CSotD: Not With A Bang But A Tesler
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I was planning to use Sheneman’s cartoon this morning for a rant about defeatism and how cartoonists are running up a white flag with cartoons about feckless Democrats when GOP majorities in both houses give them no real leverage.
But then there was an opening, and Senate Democrats were poised to vote against cloture and block the GOP’s punitive continuing resolution.
Only last night Democratic leader Chuck Schumer announced that he was planning to vote in favor of the move because he has good manners and doesn’t want to rock the boat by doing something to halt the juggernaut.
We’ll see how the vote goes today. If enough Democrats line up with the Trumpsters — Schumer and seven more — the CR will be able to be passed on a simple majority vote and we can say goodbye to funding for education and Medicaid and veteran’s aid, among other things.
And I can say goodbye to the argument that there was nothing the Democrats in Congress could have done.
However, I can still disagree with Bagley’s cartoon, because the Democrats in Congress are not the only ones out here. If you wander outside the Beltway, you’ll find some good battles being fought and won with legal papers.
For instance, while Senator Schumer was turning tail yesterday, US District Judge William Alsup ordered the government to rehire thousands of federal employees at the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Department of Agriculture, the Department of Defense, the Department of Energy, the Department of Interior and the Department of Treasury. And unlike Schumer, he didn’t pussyfoot around:
The government, I believe, has tried to frustrate the judge’s ability to get at the truth of what happened here, and then set forth sham declarations. That’s not the way it works in the U.S. District Court.
Meanwhile, another judge was bringing down her gavel on Trump’s attempt to sue attorneys for representing his political opponents, and she was no more conciliatory in her assessment of the attempted maneuver:
This may be amusing in ‘Alice in Wonderland’ where the Queen of Hearts yells, ‘Off with their heads!’ at annoying subjects and announces a sentence before a verdict. But this cannot be the reality we are living under.
Meanwhile, the streets are filling with angry citizens, like these young people who rallied in Boston to protest budget cuts, or the throngs in New York protesting the arrest of Mahmoud Khalil, or the crowd demonstrating in DC in support of the Department of Education.
It’s not about Congress, and it would be nice to have Schumer’s support, but I don’t think people are going to give up just because he does.
Slyngstad notes the dismay of Trump supporters who are being personally impacted by DOGE and other assaults on the economy, and they will be a factor, though it’s not clear how many will make the leap from supporting Trump to voting against him. Sitting out elections might be a more likely response.
Charlie Sykes had Reed Galen on his podcast the other day, and Galen made the point that, if someone does regret their vote, pointing out how stupid they were and saying they deserve whatever they got is hardly a constructive response.
(I)f this person is willing to say, I made a mistake, the answer isn’t, I told you so, moron, right? Like, would you do that to a friend who, you know, was an addict, right? And said, “You know what guys I’ve been wrong, I need to get help,” would you do that? I don’t think you would. You would want that person trying to find some place where they could feel safe enough to figure out where they were going to go from there.
Compassion could be the hardest part of this whole resistance.
Fortunately, Dear Leader isn’t making an effort to cover up his intentions of striking out against those who oppose his policies. Just as he has attempted to sue law firms for representing Hillary Clinton and Jack Smith, he’s going after college kids who protest, threatening to deport those from other countries but also laying outrageous demands on the colleges themselves to stifle opposing viewpoints.
If you read the comments on Xitter, you see that his attack on Khalil is being cheered by white supremacists, but you’ll also see a rising tide of people willing to stand up and dispute his hateful policies.
George Wallace was praised for his fight against integrating schools and he won five states (guess where?) in the 1968 Presidential Elections. But he didn’t win the White House, did he?
Keep your eyes on the prize.
Speaking of the Good Old Days and Making America Great Again and all that, here’s a poster from back then that came to mind when Trump decided to turn the metaphor into a reality.
Several cartoonists have mocked Trump’s foray into automobile dealing, though I was disappointed when he admitted he didn’t have a license. I wanted him to declare, “I’m an excellent driver!” and take it for a halting spin around the White House driveway.
Matson, however, goes beyond the car sales themselves and brings in the solicitation of bribes and the hostility to half the citizenry inherent in this presidency. The magic sneakers, blasphemous bibles and dubious cybercoins are just frosting on the cake.
If it weren’t for the abject betrayal of our European allies, the bizarre goings on here might seem amusing to our neighbors around the world.
Though Madam & Eve did have some fun turning the nonsensical personnel decisions of the Musk Administration into only slightly more nonsensical decisions within Madam’s household.
While Megan Herbert manages to get a grimly cute cartoon out of the horrific impression we’re making on the world.
It reminds me of one of my favorite exchanges in Cat Ballou, when Jackson Two-Bears finds Kid Shelleen drunk when they need him most:
Jackson Two-Bears: Kid, Kid, what a time to fall off the wagon. Look at your eyes.
Kid Shelleen: What’s wrong with my eyes?
Jackson Two-Bears: Well they’re red, bloodshot.
Kid Shelleen: You ought to see ’em from my side.
That’s my response to the world: You ought to see him from our side.
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