The DMZ America Podcast’s Ted Rall (on the Left) and Scott Stantis (on the Right) are joined by syndicated columnist Clarence Page of the Chicago Tribune to discuss the despondent state of the Democratic Party in the wake of their defeat. Progressives like Bernie Sanders say the party erred in neglecting the working class, moderates think the party appears too “woke” for mainstream Americans and it’s hard to reconcile Biden and the Democrats’ criticism of Donald Trump as dishonest with his decision to pardon Hunter Biden despite numerous categorical denials that he would do so. Where does the Democratic Party go from here? Is “resistance” possible and, if so, what will it look like?
Feel the Love
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Many swing voters who opted for Donald Trump told pollsters that they felt that Democratic coastal elites looked down upon them and that they were reacting against the feeling that they were viewed with contempt. After the election, as if to confirm their suspicions, Democrats repeatedly said that people who voted Republican were stupid.
When We Fight Progressives, We Lose
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Defeated Democratic Party presidential nominee Kamala Harris studiously refused to make any concessions whatsoever to her party’s large left-wing progressive base, including on the important issue of genocide in Gaza. Now that Democrats are conducting their postmortems, the one thing they fail to acknowledge is that alienating your base voters and driving away 12 million of them wasn’t such a bright idea.
DMZ America Podcast Ep 177: Interview with Ben Sargent
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As President-Elect Donald Trump fills out his cabinet and key White House positions, including creating a new government-efficiency office for Elon Musk, the DMZ America podcast’s Ted Rall (from the Left) and Scott Stantis (from the Right) are joined by their colleague, fellow political cartoonist Ben Sargent, formerly of the Austin American-Statesman and now at the Texas Observer.
Republicans are urging a peaceful easy feeling between Americans whether or not they voted for Trump, but is that possible with an ideologically far-right slate of top personnel? On the other hand, many in MAGA world seem disappointed that Trump’s appointees include long-time Washington “swamp creatures.” Whatever happened to draining the swamp?
If personnel is policy, what do these choices harken about Trump’s intended policies for his second term?
Ben Sargent is the Texas Observer‘s longtime cartoonist. He launched his career drawing editorial cartoons for the Austin American-Statesman in 1974. Sargent won the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning in 1982. He has also received awards from Women in Communications, Inc., Common Cause of Texas, and Cox Newspapers. He is the author of Texas Statehouse Blues and Big Brother Blues.
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Keywords: Donald Trump, 2024 election results, 2024 election, 2024 campaign, Democrats, cabinet, appointments, advisers, White House officials, drain the swamp, trump administration, Ben Sargent
Fight or Not Flight
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Democrats engaged in all sorts of histrionics during the 2024 presidential campaign, in which the centerpiece of their message was that Donald Trump represented a grave and existential threat to democracy and might even open concentration camps as a genuine fascist. Now that he has prevailed, there is no indication that they believed any of that. Why are they still here?
DMZ America Podcast Ep 176: Can the Democrats Be Fixed?
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The Democratic Party finds itself in nearly as much disarray as the GOP did following Barry Goldwater’s 1964 defeat to LBJ. DMZ America co-hosts Ted Rall (from the Left) and Scott Stantis (from the Right) turn to American political scientist Charles Lipson to dissect what went wrong for the Democrats in the election and to discuss their prospects for renewal. Can Democrats follow the Republican example and rebuild their grassroots organization from the ground up at the local level? Can they free themselves of their addiction to corporate money in order to increase their populist appeal? Or should the party add domestic policy to a foreign policy that has already moved to the Right of the Republicans, completing a realignment that reverses much of what transpired between 1928 and 1932?
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Keywords: Donald Trump, 2024 election results, 2024 election, 2024 campaign, Democrats, LBJ, Barry Goldwater, political realignment, grassroots organization, Democratic Party, Charles Lipson, party politics, reinvention
The Blame Game
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Defeat is an orphan. But defeated Democrats, themselves responsible for losing an election to Donald Trump that should have been easy to win, are flailing about trying to pin the blame on everyone but themselves.
DMZ America Podcast Ep 175: Interview with Animated Political Cartoonist Mark Fiore
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DMZ America co-hosts Ted Rall (from the Left) and Scott Stantis (from the Right) turn to their colleague, Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Mark Fiore, known for his hard-hitting animated shorts about U.S. politics, to discuss the fallout of the 2024 election results and to prepare for another four years of satirizing Donald Trump. In what ways can we expect Trump’s second term to differ from his first, and does that mean approaching and criticizing him using a new or different approach? Should we expect the unexpected, and if so what?
The Wall Street Journal has called Mark Fiore “the undisputed guru of the [animated political cartoon] form.” His work has appeared on the San Francisco Chronicle’s website, Newsweek.com, Slate.com, CBSNews.com, MotherJones.com, NPR’s web site and is currently being featured by KQED. Fiore’s political animation has appeared on CNN, Frontline, Bill Moyers Journal, Salon.com and cable and broadcast outlets across the globe. Mark Fiore was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for political cartooning in 2010 and the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award in 2004.
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The TMI Show Ep 16: Wounded Democrats Scramble to Regroup
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On today’s TMI Show, co-hosts Ted Rall and Manila Chan are joined by former Pittsburgh Post-Gazette editorial cartoonist Rob Rogers to discuss the fallout of Trump’s reelection win, namely: Where do Democrats go now? What will a Democratic Resistance 2.0 look like? How effectively can Democrats block Trump’s initiatives? Are there areas in which Democrats and Republicans can work together in a bipartisan manner? Who are the rising stars within the party? Will Democrats continue to drift right to chase anti-MAGA Republicans, or will they follow the advice of Bernie Sanders and others who suggest that it’s time to either abandon the Democratic Party or take it over?
Keywords: Donald Trump, 2024 election results, 2024 election, 2024 campaign, Rob Rogers, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, editorial cartoonist, political cartoonist, interview, Democrats, future, Bernie Sanders, MAGA movement, resistance
DMZ America Podcast Ep 174: Before Trump, There Was Grover Cleveland
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DMZ America co-hosts Ted Rall (from the Left) and Scott Stantis (from the Right) look back at the only other president in history who returned to the White House after having served and then been defeated: Grover Cleveland, the 22nd and 24th Presidents the United States who served 1885-1889 and 1893-1897.
Cleveland was a Democrat renowned for honesty and probity, but otherwise there are some remarkable parallels between Cleveland and Donald Trump. Both were portly, had healthy libidos and a predilection for age-inappropriate wives, were skeptical of military imperialism and favored pro-business policies that prompted a reaction by labor. Listen to these two history buff’s take on a 19th century leader we’ll all be hearing more about in the years to come.
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N.B.: There were significant tech issues in this video feed, mainly Ted’s face freezing. We think we have it fixed for the next time.
