Take I/The Reckoner>
When we asked our sin-house cartoonist, The Highwayman, to come up with a satirical take on the midterms, he grumbled a bit, mumbling something about how it's hard to parody an entity (the Republican Party) that turned into a cartoon long ago. "Fair enough," The Squawker and I conceded. Especially when you consider the dark, toxic and malignant cartoon that today's GOP has turned into -- the party of COVID bleach cocktails and cat litter box conspiracies that pretends to play by the rules it eagerly seeks to undermine, even as they're itching to get their grubby little paws on the switch. Then he came back, and gave us these three panels.
Take II/The Reckoner>
As we quickly grasped, however, when The Highwayman barks an immediate "no" at you, it's really his way of saying, "I'm feeling inspired, but haven't sorted out all the details out quite yet." And he found some suitably inspirational music, as you'll see from the links below. These panels pretty well capture it, since -- depending on whose narrative you read -- it appears that massive chunks of our population, the same ones who believe that Trump really won a second term in 2020, are ready to unconditionally trust the empty suits in his party, who continue the quest of catering to America's most aggrieved and neediest man.
Take III/The Reckoner>
That's one possibility, though it's immediately contradicted by the odd glimmer of hope, here and there -- this past week, for instance, I've seen several pieces claiming that youth turnout could match or surpass historic levels today. If that's so, the Democrats may not in be for such a long night. But if people are really just shrugging off the idea that democracy's on the ballot? All I can do is remind them, "Crack open your Weimar Republic histories, and see how well that idea worked out."
Autocrats don't like workarounds, which they spend a great great deal of energy trying to pre-empt, or stamp out. Yes, it's natural to cling to that belief, but the record doesn't support it -- and if you're not voting today, because you've convinced yourself that "you'll adjust," or "things will work out somehow," you're not only putting yourself at risk. You're putting the rest of us at risk, too, which is the central idea of the Neurotics song quoted here ("Let's Kick Out The Tories").
Funny, isn't it? That song came out exactly 40 years ago, and yet, we're still scrapping over the same old, sane old mad parade of issues. How much -- and how little -- has changed, over the march of time. We'll see how that march turns out today. --The Reckoner
Links To Go (A Punk Rock Ditty A Day
Keeps The Forces Of Reaction At Bay):
The (Newtown Neurotics): Let's Kick Out The Tories:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FqRtFqoVW6k
Chumabwamba: I Get Knocked Down:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2H5uWRjFsGc
The Daily Beast: The Republicans
Are Bad For The Economy: Here's Why:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/republicans-bad-economy-why-083744391.html
TIME Magazine: The Christian Nationalist Forces
That Terrorized Me As A Child Have Grown Only More Powerful:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/christian-nationalist-forces-terrorized-child-165208032.html
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