trump did, blowing up the economy, a good thing.
And we know it's coming.
It's the Day's Day of Days! Because Rest in Peace, Mrs. Columbo.
Yup, Batman.
If Batman worked with a white supremacist militia that was aligned with fascists foreign and domestic.
So really, more like one of Batman's enemies.
It's the Day's Day of Days! Because Agenda for Murder.
There's something so damned dull in the endless perks the cast get.
It's the Day's Day of Days! Because Columbo Who Cries Wolf.
As we watch Muir produce... this, aside from the vanity and the tendency to show off his owns spiritual wretchedness when he thinks he's showing his piety, what gets you is how miserable he is. He's already complaining again. Because damn it, the US still isn't racist enough for him.
It's the Day's Day of Days! Because Murder: A Self-Portrait.
Muir comparing the imaginary grandson of his imaginary version of himself to Christ.
...
Somehow, this just elicits a nod from me at this point.
It's the Day's Day of Days! Because Grand Deceptions.
...That last panel. That fucking last panel.
It's the Day's Day of Days! Because Sex and the Married Detective.
It's kind of fascinating how quickly the strip moves from insisting that Kari Lake has to have been cheated, because there's no way Right Wingers can ever lose elections, no way, to the insistence that the entire legislative branch is evil and corrupt and also pedophiles, to the whinging that Muir's sort has never been represented in DC before.
This is where the strip is now. The eternal whining of Muir's brittle-boned fascism while it apes patriotism so badly that any onlooker can realize that Muir actually hates the country.
It's the Day's Day of Days! Because Murder, Smoke, and Shadows.
A reminder that when the previous administration was sending FBI agents against the Compound, who were actively trying to secede from the country, this was hideous tyranny. But infiltrating your opponents' political fundraising group with the idea of destroying it? Completely reasonable, and something the Compound will cheerfully aid in! Because the Democrats are just criminal scum, and you know if they're doing something, it has to be crooked.
It's the Day's Day of Days! Because Columbo Goes to the Guillotine.
Muir really must want to tune out the real world right now. He's just playing the old standbys, screaming that Obama wasn't a real Murican and drawing weird, bad pinup art of his female cast.
It's the Day's Day of Days! Because The Conspirators.
There are two interesting bits in this. One of course is Muir demonstrating his fundamental gullibility, the man who will cheerily swallow destructive lies when they let him imagine victories. Musk and the forces of MEME must be proving immense fraud, and Democratic efforts to get money that's been illegally diverted must be them being stupid crooks.
The second is his tendency to go down weird little gag rabbit holes these days. He's repeating the rodent wheel gag from yesterday, only in a completely different context, because, well, it's in his head and he thinks this demonstrates brilliant continuity.
It's the Day's Day of Days! Because How to Dial a Murder.
There's something extra-awful about Muir declaring the characters he wrote to embody his own freakout at the world are only freaking out because they're weak-willed creatures who need a distraction. Especially with the underlying sexism in how it's handled.
It's the Day's Day of Days! Because Make Me a Perfect Murder.
...
I won't lie, there's something hilarious about Trump's Anglophile tendencies, one of the most harmless aspects of personality, being what absolutely sets Muir off.
It's the Day's Day of Days! Because Murder Under Glass.
A reminder you can never tell just what will set Muir off. That said, I do think part of what's fueling this is an underlying disappointment with how things have gone. He expected triumph, and all he's gotten is a mess. Even DOGE is slowing down now, largely because it keeps stepping on rakes.
It's the Day's Day of Days! Because Try and Catch Me.
There's a lot to unpack in this strip, and I'm going to try and unpack as much of it as I can, so bear with me. It's going to be a trip.
I've got to start with Sam's memories of Dean Martin's Celebrity Roast reruns, because... well, these are clearly Muir's memories of watching the show, and it really underlines what fuels so much of the strip these days, an aging boomer pining for a past he doesn't remember. A reminder that the Roast aired mostly in that halcyon time of racial harmony we call the 1970s, which Muir is now depicting as this happier time when people knew their place.
And from there we descend into the maelstrom, as Muir declares he was only pretending to be antisemitic, and the audience was all being fooled by his wily stratagems when they said he sounded like an antisemite. It's mixed with Muir, well, gaslighting up a storm, talking about how people are being conditioned these days to react without thinking to things they read online when, well, that's your strip, Chris. That's what you do.
I'll give him this, it's the most interesting thing he's done in months. Possibly years.
That said, I don't think there's a mystery here. Muir is reading a lot more paleocon type sites these days that don't like Israel and paint it as a sinister force corrupting American politics. Because Muir is nothing if not pliable--at least when facing people peddling their wares in the Right Wing Pseudopopulist dressing that he'll buy anytime--he's moving on from his previous half-hidden antisemitism, that was aimed at the imagined "Rootless Cosmopolitan" set to a more traditional antisemitism. But, as I've noted elsewhere, that's not popular with his audience. So what he's doing right now is sowing the seeds to let him make these points in the strip by trying to create a halfway house for the Peanut Gallery to live in when he does this.
Will it work? It might, these people are about as pliable as he is in these matters. Whatever it is, we are definitely in a new era of the strip. May God help us all.
It's the Day's Day of Days! Because Old Fashioned Murder.
...
Again, you just know that in some future strip, Muir will be explaining that Democrats are the real Nazis. For seeking the support of Black women.
It's the Day's Day of Days! Because Fade in to Murder.
"There you go again, responding to my antisemitism like its antisemitism, you conditioned liberal stooge."
It's the Day's Day of Days! Because Last Salute to the Commodore.
Watching Muir parrot the Kremlin's talking points, right down to the traditional Russian paranoia about the UK, sure is a thing.
It's the Day's Day of Days! Because Now You See Him...
You know, I always knew this day was coming, the day when Muir more or less announced that he now viewed WWII as a mistake. I just thought he'd underline it a bit more instead of more or less flippantly tossing it out there.
It's the Day's Day of Days! Because A Matter of Honor.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again--Muir has managed to find the one foreign policy worse than his old neo-con one.
It's the Day's Day of Days! Because Identity Crisis.
As usual, the projection is total, right down to the projection. How can it not be, when you've declared evil good and darkness light?
It's the Day's Day of Days! Because A Case of Immunity.
Muir's utter pliability remains as comical as it is disgusting.
Same as his racism, though that one the disgust level is higher.
It's the Day's Day of Days! Because Forgotten Lady.
Remember when Muir was whining because Texas wasn't conspiring against the government enough? And the entire plotline about the county seceding?
I'd say that I'm not sure he does, but let's be honest, that's part of Muir's eternal belief that the real for true Constitution is that everything his fascist overlords do is legal, and anything to oppose it is illegal, and if what's written down says otherwise, it must be some kind of sinister plot.
It's the Day's Day of Days! Because A Deadly State of Mind.
This seems a good place to point out how abstracted Muir's gotten from the Trump administration. Nothing about Canada. Nothing about Greenland. Nothing about tariffs. Next to nothing about Ukraine. A few chuckles about all those fired federal workers--they're people Muir wants hurt, the swine--but even then, not much. He's already turning the Trump administration into an abstraction.
It's the Day's Day of Days! Because Playback.
There's just so many different brands of awful in this one strip. We've got the hideous family dynamics Muir assumes are heartwarming, the blind hatred of government workers that he thinks shows what a clear-sighted patriot he is, instead of a deluded nitwit, and of course, the hypocrisy that insists that his enemies are supposed to buckle always buckle, for Muir is in the right, and his wins are great and sweeping, but that he needs never do the same, because his defeats only happen because they cheated, somehow.
And then there's the fact that the whole thing takes way too long to parse.
It's the Day's Day of Days! Because Troubled Waters.
Ahh, yes, nothing protects debate like people threatening each other with lethal weapons.
It's the Day's Day of Days! Because By Dawn's Early Light.
Times like this, you get very glad Muir doesn't have real kids.
It's the Day's Day of Days! Because Negative Reaction.
There's something truly wretched in Muir declaring his latest bit of describing his enemies as himself, and insisting that caving to a fascist nation is disloyal, as totes accurate through all his sock puppets, including the one who he used to use as a Straw Leftist.
It's the Day's Day of Days! Because An Exercise in Fatality.
...You know of all the unfathomable bits of weirdness in this strip that Muir's damaged psyche hurls at us, the sex robot jokes are the ones that get me stumped.
And I have laughed at pieces of entertainment that have sex robot jokes, so it's not just that. Off the top of my head, it's the sense that Muir seems to have no inkling how bizarre the situation he's depicting is.
It's the Day's Day of Days! Because A Friend in Deed.
It says something that a strip as terrible as this is a relief, because it's just Muir being awful and inane, instead of something worse.
It's the Day's Day of Days! Because Swan Song.
Muir's clearly reaching for some sort of metaphor here. But clumsily, and in a manner that winds up communicating how icky his entire worldview can get at times.
It's the Day's Day of Days! Because Mind Over Mayhem.
How many times has it been stressed that all the compound's foes are simply cowardly, weak and inferior? And yet Muir returns to the well, to demonstrate his racism and incompetence at plotting yet again...
It's the Day's Day of Days! Because Publish or Perish.
Well, he's definitely putting all of his complexes on display in one strip.
It's the Day's Day of Days! Because Double Exposure.
Won't lie, in these bleak times, there's something satisfying in laying out exactly the fucked up way this will proceed and then Muir doing just that.
It's the Day's Day of Days! Because Candidate For Crime.
As Muir adds yet another artist to the list of those who he owes an apology, or a clean shot at his face, let's consider that this is almost the distilled essence of these strips--ugly art over childish fantasies of violence where Muir keeps insisting that, no, no, his cast aren't killing people, even though it's implied they kinda are.
It's the Day's Day of Days! Because Any Old Port In a Storm.
Once again, the entire point of the racist caricatures is to be bludgeoned by the invincible power of the Compound, who may be theoretically threatened, but never threatened in truth.
It's the Day's Day of Days! Because Lovely But Lethal.
You just know Muir used 'Google Translate' for that dialogue.
It's the Day's Day of Days! Because Double Shock.
...There's something truly wretched in this, Muir tossing out this mass of racism, paranoia and lies to produce the latest enemy to let his racist militia show how tough and real Murican they are.
It's the Day's Day of Days! Because The Most Dangerous Match.
I'll give Muir this. FAFO is a better stupid-meme name than DOGE.
Which says so much about the fascist dipshits presently running things, doesn't it?
It's the Day's Day of Days! Because A Stitch In Crime.
So we've got the vicious bloodlust that thinks it's righteous, the latest sovereign citizenship declaration from Muir--and I'm left wondering if the 1913 betrayal is the income tax, the direct election of senators, the federal reserve, or all three--but let's move past that. Sam declares herself part of the Middle Class, the true herrenvolk who have been abused by the sinister wreckers.
So, apparently owning a vast ranch, with robot agents, and a gold depository is all just being part of the Middle Class.
It's the Day's Day of Days! Because Requiem For a Falling Star.
Muir appears to have cobbled this insane little conspiracy theory out of misunderstanding a newspaper, and of course, hating everyone who dares disagree with Il Puce, and thinks that fascism isn't patriotic.
It's the Day's Day of Days! Because Dagger of the Mind.
There's a lot to unpack in this awful little strip. There's Muir sneering at civil servants who have worked for the nation he claims to love and assuming that they must all be decadent worthless scum, people who have done more than for it than he ever has. There's the strange clunky tone where Muir, trying to portray he and his as the good guys winds up making them seem, well, just what they are--the barbarians at the gate, looking to tear it all down. Musk and Trump are closer to Muir's version of Nero than the people he's insisting are shoe-ins.
Of course the other point that must be made is that Muir's version of Nero is nonsense--a creation only of his shallow knowledge of popular history. The Roman Empire had centuries ahead of it after Nero--hell, a millennium and change for some portions of it. Muir clearly doesn't realize this. He clearly doesn't realize much about Roman history or any history at all. He talks about it a great deal, makes noises about how important it is--but he doesn't seem to actually study it that much.
It's the Day's Day of Days! Because The Most Crucial Game.
There's something quietly astonishing about how Muir can't help, even when he is making these nonsense accusations to tell himself that no, no, the Democrats have never won, they've always been cheating, in indulging in a brittle nasty reactionary racism that demonstrates, yes, he's the bad guy.
It's the Day's Day of Days! Because The Greenhouse Jungle.
The irony of the man who was calling everyone else a GigaChamberlain during Iraq going full 'This is all happening in distant places of which we know nothing" over a fascist invasion continues to be biting.
It's the Day's Day of Days! Because Etude in Black.
Muir's lesser option to extra-judicial murder is simply causing a constitutional crisis.
The man who constantly insists that the Democrats want to break the law insists that Trump should just break the law. But obviously, this doesn't count to his mind.
It's the Day's Day of Days! Because Blueprint for Murder.
'How dare they be outraged by my wishes to see them bloodily destroyed!' stands right there with 'How dare they go about their business when I hate them!' as sentences that demonstrate the speaker's status as human garbage. And that is basically what Muir's rants have been over the last few years.
It's the Day's Day of Days! Because Short Fuse.
Again, the ease with which Muir has decided an organization he likely didn't even know about was the realtrue enemy is both alarming and pathetic.
It's the Day's Day of Days! Because Lady in Waiting.
Mr. Family Values. To be fair, looking at the Sam Shark Face stitched on to that body is bound to increase chastity.
It's the Day's Day of Days! Because Suitable for Framing.
As we stare at Muir's latest second hand conspiracy theory, which will be a simple fact of the world until it suddenly isn't, I feel once again obligated to note how dull it is that Muir's cast are always treated as privileged elites who must be petted, feted, and most of all, obeyed.
It's the Day's Day of Days! Because Dead Weight.
You know, there's gonna be a lot of darkly amusing unpersonings happening in the years and months ahead.
It's the Day's Day of Days! Because Death Lends a Hand.
It's says something that Muir's Evil Conspiracy of Evil can only ineffectually pester the protagonists while causing hideous damage to their own side.
It's the Day's Day of Days! Because Murder by the Book.
The crossover of Muir's clear admiration for the horrors of incompetence that are Musk's men from MEME, and his hideous murderous fantasies are... well, a thing.
A reminder that Muir used to feel we had an obligation to act against people who wanted to do things like this. But that was different. Those people were brown.
It's the Day's Day of Days! Because Ransom for a Dead Man.
The chemical marriage of Muir's pregnancy fetish and the imbecilic conspiracy theory of the day.
Classic.
It's the Day's Day of Days! Because Prescription: Murder.
Needless to say, plenty of people dispute the supposed DNA evidence as "proof".
And then there's trying to connect a 19th century Polish Jew immigrant to London to modern immigration to the United States.
Because it's all the same, right?
It's the Day's Day of Days! Because Enough Rope.
Sometimes I wonder if even Muir can keep the batshit Mad Libs that have become his theories of how the world operates straight.
And other times I know the answer is no.
It's the Day's Day of Days! Because Earl of Derby.
It's not just the warped worldview on display here--it's the old "Muir blabbing about things he doesn't understand'. Hell, Kiko's malapropism--which by the way would be hard to catch in a conversation--is arguably the least wrong thing of the wrong things she said.
It's the Day's Day of Days! Because who loves ya, baby?
You know, the quietly awkward thing about this strip is that just a few months ago, Gunpowder was a separatist state filled with right-thinking volk who all cheerfully agreed about fighting the immigrant menace. And now... that's all gone.
Mind you can all just blink back into existence at a moment's notice. Like the robots.
It's the Day's Day of Days! Because Disraeli.
Always great to see Muir going back to the antivax well. You'd think he'd notice that he keeps having to kick back when it's going to make people drop like flies, but then, he's good at not noticing things.
It's the Day's Day of Days! Because Western Kentucky Hilltoppers.
You know, in that whirlwind of crazy bullshit, I'm just going to focus on one little thing--for all the Trump praise in that, Muir is repeating the Musk party line in this strip. Now, Musk is very much setting himself up for a fall, so I really have to wonder what Muir's going to do when he has to treat Musk as an unperson and start insisting that obviously, he never supported the stuff that he was supporting when Musk was a Stalwart Ally.
It's the Day's Day of Days! Because my grandfather's clock was too tall for the shelf, so it stood ninety years on the floor.
One can always count on Muir to explain how every section of the government that isn't run by fascists is just corrupt and incompetent, because only his sort of people know how to do anything, he's sure of it.
Just look at the track record.
It's the Day's Day of Days! Because Lesley the Great escaped with a CHICKEN?
...This is going to be the next four years. Muir insisting that every failure--and there will be many failures--is the result of Democrats not letting Whites run everything.
Because he is a deluded racist shit.
It's the Day's Day of Days! Because Queens of Noise.
And after years of screaming about how Biden was an evil warmonger, Muir salivates over the prospect over sending troops to Mexico and Venezuela to "fight cartels". Because doing that is just being sensible, not like helping a nation fight off an invasion.
Also, Muir's clear nostalgia for the early Iraq War days shines through in that strip, like tire yard that's on fire.
It's the Day's Day of Days! Because Simon and Simon.
As Muir continues his fascist fantasies, it's hard not to shake your head at the belief that all they have to do is just show up and they'll win, with the entire civil service just collapsing at the awesome presence of Real Muricans.
Meanwhile, in the real world, the Trump admin is trying very bad bribes to get rid of people.
It's the Day's Day of Days! Because Beverly Garland.
This is where Muir is now, not just sneering at anyone who works for the government, but imagining a strip where he depicts their foes as faceless goons is somehow brilliant propaganda.
It's the Day's Day of Days! Because a new god, but a very hard worker.
One wonders what he's going to be using for his next Two Minute Hates, when DEI loses its savor.
It always happens, after all.
It's the Day's Day of Days! Because Shotgun Snap.
A reminder that every damn time a fascist government goes down, it turns out all the shit they insisted their opponents were doing, they actually were.
I'm expecting a lot of ugly shit to come out, in a few years.
It's the Day's Day of Days! Because Hey, Hey, Hey.
The man whose chosen champions keep failing catastrophically babbles about the same racist theories, and declares using anything but dehumanizing slurs is some sort of sinister conspiracy. Because he can't be the one playing a nasty rhetorical game. Just can't. All his hate is just common sense.
It's the Day's Day of Days! Because Belgian Butter Waffle Crisps.
There's something to be said about Muir's ability to do a self-own at times like this. He really thinks this sounds patriotic and folksy, instead of like a redneck Nazi.
It's the Day's Day of Days! Because Cherry Bomb!
The man is bitching because he won't get vicious show trials while viewing the pardoning of attempted putschists as righteous.
Remember, they don't want law and order. They want free licence for themselves and their opponents persecuted for just not being them.
It's the Day's Day of Days! Because Prescription: Murder.
Aside from Muir once again demonstrating his ability to blow up his own arguments and gloat while doing so, we've also got another demonstration that his great and abiding love of the Constitution doesn't mean actually following it.
It's the Day's Day of Days! Because Maya the Bee.
It's hard not to see this as Muir both stumbling on having no idea how to proceed, and a niggling awareness how empty it all feels to him. This is supposed to be a moment of triumph for him, but even his gloating seems half-assed.
It's the Day's Day of Days! Because The Hare's Lament.
We see it every now and then. Muir knows on some level that Trump is a blustering, egotistical imbecile. He just convinces himself that these are good traits that make a strong leader.
It's the Day's Day of Days! Because the Flying Dutchman.
I keep noting you can count on Muir to take a joke that is at least competently delivered through brevity and then bludgeon it into the ground by dragging it out and filling it with crazy.
It's the Day's Day of Days! Because the Foggy Dew.
Let's prepare for four more years of Muir insisting failure is sparkling success. It makes the irony of these strips hit harder.
It's the Day's Day of Days! Because Twelve Medieval Ghost Stories.
The fascinating thing is that even when Muir shows a glimmer of awareness of how crazy he sounds, he still assumes that some of the insanity has to be right. Things can't just happen, and Blue States can never be simply the victims of misfortune. No everything has to be a plan, and the evil degenerates must deserve it.
It's the Day's Day of Days! Because The Fenstanton Witch.
...
This manages to be awful and pathetic simultaneously.
It's the Day's Day of Days! Because A Vignette.
It's pretty clear by this point that Muir's just going to give us distorted rumors and outright lies about the LA wildfires to explain how his sort are the real victims here, and also, Californians had it coming. Which is all kinds of sickening.
It's the Day's Day of Days! Because The Malice of Inanimate Objects.
As we get the usual Muir blather and projection--remember how this man has spent the past two and a half decades blaming an assortment of Democrats for everything--there is one interesting aspect to this. That first bit, while almost certainly a bullshit Right Wing internet rumor, involves the sort of complicated decision that most governments face regarding environmental factors. And Muir naturally dismisses this as idiocy because he just can't imagine that yes, people do have to figure out how to manage natural resources. He's reached a position of completely useless contrarianism on this, where he doesn't even have a proposal, just him whining 'nuh-uh!' and then snickering.
Not that he's better on most subjects, mind you.
It's the Day's Day of Days! Because The Experiment.
Every now and then, the essentially masturbatory nature of this strip comes to forefront in a non-softcore strip.
It's the Day's Day of Days! Because Wailing Well.
Watching Muir segue from last strip's 'wimmenz is to blame!' to missing the point of The Handmaid's Tale is a surprisingly 'nod along' moment--this is all, well, what you'd expect from Muir. About the only interesting aspect of this strip is a surprise appearance of 'Foil Sam', those rare occasions I've mentioned where Sam actually takes a different position from Zed so that a strip can have a back and forth discussion. It seems particularly odd here, because Sam's been happily making these sorts of statements herself in recent years.
It's the Day's Day of Days! Because After Dark in the Playing Fields.
...
Well. That bit of awfulness speaks for itself.
It's the Day's Day of Days! Because Rats.
Muir and his fellow troglodytes sneer at women who are actually putting their lives on the line to fight this disaster, and insist that somehow they are to blame.
Because Muir is a weak man who thinks he's strong, and a fool who thinks he's wise.
It's the Day's Day of Days! Because There Was a Man Dwelt By a Churchyard.
To Muir it's racist for the cops to shoot White people committing violent crimes. Provided they're fascists, mind you.
I think it's implicit that them shooting not-White people for just about anything is fine.
It's the Day's Day of Days! Because An Evening's Entertainment.
What reason could a Black police officer to shoot a White woman smashing through a window with an armed mob behind her besides racism is all he's asking.
It's just one huge ask.
It's the Day's Day of Days! Because A Warning to the Curious.
My consolation to all the loud insisting of how righteous January 6th was is the section of the public that has been trying to memory hole it will fail to because of that, and will come to realize, first gradually, and then all at once, just what they've allowed to rule over them.
It's the Day's Day of Days! Because A View From a Hill.
A reminder that there's no idol Muir can't turn on.
It's the Day's Day of Days! Because A Neighbor's Landmark.
As opposed to his sister, Hugo seems to be pure hivemind, blithely repeating Muir's vision of the collapsing Blue States, racist drivel, and of course, his nonsense understanding of what socialism and capitalism are.
It's the Day's Day of Days! Because The Uncommon Prayer-book.
I know I've said this before, but there's something quietly amusing about how Muir has his straw lefties vindicate EVERY single thing he whines about. Right down to what's on TV.
It's the Day's Day of Days! Because The Haunted Doll-House.
Muir's constant declarations of superiority to things like the NYT have the air of someone ranting about getting over their ex sometimes.
It's the Day's Day of Days! Because Two Doctors.
It says something that Muir's efforts to make the "reformed" members of his cast more likable in his eyes invariably make them worse.
It's the Day's Day of Days! Because The Story of a Disappearance and an Appearance.
I'm going to try and enjoy Muir writing Eva here as a character, as pretty soon she's just going to be yet another hivemind member.
Though as usual, Sam is reminding us all how awful she is.
