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AKA
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The George W. Bush administration was not so long ago that anyone should pretend it wasn’t all about death, mayhem, and destruction only they could save us from. Trump is not a departure from those others, he is a culmination. 
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True! The cartoon still works for me tho, as summaries of what they say/said (as opposed to what they do/did).
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Even there, is “compassionate conservativism” really a better summary of his speeches than say “Axis of Evil”?
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Right, it isn’t. I suppose I’m still okay with what amounts to hyperbole (hyperbolic downplaying?) there, for the sake of making what I see as the point: that no matter how blatantly evil and murderous Tromp’s message, his followers continue to adore him. I mean, how bad would a candidate’s words have to veer fascist-ward for Republican voters to finally see the insular, frightened, murderous Republican ideology for what it is?
That said, I do agree that the cartoon can be read as if it’s portraying Trump as an exception to some mythical, relatively mild and respectable conservative lineage.
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Hmm. The opposite of hyperbole (throwing over and thus exaggeration) would probably be ellipsis (falling short and thus omission). That’s where we get the names for the shapes from, anyway. …Not really relevant, just a tangent I think is interesting.
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Is there a similar rhetorical device related to parabolas? I can’t think of one at the moment…
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We changed that word from parabole to parable (throwing alongside and thus allegory).
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Of course, but I think the point of the cartoon is that at least the recent former Republican presidents were able to maintain a public persona of decorum. Trump can’t even do that.
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