Ted Rall for January 28, 2022

I was reading an interesting interview with James Carville about this when it came time to check on the new GComics for today. One of his theses is that the Dems are addicted to hopeless causes.

What do you think about it?

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/22893113/james-carville-joe-manchin-biden-democratic-party

Nice dig at the illogical mindset of the DNC Ted! Allegedly there is a lot of mismanagement going on there. What caught my attention after the Hillary fiasco of 2016 was when Donna Brazille (yes, I know she was part of the problem) spilled the beans about how the Hillary campaign hijacked the DNC before she even officially won the ****ing nomination. Clean up the corruption at the DNC with some new fresh minded progressives with initiative and the democrats will bring a lot of people and votes back home. Find a way to get 53 democrats in the senate and then you tell Sinema and Manchin that their days of holding legislation up for ransom are over, hell then Manchin could move across the aisle to sit with his far right buddies. Too bad that the situation in the House is not as clear with all those newly gerrymandered districts coming into play but maybe somehow Pelosi can keep a majority.

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/11/02/clinton-brazile-hacks-2016-215774/

Centrists? Manchin? Synema? O. please….

Why they prefer the Right is confusing but luckily they skunked Hillary and the SCOTUS is 6-3 conservative. But I guess that isn’t good enough. I’m sure the left will stay home in 2022 and Mitch can RULE again. Sad, but that will be the way it is. I’m glad I’m an old fat white man with only a few years left.

The perception that we’re “heading in the wrong direction” — whether we are or not — is what is winning elections. People stay in bad relationships because they fear change — the scary unknown — more than a bad [but stable] relationship. The fatalists/defeatists see no point in trying to change and e.g. even surrender to Covid-19 without trying to save their own lives. This is now ingrained and no amount of messaging/statistics/reality will persuade them to feel otherwise. Yes, there is a better way, but the advocates of the fatalists/defeatists block the alternative directions with fear, blame, and disinformation.

I don’t think that your view of Centrist Democrats is correct numerically speaking (you have them as a tiny sliver in your first panel). About 30% of Americans identify as Democrats and 26% identify as Republicans. 41% identify as Independents. They probably break evenly to the left and to the right.

I think that the problem Progressives have is that they think they are in the majority of “the left”, when they are far from it.

Just once I’d like to see a “perfect world” cartoon where you describe what you really want from government.

From stopmebeforeIvoteagain, by way of a commenter on Naked Capitalism:

“The American political system, since at least 1968, has been operating like a ratchet, and both parties — Republicans and Democrats — play crucial, mutually reinforcing roles in its operation.

The electoral ratchet permits movement only in the rightward direction. The Republican role is fairly clear; the Republicans apply the torque that rotates the thing rightward.

The Democrats’ role is a little less obvious. The Democrats are the pawl. They don’t resist the rightward movement — they let it happen — but whenever the rightward force slackens momentarily, for whatever reason, the Democrats click into place and keep the machine from rotating back to the left."

Sounds like a clock, but operates more like a meat grinder.

This is what happens in just about every U.S. election ever.

Most Americans are moderates. The Democrats have what’s called ‘the big tent’ which includes all political philosophies from conservative to socialist.

Today in the Senate there are 50 Democrats.

The Republicans, who began as the Liberal Party in 1854 and had a Liberal wing through the 1960s, have moved to the conservative side. With the coming of the ‘Tea Party’, moderates have been driven out of the GOP.

Today in the Senate there are 50 Republicans.

50 conservatives in lock-step versus 50 Democrats who view all the ideas presented, and govern by compromise.

I prefer governing through compromise.

so sad

Everyone pounds the desk about his/her party. I think Ted shows that both sides have a good deal of corruption. Trump was pretty honest about his. Being middle of the road, and assessing candidates is something i do with impunity, and aspire to find good politicians. prob is there are very few. Bernie probably the closest, but Bernie would only fly if the plane has two left wings.

We (Democrats) are ALL “The Left.” Our moderates, however, seem like centrists, but the country itself is decidedly “Left.”

When party platforms take the biggest issues of the day and polarize them into some sort of camps. You can’t think for yourself or decide based on life experences. MUST FOLLOW PLATFORM.

I thought it didn’t matter to Ted if the Dems or Repubs won since they are basically the same? If so, why waste ink on this cartoon?

Pretty much…

And I was sooooo looking forward to Pelosi retiring……………………..

…………………guess she can’t leave until the progressives are completely powerless.

Stupidity, or evil?

It can be if you don’t use it properly. Simply take the criteria that the left wishes to advance and/or preserve social, economic, political, and legal equality, while the right wishes to slow it down, stop it or even reverse it.

The thing is that most voters are in the middle. Many of the most successful politicians on the left have put a lot of effort into appealing to the middle. This includes Bill Clinton and UK’s Tony Blair. While those on left might hate them, if the party goes left, then they lose most of their votes. You know democracy isn’t about what is right or wrong, but what people think is right or wrong. Just have to accept that most people won’t vote for a lefty (note: in the US a leftie would be a centrist in most other countries).

Fascism, of the corporate type or any other is a disease of the far right-the Republican Party. Words have meaning, as the late unlamented Rush used to say. Are you telling us that banning/burning books, demonizing immigrants and any group you can brand as “other,” insisting that everyone live by your religious precepts, and attempting to permanently institutionalize minority rule is not fascism of the exact type we fought against and defeated in Europe in the 1930s and 40s? White supremacist authoritarianism IS fascism. As to the “corporate” part"? Open your eyes!

What Ted are you afraid of a little fascism? ooo hoo. tell me what’s my name?