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CSotD: Totally acceptable for almost the majority
David Chevaly underscores a current crisis throughout American democracy, although it refers to a specific race for the House in northwest Washington state.
Nationally, the relief from the failure of the projected red wave shouldn’t be too cheerfully celebrated, given the razor-thin margins in the majority of widely-watched contests.
We can be grateful that the most outrageous Holocaust deniers lost and, in particular, that so many candidates hoping for a position from which they could manipulate future elections did not come to power.
But, as Horsey notes, it’s not as if they were firmly dismissed.
And for all we can wish Republicans would take a lesson and reform their approach, why should they? They barely lost the presidency in 2020 and they saw similar support in 2022, if only at a 49% level.
Republicans were forced to regroup after the Goldwater slap, and Democrats learned from similar debacles during the McGovern and Dukakis campaigns. But, despite all the legitimate complaints about the history of the Electoral College giving victory to candidates with fewer votes, there remains the fact that many people support a party that campaigns on fear, division and misinformation.
“Four legs good, two legs better” is a perfectly acceptable slogan for almost half of our fellow citizens, so let’s go back once again to my favorite quote from Frank Zappa:
And if he was right when he said that in the middle of the Reagan revolution, I have seen nothing since to diminish his argument, but rather much to strengthen it.
Nick Anderson (Counterpoint) suggests that Trump is a Frankenstein monster raging out of control, and it’s true that at least some Republicans, like the Victor Frankenstein in the cartoon, are running in horror.
But Zappa’s point came in response to a quote I gave him from John Lennon, who said that Hitler in the 1930s was not the problem, but, rather, we should ask ourselves what happened to him. as a small child who turned him into this monster. ?
Zappa replied that the biggest concern was not this particular man but rather the society that embraced him, and that if there had never been an Adolf Hitler, the German people would have found someone another to fill the role.
Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover resulted not only in his reinstatement of Donald Trump’s account, but, as Bill Bramhall note, in the unleashing of a toxic flood of other contenders for the role of Führer, and underlings eager for minor roles to back up anyone who steps into those boots.
This brazen outpouring of open hatred, division, misinformation and propaganda may be appalling and appalling to 51% of the public, but it is welcomed and embraced by the 49% who find it, in Zappa’s words, “totally acceptable.” “.
For that reason, I’m ambivalent about pushing Democrats to enact laws like the Marriage Equality Act in the remaining lame duck session.
Clay Bennett (CTFP) is correct that while the majority of Americans — and it’s just over 51% — support the concept, the GOP is determined to block federal reform, and it’s hardly relevant that Biden vetoes any legislation contradictory that they would pass in the next two years.
They play for 2024, with a sustained campaign of hate and fear against (non-white) immigrants and the LGBTQ+ community.
You can see the level of total acceptance, not just on social media, but in places like Florida, Texas, and Virginia, where fear votes and hate prevails.
I’m not a big fan of Brian McFaddennot because we disagree — we usually do — but because its fixed format makes it difficult for its arguments not to run out of gas before this sixth panel.
But the GOP has provided him with plenty of ammunition to back things up this time.
I certainly wish it weren’t, but here we are, and so while I’d love to see the current convention unfold in a blaze of glory, I’m also concerned that the more they dull the impact of this new set autocrats, the less likely it becomes that we will see enough turnout in 2024 from outraged voters to head off a disaster of national doom proportions.
To keep the 51% furious, I hope for two years Biden will have to repeatedly veto GOP attempts at “totally acceptable” legislation, showing what will become law if decent people sleep through the next election.
To which I would add that we shouldn’t assume that all suspicious people pursue right-wing Q-Anon rumors.
The reaction to the appointment of a special advocate by Merrick Garland confirms Michel de Adder point that he is in a dead end position.
Several people with whom I generally agree were unable to see that the prospect of Garland’s boss running for office against Garland’s target created an unacceptable conflict of interest that required independent counsel.
There are also those who want Garland to act faster, because Trump is obviously guilty. I’ve even seen memes and cartoons comparing Garland’s slow approach to the low-speed pursuit of OJ Simpson’s Bronco.
Which makes me wonder if anyone remembers how confidently Marcia Clark pursued this case of obvious guilt, and how it turned out?
Garland has a reputation for plugging holes before launching his boat, and his chosen lawyer, Jack Smith, has a similar reputation to pursue difficult cases with dogged determination and significant success.
It’s why the GOP began slimming down Smith on Twitter, why the Freedom Caucus wants to impeach Garland, and why the 49% find both men totally unacceptable.
Now sports…
The internet is awash with cartoons exposing the deaths of migrant workers in Qatar’s corrupt World Cup soccer deal, but Dr MacLeod cuts through all the human rights irrelevance to focus on the real outrage.
Many people who are theoretically sympathetic to human rights seem ready to turn their heads and watch the Games, as long as there is beer.
Patrick Chappatte suggests that Qatar has human rights defenders above a barrel.
So maybe less a barrel than a mug.