Every candidate attracts unrealistic expectations but the Democratic idea that Joe Biden is going to fix everything that is wrong under Donald Trump has brought magical thinking to a fever pitch. Newsflash: if things get any better, it won’t be much better.
Hope and Change 2: the Biden Years
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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Rafael Edward Cruz ? Now there’s a name to conjure with ! 2024, did you say ? Better see to it that my affairs are in order….
Henri
And for climate, we’re out of time. It’s much worse than the newspapers are saying. Global warming is about to increase abruptly and kill us all.
I finally understand that the politicians =can’t= do what is needed for climate (or for any of the other problems). Any capitalist can only concern himself with the short-term profits that keep him in power. If he concerns himself with anything else, he’ll fall behind his rivals and cease to be powerful.
Thus, our only hope of survival is revolution. But it has to be the right kind of revolution. So what we need is a great awakening, a great spreading of awareness and understanding. The dawning of the age of Aquarius.
I’m not saying that’s likely. I’m just saying that’s the only possible survival route I can still see. Help spread the word.
But if, LeftyMathProf, we are indeed out of time and global warming is about to kill us all – and I by no means dispute your analysis here – what good would even the most revolutionary of all revolutions do ? We’re screwed – but what the hell : 300 000 years is not a bad run for a nasty, smart-assed monkey species like ourselves ?…
Henri
I am not climate change denier.
There is no possibility that a mini self-sustaining earth-like bio-system can be created independent of the earth itself, and that the idea that controlling the earth’s climate and maintaining our energy consuming lives as we know them by use of “green energy” is possible is only wishful thinking (if it can even be called thinking),
As far as green energy goes: I don’t believe that a totally “green” energy source (even on a small scale) can be created without the continuing use of carbon based fuels in its support (and so is not green).
This means that all materials for a green energy source including mining, smelting, transportation (including concrete, manufacture, distribution, recycling, etc.) must be accomplished by a third “green” generation, the first “green” generation built using carbon fuels (as all energy is now), a second “green” generation built using only the first “green” generation energy as a source, and finally building a third “true green” generation from second generation “green energy” providing all energy for all succeeding generations (“bootstrapping”) of “carbon free” energy.
The only way of extending human life will be the conscious use of palliative care.
Finite beings will have finite lives, both as individuals and as a species.
Only demagogues will say otherwise.
“It was the best of times,
it was the worst of times,
it was the age of wisdom,
it was the age of foolishness,
it was the epoch of belief,
it was the epoch of incredulity,
it was the season of Light,
it was the season of Darkness,
it was the spring of hope,
it was the winter of despair,
we had everything before us,
we had nothing before us,
we were all going direct to Heaven,
we were all going direct the other way
—in short, the period was so far like the present period,
that some of its noisiest authorities insisted
on its being received, for good or for evil,
in the superlative degree of comparison only.”
Great cartoon, Ted.
And totally recyclable.
Only the names and dates will need to be changed to make it contemporary in some future reiteration.
Unless the Yellow Dog Democrats awaken to the fact that they are chasing their own tails.
I’ve thought for a long time that that the biggest obstacle to progressive change was the deep seated idea that somehow Democrats would do it, if only their base would just vote for a centrist one more time.
We aren’t going to make it.
I got a lecture yesterday about how HRC did not rig the primary in 2016.
Too many people who don’t know what they’re doing keep going around thinking they are entitled to uninformed opinions. Our democracy, with its low-level educational attainments, can’t cope with the 21st century.
I concur. (sounding like a lawyer)
You have my sympathies for your loss. (sounding like an undertaker)
My family thinks that if I vote Green its the same as if I sent them to the gas chambers myself.
Everyone knew that the US had 25% unemployment until the brilliant economists Adolph and Tojo came up with a plan that quickly reduced unemployment to less than 2%, but Adolph passed in 1945, and every economist predicted a Depression that would make 25% unemployment look good. Then Truman said the war wasn’t over, the US still had to fight the USSR, and the Republicans said Truman was much too soft on the USSR, and a Republican would be much, much tougher. And the Democrats said all the Republicans were much too soft on the USSR and …
And now Joe says Trump has been much too soft on China and … (Joe never met a war he didn’t like).
Neatly summarized