Mad #542

Mad's 2016 politics issue delivers the magazine's trademark sanity check in the most literal way possible: Alfred E. Neuman, done up as a mashup of Uncle Sam — stars-and-stripes top hat, red-and-white striped pants — sits in a padded cell, strapped snugly into a straitjacket, grinning that gap-toothed grin without a care in the world. It's a single image that says everything about the state of American politics in 2016 that a thousand op-eds couldn't. If you ever needed proof that MAD has its finger on the pulse of the absurd, issue #542 makes a pretty compelling case.