President Trump has continued to lash out with bizarre and outrageous public pronouncements. He has threatened to destroy North Korea. He says athletes who protest police brutality should be fired. And he has no sympathy for the people of Puerto Rico, which has been devastated by a pair of hurricanes. In any other country, people would take to the streets to demand that the president be removed. But we’re chill…too chill.
Freaked Out About Not Freaking Out About the Freak
Ted Rall
Ted Rall is a syndicated political cartoonist for Andrews McMeel Syndication, WhoWhatWhy.org and Counterpoint. He is a frequent contributor to The Wall Street Journal, a graphic novelist and author of many books of art and prose, and an occasional war correspondent. He is, recently, the author of the graphic novel "The Stringer."
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Shell Shock?
I’ve seen so much bizarre S#!7 in my life that one more turd doesn’t seem to have much impact anymore. Vietnam, Watergate, Blue dresses & multiple senseless invasions of Iraq. Just when I thought things couldn’t get any weirder, somebody elects Trump!
Part of me is in denial – this can’t be happening, ergo I’m lying in a hospital bed, under sedation, and probably in restraints. But the dreams are certainly entertaining.
Hell, “Nightmare on Elm Street” wasn’t as horrifying as “Trump on Pennsylvania Avenue”!
“Progressives” aren’t freaking out because this is the logical conclusion of their 40 year plus campaign of “If our impossible demands are not met in full, immediately, we will make sure the people who will hurt America win, and damn the consequences.”
Uh oh. Looks like a right wing bot has found Ted’s page…
+1
The people actually responsible for the success of the right wing calling the only progressive on this site “right wing”? Irony truly is dead.
Vote right to move left!
Yes, I’m well aware as a “progressive”, that’s your plan.
wheeeheeeheeeheee.
So, Whimsy – is English a second language for you? “Progressive” includes the word “progress.” Y’know – that thing you are virulently opposed to? The thing you fight with your every keystroke? That thing you continually insult real progressives for wanting? Yeah, that thing.
You seem operate under ludicrous assumption that “incremental change” to the right is somehow going to bring about a movement to the left. You continue to believe in your “plan” even though it’s brought about the exact opposite of what you claim to want. You keep suggesting that we do more of the same while expecting different results. (Vocabulary hint: “doing the same thing” is called “conservatism” – it’s the *exact* opposite of “progressivism ” maybe you should write that down so you don’t forget. Again.)
I’ve often thought that you must be a paid shill for the DNC, but I think Dex nailed it. You are a shill for the RNC.
Wear your MAGA cap proudly, dude, you’ve earned it.
@ CrazyH –
“You continue to believe in your ‘plan’ even though it’s brought about the exact opposite of what you claim to want.”
*
I don’t know why anybody bothers with the shit this troll writes, who’s claiming to be a “progressive” while underwriting the conservative agenda. A progressive wants to progress; this asshole wants to regress. ‘Nuff said.
Let’s unpack the stupid.
““Progressives” aren’t freaking out because this is the logical conclusion of their 40 year plus campaign of “If our impossible demands are not met in full, immediately, we will make sure the people who will hurt America win, and damn the consequences.”
While this was obviously written by a profoundly stupid person, I’m still trying to figure out what this idiot is trying to say.
1) You think progressives have been a major political movement the last 40 years? What was it that gave it way? Plummeting tax rates? Deregulation? Military adventurism/imperialism abroad?
You are a very stupid person.
2) “Impossible demands”? You mean when Americans ask for things that seem to be easily done in other countries? Pro tip: not everyone in America is as stupid, lazy, and self centered as you are, fuckwad, and so these things could be done easily, because they have been done by every other industrialized nation on Earth, you galactic boob.
You are a very stupid person.
Well, Ted, here’s one explanation: maybe it’s not that we’re too chill, but that we’re too easily distracted (not to mention tempted by ego gratification and self-aggrandizement), and as a consequence, too many “discussions” get derailed and quickly descend into squabbles and pissing contests over “issues” having only the most tenuous connection to the topic. Wow, I could save $396 on auto insurance if I switch to AAA
:: forehead slap ::
I wish.
Seriously, I wish. Those of us who recognize the value of Be realistic, demand the impossible! cannot actually remember anything remotely impossible being actually demanded even by the “radicals”. Kucinich got ridiculed for asking nicely for a Department of Peace (which would have cost less than the rounding errors on the cost overshoot of any given new weapons platform).
If only Kucinich had shut up, by a quite impressive stretch of logic it would have been the Dem establishment candidate who would have nominated the same crazy Republicans – who now seem moderate by comparison – to head the Department of Defense than Trump did?
Damn!
Either I need to taper off on the Scotch whisky, or you need to edit that comment to make sense. I can’t make heads nor tails of it. 🙂
Ok, mayhaps a bit convoluted. First paragraph just says I wish somebody in the mainstream would have actually asked for something bordering on the impossible for once.
Second paragraph recalls the most extreme thing anybody asked for (before Sanders who is a rather recent “mainstream” person and who also is asking only for the very possible and actually long overdue). And then follows the original poster in lamenting that Kucinich clearly (I mean, obviously, duh?) is to blame for HRC to have lost the election and thus not getting to nominate the same Republicans to the DoD.
I maybe shouldn’t have packed the list bit into the paragraph but was tired and since it’s so obvious, I thought it doesn’t need any explanation, lengthy or otherwise. Next thing someone will ask me to explain just how Kucinich cost Clinton the election, I mean, give me a break 😉
Crazy, Crazy, Crazy-
You know you’re not supposed to take your handle quite so literally
>.So, Whimsy – is English a second language for you? “Progressive” includes the word “progress.”
As I’ve repeatedly demonstrated, I have a firmer grasp of the English language than you. Why do you think I repeatedly refer to you and yours as “progressives”?
Here’s yet another lesson in how the world ACTUALLY works (I hope this one sinks in, though given your density, I have my doubts): Lip. Service. Doesn’t. Count.
You can claim to be a progressive all you like but the second you do something to help elect someone who will slow, or worse roll back, progress, you become a lying hypocrite and out come the air quotes and you forfeit any claim to being a progressive.
>Y’know – that thing you are virulently opposed to? The thing you fight with your every keystroke? That thing you continually insult real progressives for wanting? Yeah, that thing.
Strike one. It’s “progressives” who hate progress. You and yours have made it very clear that if you can’t have progress on your terms, you’d rather have no progress at all, and you don’t give a damn about the resulting suffering.
This is of course is the “irresponsible jackass’ (aka “progressive”) position even if there was someone capable of delivering on your terms.
But your demands are so unreasonable that a person who can deliver on your terms has never, doesn’t now, and will never exist (much less get elected)
>You seem operate under ludicrous assumption that “incremental change” to the right is somehow going to bring about a movement to the left.
Strike two. That’s not my argument and you damn well know it. Your continued refusal to argue my real position just demonstrates your side’s moral and intellectual bankruptcy
>You continue to believe in your “plan” even though it’s brought about the exact opposite of what you claim to want. You keep suggesting that we do more of the same while expecting different results. (Vocabulary hint: “doing the same thing” is called “conservatism” – it’s the *exact* opposite of “progressivism ” maybe you should write that down so you don’t forget. Again.)
Strike three. You lose. Again.
Its “progressives” who have caused the shift to the right by continuing to believe (despite the ton of evidence proving otherwise) that if they make the Democratic Party candidate lose, the next time the Democratic party will put up someone capable of delivering on your terms.
The problems with this are twofold:
1) As is obvious to anyone non-delusional, the world doesn’t work that way.
2) As I said before the person who can deliver on your terms doesn’t exist.
It’s “progressives” who insists on sticking to their plan even though its failed them for over forty years. They’re the ones insisting on repeating the same failed strategy over and over while expecting different results.
My plan has not been tried, and there will be no progress until “progressives” come to their senses and around to the only plan that will work.
Sadly, “progressives” have repeatedly proven that they are incapable of putting their ego aside to do what’s best for the country.
>I’ve often thought that you must be a paid shill for the DNC, but I think Dex nailed it. You are a shill for the RNC.
>Wear your MAGA cap proudly, dude, you’ve earned it.
You’d have to look in the mirror to see someone siding with conservatives. Might want to seek psychiatric help for that nasty case of projection you’ve got going on. You’ve helped Trump far more than I ever have, or will
@ Whimsical –
“My plan has not been tried, and there will be no progress until ‘progressives’ come to their senses and around to the only plan that will work.”
*
I guess I missed just what “plan” you suggest while I was trying to wade through the excess garbage you throw into the discussion that proves to be only a distraction to those of us who wish an intelligent discourse.
Lay it out for the rest of us, if you can, just what your “plan” entails, so that the details can be addressed.
Thank you, Whimsy – I have finally seen the light!
The Jonestown Massacre was the fault of the people who *didn’t* drink the Koolaid.
The Titanic sank because a small minority of the passengers whined about icebergs. They had unrealistic expectations concerning lifeboats. If they’d only supported the captain everything would have turned out just fine. Meanwhile the band (“The True Progressives”) played the same old tune even as they disappeared beneath the waves …
Never start a campaign in the fall. Are we all prepared if they shut off the power grid?