We learn it in civics: you’re supposed to vote for the party and politician who represents your interests. But what if neither party even bothers to pretend to care about you and your wants and needs?
How Representative Democracy Works
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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Ted, Ted – 55 years old, and you’re now learning for the first time that
Henri
Why do you, how could you, assume that the person asking for more than two parties is Ted?
The cartoon’s protagonist may represent a typical awakening American, but he is in no way representative of Ted.
I can only assume you have reading comprehension problems.
Hillary Clinton wanted Trump to be nominated by the Republican Party as a “Pied Piper” candidate, one that could easily be beat in the general election.
The Democrats wanted the choice of the people to be limited to only the “terrible” and the “more terrible” candidates, between the “great evil” and the “greater evil”.
The pro-big money parties each challenge each other to be the most anti-social party possible.
The pro-social candidates are dumped by both parties, and their fake-news corporate media sycophants.
Don a yellow vest!
America is a mistake, a giant mistake. — Sigmund Freud (1856 – 1939)
“Subjects should be warned not to be subjugated more than is strictly necessary.” — William of Ockham (circa 1370)
We should be intolerably insolent.
I laugh to read this while the news salivates over Trump’s use of fictional bone spurs to dodge the draft.
As Ted observes, we really have no choices in a two party system like this one. But when you bring it up, you get your head handed to you. So let’s keep watching the media focus on Trump’s bone spurs.
Meanwhile, let’s not mention that Obama has no military service either.
Dubya, famously, got a plum safety spot guarding file cabinets or somesuch in the Texas Air National Guard
Then you’ve got Clinton, who also has no service. GHWBush got his ass shot out of the sky. Reagan? Much like John Wayne, Reagan stayed stateside and safe, serving in the reserves. Jimmy Carter served as a midshipman.
My point?
With very few exceptions, presidents either duck the military altogether or find soft, safe berths far away from the fighting. Clinton, like millions of young men, avoided the war. Bone spurs or an educational deferment, does it really matter? Dubya’s brain might have been pickling already, but he understood that he could get out of the war, and he jumped on that chance with both feet, just like a lot of other young men of all political stripes. But watch how the issue will be addressed in the coverage of Trump and how no one on the media shows will point out how similar Trump’s behavior was to so many others.
Gotta keep up the illusion of difference.