Republicans aren’t the only party that likes to indulge in magical thinking.
Ted Rall’s Latest Books:
Can’t Vote/Why Vote?
Republicans are obsessively trying to prevent Democrats, particularly blacks, from voting. Meanwhile, Democrats collect those votes but don’t work hard to represent their constituents on the issues that they care about.
Maybe We Can Use Her Incompetence
Kamala Harris is more than the vice president of the United States, she is clearly the president in waiting for someone who is too old and infirm for the job. He keeps handing off responsibilities to her but she doesn’t seem able to fulfill her many jobs so far.
Democrats Fight the Evil Republicans
Joe Biden’s infrastructure bill is the latest example of how Democrats negotiate against themselves.
Commissions We Could Actually Use
Democrats in the Senate are trying to convince Republicans to create a special commission to investigate the January 6th Capitol Hill riot. But everyone knows what happened. How about some commissions we could actually use?
Liberals Ignore Science Too
According to the CDC, the latest science says that no one has to wear a mask outside because outdoor transmission doesn’t occur outside of a crowd. Moreover, they say that people who have been fully vaccinated don’t need to wear a mask at all, indoors or outdoors. The only reason people within these categories are clinging to wearing a mask, therefore, is superstition.
Hold Them Accountable in 2040
Once again, Democrats are selling out their progressive voters. This time, Joe Biden says he’s not going to bother trying for a public option on the Affordable Care Act and there’s no sign of any attempt to increase the minimum wage. What will progressive voters do about it? If history serves, probably nothing.
Freaking out about Trump, Letting Bush off the Hook
Democrats are still completely wound up over the fact that Donald Trump falsely claims that he won the 2020 presidential election, and the Jan. 6 Capitol Hill riot. Yet Democrats quickly forgot about something far worse than lying about losing and a failed coup: the 2000 presidential election actually was stolen, in part due to a violent coup, and as a result more than 1 million people in Iraq and Afghanistan died. Democrats forgot so thoroughly that they now treat Bush like an elder statesman to be respected rather than thrown into prison for the rest of his life as he deserves.
Happy V-C Day
In a dramatic development, the Centers for Disease Control announced that Americans who are fully vaccinated no longer need to social distance or wear facemasks. But this opens up a big can of worms. Will the vaccinated and unvaccinated turn against each other?
Godzilla Has the Right to Defend Himself
After 11 days of relentless bombardment of the Gaza Strip, Israel finally signed onto a tentative ceasefire. Joe Biden repeated the standard line that Israel has the right to defend itself. But the extreme disparity of wealth and military power between Israel and the Palestinians makes that line a joke.
“The Stringer”
graphic novel
by Ted Rall & Pablo G. Callejo
“Political Suicide: The Fight for the Soul of the Democratic Party”
by Ted Rall
“Bernie (Revised 2020 Edition)”
by Ted Rall
What’s I’d Do as NYC Mayor
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New Yorkers go to the polls June 22nd to choose their next mayor. They’re primaries, but whoever wins the Democratic nomination will almost certainly move into Gracie Mansion. Media coverage has focused on the fading fortunes of former presidential candidate and tech entrepreneur Andrew Yang, the dearth of progressives in a wide field and the new, confusing ranked-choice voting scheme. (I have a lot of doubts about ranked-choice voting, which I will enumerate in this space at another time.) A New Yorker by choice most of my life and, unlike Yang, a guy who moved back to the city during the COVID-19 pandemic while others were running for the exurbs, I’ve been thinking a lot about what the next mayor should prioritize and what I would do if I were in charge of the city. Most of my readers don’t live in New York. But most do live in urban areas. Many who live in rural regions…
Read MoreWhat You Do after Work Shouldn’t Cost You Your Job
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The Central Park Karen is suing her former employer for firing her. I hope she wins. Karening is gross. But it’s not your boss’ business. Amy Cooper became the object of an Internet two-minutes hate last year when she called 911 on a Black birdwatcher who asked her to leash her dog per the rules and told the police he was threatening her and her dog. Unfortunately for her, the guy’s cellphone video showed no such thing. The viral video was viewed more than 45 million times. Cooper was internationally shamed as an emblematic wielder of white privilege used to oppress people of color. The shelter from which she adopted her Cocker Spaniel two years earlier took the animal away. She was charged with filing a false police report, a misdemeanor. She eventually got her dog back and the charges were later dropped after she completed racial-sensitivity training. The birder, Christian Cooper (no relation), declined to cooperate…
Read MoreLiberals’ Bizarre Fear of an Unmasked Nation
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During last year’s campaign Joe Biden promised to “listen to the scientists.” He repeatedly said his coronavirus-response policy would be “informed by science and by experts.” On issues from the environment to teaching evolution in public schools to the public health response to the COVID pandemic, liberals often accuse conservatives of putting emotions ahead of facts. While recognizing that the scientific process of acquiring knowledge and putting hypotheses to an empirical test can and often does lead to shifts in consensus, we on the left claim to trust scientists like Dr. Anthony Fauci, the infectious disease specialist and unlikely media icon. After Dr. Fauci and other authorities like the Centers for Disease Control told us to wear masks, Blue America listened. As of late June 2020, 86% of Democrats wore a facemask whenever they left home, compared to 48% of Republicans. Now scientific consensus has changed. But lefties are choosing to ignore the new reality—not that it’s new.…
Read MoreYour Opinion Doesn’t Matter. Protests Matter.
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Your opinion doesn’t matter—not by itself. No matter how heartfelt or important to you personally, your thoughts about Gaza or legal weed or the war on skinny jeans don’t mean anything merely because they reside inside your brain. Your opinion matters only if you express it. Expression of an opinion doesn’t change anything unless it’s done effectively. Opinions expressed en masse, alongside others who share your views, are more likely to effect change—but that’s not enough to move the needle. What changes policy, what improves lives for the foreseeable future, what makes history on a radical scale, is a sustained mass movement that expresses an opinion so aggressively that the ruling classes are forced to change course or risk losing their power and privilege to revolutionary overthrow. American liberals and leftists have strong opinions on a variety of issues. But they express them on the couch or online rather than in the streets, where it matters. On the…
Read MoreNo More False Equivalence: Israel Chooses War Over Peace
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No one is blameless in the ongoing violent conflict between Israel and stateless Palestinians. Both sides target and kill civilian noncombatants. But let’s put an end to false equivalence. “A pox on both houses” is not a morally or politically appropriate response to the one-sided war between Israel and Hamas. Israel wants war. If it wanted peace, it would have it. Any attempt to assign all or most of the blame to one side in a long-running drama like the crisis in the Middle East is inherently pointless. No matter what arbitrary date or event in history you begin with in order to argue that it all started with this or that atrocity, someone can point to an earlier episode to which said act was a justifiable retaliation. Then there’s reality. Practicality and geography dictate that Israeli Jews and Palestinians (who are not all Arabs) have to live in the same country or (future) pair of countries are…
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