Americans face the future with a gimlet eye.
Free Country
Ted Rall
Ted Rall is a syndicated political cartoonist for Andrews McMeel Syndication and WhoWhatWhy.org and Counterpoint. He is a contributor to Centerclip and co-host of "The Final Countdown" talk show on Radio Sputnik. He is 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 "2024: Revisited."
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«After all, it’s a free country.» Free for whom ? To do what ?…
Henri
@ mhenriday –
It’s free for the top 1% to continue trampling the rights of the other 99%. Understand?
«It’s free for the top 1% to continue trampling the rights of the other 99%. Understand?» Indeed I do, mein verehrter Lehrer ! Just one of the reasons that I’m not so enamoured of the prospect of «traditional [US] politics», if by that one means Michael Richard Pence as US president….
Henri
@ mhenriday –
Agreed.
And impeaching both would put Ryan in the Oval Office. The worst of the worst.
(BTW, I understand that impeachment will never occur with GOP control of Congress.)
So tell me, how much “freedom” was lost between the Carter Administration and the Reagan “stolen with the help if Iran” cartel? How much was lost between GHWB and Bubba’s reign? BC and W? W and BarryHO? This is a straw-man argument. Will “we” lose more freedom under Trump? For an absolute certainty? YES!
But then, we also would have lost even so much more under a Kankles regime. T-rump will spend his first two years just getting oriented. Hillary already had the nuclear cannonballs already loaded and ready to deliver, and certainly would have.
Lesser-evil voting. Now? We’ll discover who was more right than not … maybe.
DanD
It appears everyone assumes that Trump will last four years (or eight). Michael Moore and I don’t agree with that assessment. A Pence presidency might be better, or it might be worse. At least it would be traditional politics. 🙁
Mr Rall wrote a book trashing Trump. He wanted someone better than Secretary Clinton or Trump (as do I), and, since Secretary Clinton seemed a certainty, he wrote lots of cartoons about why she would not be the very best president the US has ever had (in spite of the MSM assuring us that she would be). And now most of the gocomics comments say Ted, all by hisseff, got Trump elected, and he should be ashamed of hisseff.
I fear I cannot concur with the consensus on gocomics. I think Mr Rall got the campaign dead right.
And given our choice of frying pan or fire, I figure we’d have been in deep kimshi no matter which one the Electoral College picked.
And I have to wonder how sincere Sanders was in running and then at the last minute throwing his “support” to Clinton, knowing all the while that he had the better chance of winning against Trump. I suspect he was a willing pawn in a losing game: “CHECKMATE!” 🙁
Agree.
« I suspect he was a willing pawn in a losing game: “CHECKMATE!” 🙁» Mein verehrter Lehrer, I must confess that I don’t quite follow your reasoning here. If Mr Sanders was indeed a «pawn», than whose pawn was he ? The reaction to his campaign by the DNC and the Clinton campaign would seem to invalidate the notion that Ms Clinton was running him – he had her scared shitless, if yo will pardon the term. Are you suggesting that Mr Trump hired Mr Sanders to run against Ms Clinton in the Democratic primaries and then support her when she managed to secure the nomination, thereby convincing many of his supporters to stay home, thus throwing the election to Trump ?…
I’m prepared, when evidence is presented, to believe much about US elections, but the above scenario strains my credulity….
Henri
@ mhenriday –
There are the “rumors” that WJC and DJT had that mysterious telephone chat before the latter declared his candidacy.
Sanders could have announced as an Independent candidate and done just as well, if not better.
Stein offered Sanders a chance to join her ticket as “Top Gun.”
Polls showed that Sanders had a better chance of beating Trump than Clinton did.
Although many people now praise Sanders for his integrity and for keeping his word (“to support the nominee”), they seem to ignore the fact that he promised to take his campaign all the way to the convention, which implied that he would let the delegates choose. By throwing his delegates away to Clinton, he reneged on that promise.
I see a pattern here, and it doesn’t involve Trump’s campaign or his supporters. The People were played for suckers by the DNC who had already decided that Clinton should be the nominee and worked against Sanders. The result surprised those who set up the game in the Democratic Party, and now they have to live with it.
«I figure we’d have been in deep kimshi no matter which one the Electoral College picked.» Ah, Michael, that brought back fond memories of when a Korean painter and I, starting with 55 kilos of Chinese cabbage and peppers imported from Korea, made kimchi in a bathtub here in Stockholm. Ah those halcyon – but spicy ! – days of youth !… 🙂
Henri
HRC vs. Trump? Okay. Let me be all science fictiony right now. In about a half-dozen movies and TV shows, we end up with a doppelganger (and the original) confronting The Hero. Sometimes, the duplicate is revealed quickly, sometimes it takes a while. But the point is that appearing as a “friend” is a great strategy for attempting to achieve your end goal.
With HRC? All her followers would stand there, nodding their heads like bobbledolls, as she prosecutes whistleblowers, as she leaves Gitmo open, as she continues to assist in the gutting of the middle class, etc. “We didn’t vote for a Queen!” they will tweet. “You just can’t handle a strong, confident woman, you sexist pig.”
With Trump? He isn’t even the president yet, and people are going nuts. He’s the new Hitler! He’s going to start a nuclear war! He’s a puppet of the Russians!
Which do you want running the show? The duplicate of your friend? Or the person you call your enemy? The former will have plenty of time to slip the knife into your back because your guard will be down. But if you know it’s your enemy? Oh, you will be watching every single move he makes.
If HRC had won, she’d have screwed us over and a whole lot of people would be huddling in their hovels, whispering about incremental steps as they freeze to death. With Trump? If we can’t spot him trying to get away with something, then we deserve to freeze.
“Sometimes, the duplicate is revealed quickly, sometimes it takes a while.”
*
Strange you should say that. Reagan was actually killed by Hinckley and Reagan’s stand-in took over for photo ops, with Nancy calling the shots for the duration of the administration. That fact has yet to be publicly acknowledged.
«Which do you want running the show? The duplicate of your friend? Or the person you call your enemy?» Just keep in mind, Alex, that you are here describing the politics (and at the highest (?) level !) of the «indispensable» nation, that «Shining City on a Hill» to which all other benighted nations look upon as a model….
Henri
This is the very essence of “Lesser-Evil” voting! When the greater evil really does lose, the wholly clueless butterfly-and-unicorn-farts supporters of that greater evil will obtusely go overboard in treating the lesser evil like a volcanically active greater evil. Furthermore, they will do this for the entire residency of that lesser evil’s presidential existence.
My job here of helping the lesser evil win is done.
DanD
“I say go for it”
go for WHAT? I can think of just a whole lotta things to go for, but I’m curious as to what Ted has in mind. Is it illegal, immoral, or fattening? Is it all three? We can only hope . . .
«Is it all three?» If we like it, CrazyH, it’s almost bound to be all three….
Henri
* HAPPY NEW YEAR, ONE & ALL *
Now, I’m not admitting to anything, all I’ll say is that I had opportunities for all three of my favorite things on NYE.
Oh, and illegal fireworks look spectacular in a snowstorm. Allegedly.