It’s extremely common for centrist Democrats to say that we must change this or that policy to attract more right-wing voters into the Democratic camp. We have to toughen up on immigration; we have to stop advocating for trans rights; we have to forget about this environment stuff; etc etc..
(Decades ago, centrists were saying Democrats absolutely had to move right on abortion to attract more voters. Which seems ironic now, since reaction against the Supreme Court overturning Roe v Wade is what’s done the most lately to push voters into the Democratic camp.)
Here’s the thing: It won’t work. It’ll never work.
Most truly swing voters simply aren’t that engaged with politics. They can’t name a supreme court justice, or who the vice president is, any more than I could tell you the name of the teams who played in the last Super Bowl. They’re certainly not familiar with the nuances of which exact immigration policies are supported by either party. Attempting to appeal to these voters with policy changes is probably a waste of time.
Then there are voters like the voters in this cartoon – passionately engaged voters who, probably due to the media bubbles they spend their time in, are convinced that the Democrats are something between idiots and malicious supervillains, and who see no differences between Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders, or even between Biden and Noam Chomsky.
Changing policy will never appeal to these voters, because FOX and other right-wing news sources will tell them that it’s a trick or a lie (if they even report on the policy change at all). They know that anything mainstream news (let alone Democrats) say is a lie and the only news source they can trust is FOX, and they know that’s true because FOX says so. (Or Trump. Or Alex Jones. The point is, they’ve got a closed universe of trustworthy sources, and we are not in that universe.)
I’m not thrilled with how panel two came out; I was experimenting with a different approach to drawing the background, and in hindsight I should have just drawn the background and desk with a two-point perspective grid (which is how I did panel three).
But I did have a lot of fun filling in the background shelves with books and stuff.
Panels one and four, which consist to a great degree of piles of ridiculous angry faces, were just awesome to draw. And Frank Young did a great job with the colors!
TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON
This cartoon has four panels. All of them feature the same character, who I’ll call “DEMOCRAT,” an older man with neatly combed, thick gray hair, rectangular glasses, and is usually wearing a suit and tie.
PANEL 1
Democrat is facing a big crowd of very angry people (mostly male, mostly white). They’re so crowded together that most of them seem like just a pile of faces. In the lead, a man wearing a short-sleeved collared shirt with a necktie shakes a fist in the air as he SCREAMS at Democrat. His face is a picture of rage.
Democrat listens calmly, rubbing his chin with a hand.
ANGRY MAN: SECURE THE BORDER YOU COWARDS!
DEMOCRAT (thought balloon): I want people like them to vote for Democrats, so I’ll give them what they want.
PANEL 2
Democrat is now in an office, seated behind a large and fancy desk. This looks like a pretty nice office. Democrat is on the phone, yelling at someone and pounding his fist on the desk.
DEMOCRAT: Forget helping the Dreamers! From now on Democrats support border security! Make it tougher! Send away asylum seekers! Hire more border guards!
PANEL 3
Democrat is now on stage, standing behind a podium with a microphone pointed at him, giving a speech. A spotlight shines on him. He’s grinning.
DEMOCRAT: Our new bill is the toughest border security bill ever!
PANEL 4
This panel, much like the first panel, shows Democrat facing a crowd of very angry people, with the same dude leading them. That dude is pointing a finger at Democrat and is yelling, his face just as furious as in panel 1. Democrat is talking to him with a smile, bent forward a little with his hands clasped together.
DEMOCRAT: So you like Democrats better now, right?
ANGRY MAN: SECURE THE BORDER YOU COWARDS!!!
CHICKEN FAT WATCH
“Chicken fat” is a cartoonist expression for fun but meaningless details slipped into a cartoon.
In panel one, the person in the foreground with his back to us is a self-portrait.
In panel two, there are a number of books on shelves in the backgrounds. Titles of these books include “Duck Soup,” “A Night At The Opera,” and “Horse Feathers” – for those of you who don’t know, those are all titles of Marx Brothers movies. Another book just has “TITLE” written on the spine in big letters. Another says “Covfefe! The Musical.” And two more, shelved next to each other, are titled “Tiny Lettering” and “Tiny Lettering 2.”
Also on the shelves is a bottle of booze and a decapitated head. Finally, in the tiny space under one of the shelves, a rat is reading a book.
In panel three, the seal on the front of the podium has the words “colorless green ideas sleep furiously,” which is a sentence “composed by Noam Chomsky in his 1957 book Syntactic Structures as an example of a sentence that is grammatically well-formed, but semantically nonsensical.” (There’s an entire wikipedia article about this sentence.)
The bird on the seal, which would usually be an eagle, is Opus the Penguin from Bloom County,
In panel four, there are two familiar faces seeded among the sea of angry faces: Bert from Sesame Street, and Frankenstein.
(Speaking of Frankenstein, I have no idea who created this little addendum to Mary Shelley’s novel, but I love it.)
I will never vote for Barry unless you post a new comic on March 2 2024!
Post a comic on March 2 you coward!
Darn it!
I’m gonna go a little aside from the topic, because I don’t think I agree with anything really substantive, but I’ve realized something recently, and I was interested if anyone else saw it:
Part of the reason why something like this doesn’t work is because people aren’t generally single issue voters, and even if they were, your “home” party is probably going to be better on your issue for you anyway. President Barry in this comic was hoping that there was a magical voting base out there that was Democratic in every way but immigration, and that beast doesn’t exist.
But I wonder if it used to. Here’s my recent realization: Part of the polarization of politics that has happened over the last decade is that people tend to feel strongly on basically every issue, even if they don’t have any skin in the game, or knowledge on the topic, and they develop these shallow (but strong) policy positions based on their impression of what they think their team’s position on the issue is. I call it “The Basket of Policies” but I’m sure there’s a better term for it. Maybe “Policy by Stereotype”? Nah, that’s not good. I’ll workshop it.
What it means in practice is that I think that with frighteningly few exceptions, I can guess most of the average person’s entire expressed policy portfolio with a couple questions.
Now… It’s possible that this might also be a symptom of a two-party system, because this doesn’t seem to be as large a problem in Canada, and I think that might be because the six major parties need to differentiate themselves more than “We aren’t our opponent”, but Canadian political discourse usually lags a little behind American discourse, so this might just be my future.
Anyone else noticed this?
Corso, your third para is just re-stating the electoral principles (and subsequent success) behind the Southern Strategy, and then confusing cause vs effect while also both-sidesing the phenomenon to implicate the GOP’s opposition in the GOP’s decades-long polarization project.
This leads us to the present day, where one of the US’s two viable political parties has refined the platform pitched to its base (NB: not its donor class) into a single goal—Own the Libs—while the other party represents most Americans, lib or otherwise. Only in nations that lack proportionate representation by design would this reflexive contrarianism protected by DARVO tactics and a pliable press addicted to horse races and Cletus Safaris be a winner for the former and a loser for the latter.
It’s okay to assign agency to the bombthrowers and their flimflam propagandists. GOP voters are savvy enough to know a good thing when they see it (cast your mind back to 2012 when the Republican base angrily demanded that Obamacare leave their Affordable Care Act alone!!!1) because even they understand that the personal is political. They do have skin in the game. We all do. The distinction is who is vocally and demonstrably willing to burn all social goods to the ground so long as they are constantly, systematically assured that doing so will hurt an unfavored somebody else more.
That’s the winning message Clarence Thomas’s benefactors have manufactured, disseminated, and legitimized. Now the children weaned on this Flavor Aid have come of age, deemed their elder Tea Partiers too RINO-ish, and want it darker. There’s no exit strategy or need for moderation because the plan is working and so long as they don’t enact policy that reflects the contours of their cosplay populism, so long as the substantive, miserable consequences never touch the Kochs, responsibility for the pain that arises from cruelty can just be pinned on the next Democrat who can only try to mitigate the damage and restore some semblance of modernity (cf Trump admin taking credit for Obama economic rebound, or political journalists reporting that 2024 voters who support reproductive rights have been led to believe Biden is responsible for Dobbs).
Only the Democratic Party is asked to accommodate, understand, placate, mollify, apologize to, and woo voters whose views are antithetical to their base’s core values. Only Democrats are chastised for not betraying their voters’s safety, security, and prosperity, especially in the face of extremist hostilities. If anything, the cartoon undersells this reality. And, of course, the pressure to abandon the party’s sensible, if milquetoast, positions is definitely not limited to immigration. The dog caught the car on abortion; GOP establishment (who very much rely on immigrant labor to further their deregulatory agenda) wants limited success on issues it can exploit. Anyone know when tHe CaRaVaN is set to finally arrive?
Its not about appealing to MAGA but moderates/centrists in swing states.
Democrats have to ask themselves where or what they are willing to compromise to avoid four more years of Trump.
If they’re voting for Dollar Store Mussolini, they’re not moderates/centrists at this point and there’s literally nothing the Democrats could offer them to change their vote.
@Jacqueline Squid Onassis
If they’re voting for Dollar Store Mussolini, they’re not moderates/centrists at this point and there’s literally nothing the Democrats could offer them to change their vote.
Firstly that’s a no true scotsman fallacy.
Secondly there’s voters who might stay at home or vote third party.
So you might want to throw them a bone.
What specific “bones” do you suggest throwing?
Are there any examples of policies you yourself strongly favor and think are important that you want the Democrats to oppose in order to appeal to the voters you mention?
Or policies that you yourself strongly oppose and think are important that you want the Democrats to actively promote in order to appeal to those voters?
Or policies that you yourself strongly oppose and think are important that you want the Democrats to actively promote in order to appeal to those voters?
Well for a example the US as a state apparatus shouldn’t be setting up concertina wire just to then remove or cut it wasting resources, money and manpower.
While it isn’t the most pressing matter this could be from Monty Python.
@9 So the policy that you strongly oppose that you want the democrats to support is putting up a line of razorwire across our southern border? Just to be clear, that’s one single most important thing that you think will make republicans switch their votes to democrats if they do it?
So the policy that you strongly oppose that you want the democrats to support is putting up a line of razorwire across our southern border? Just to be clear, that’s one single most important thing that you think will make republicans switch their votes to democrats if they do it?
Either you put up razor wire or you don’t. Not this left hand doing one thing and the right another.
Its not the most single important thing but it is related to one of the most important things and not doing something doesn’t require much effort.
Forget about turning republicans. If you demoralise centrists and keep them home you will lose the election for sure.
I’m sorry, are you operating under the belief that the folks putting up the razor wire and the folks tearing it down are the same people?
… you understand that it’s not the federal government “putting up razor wire,” it’s Texas Governor DeSantis, doing so in violation of federal law, which is why the feds are taking it down?
I’m sorry, are you operating under the belief that the folks putting up the razor wire and the folks tearing it down are the same people?
They are officials of the same country under the same POTUS.
… you understand that it’s not the federal government “putting up razor wire,” it’s Texas Governor DeSantis, doing so in violation of federal law, which is why the feds are taking it down?
Leadership 101 is that you do not give a order if it will be disobeyed.
DeSantis putting it up is not a excuse.
It’s actually Governor Abbott of Texas. Rhonda Santis is the governor of Florida. Easy mistake to make in the face of the nonsensical argument put forth by Siednon, so no big worry there.
As to the ridiculous argument that Siednon is making… I think we can safely ignore this person’s input on what Democrats should do to win Republican votes. These are not the words of a serious or knowledgeable person.
(Please note my exceptional restraint in the face of Siednon’s positions wrt an issue that will swing GOP voters to the Democratic Party and wrt how the United States government is structured.)
@Jacqueline: Just out of curiosity, why do you call him “Rhonda deSantis”?
@Jacqueline
Its not about winning solid repulican votes but getting votes for Biden.
People can not just vote for Trump but also third party or just stay at home.
And the far left won’t suddenly start voting for Trump even if they get cold treatment for a few months before the election yet its their votes the Democrats are most concerned about.
Marketing wise feds removing razor wire is excellent advertisement against Biden and this election will be a tight run.
Because that’s exactly how his wife pronounces his name and if I don’t write it that way, I say it wrong in my head. I also find that pronunciation hilarious and never want to forget it.
1) Your response was to you being specifically asked what policy dems should change to get reps to change their vote. I assumed you were answering that question and not just moving the goal posts. I apologize for taking your answer as a good faith one.
2) That’s just silly. Are you saying that any time a state government or politician breaks federal law, that it’s the President’s fault, no matter when that law was passed? That’s a profoundly ignorant stance to take and deserves to be disregarded as such.
Maybe I have unreasonably high standards, but I think it’s reasonable to expect state elected officials to follow state and federal law.
Why? It shows Biden standing for the rule of law against the criminals who put it up in contravention of the law and basic human decency. Seems to me that this is exactly what a president should do.
Siednon, your whole argument here is just super duper silly.
Federal/state/local pissing matches are reasonably common, and approximately nobody-the-fuck bases their presidential vote on them. Voters may base their vote on the underlying issues, whether it’s immigration or drugs or abortion or whatever, but “the people will not stand for the federal government acting in opposition to state authorities” is just so so silly.
And thinking that “leaving the razor wire up” is somehow a winning issue for Biden? Yeah, it’s not as though anyone has been upset with him over the genocide in Gaza, I’m sure pictures of bleeding drowned kids at the border will boost his approval ratings right on up.
Although oddly enough not apparently with Congress which is the one that is blocking humanitarian aid to Gaza. Or with Netanyahu. Although they are upset at Israel as a whole. Weird who gets away with things and who (or what) doesn’t.
@Jacqueline
1) Your response was to you being specifically asked what policy dems should change to get reps to change their vote. I assumed you were answering that question and not just moving the goal posts.
Point taken. However it does not matter where the votes are coming from so in this context it would be moving goal posts within the rules of the game.
2) That’s just silly. Are you saying that any time a state government or politician breaks federal law, that it’s the President’s fault, no matter when that law was passed? That’s a profoundly ignorant stance to take and deserves to be disregarded as such.
Not always but firstly that shows a lack of leadership capital. Secondly they are taking independent action on a state level due to the issue not being dealt with a federal level. Thirdly its Biden&Co whom decided to start removing the wire.
This isn’t about whom is right in some court or in a academic discussion but the impression that this has.
But look I get it. You are willing to pay the votes that this will cost you.
You are presuming that a second term of Trump will be as uneventful as his first one?
Or is there something you’d be willing to throw under the bus to avoid it?
Anything?
Federal/state/local pissing matches are reasonably common, and approximately nobody-the-fuck bases their presidential vote on them.
You are projecting.
And thinking that “leaving the razor wire up” is somehow a winning issue for Biden?
No but it could be a way to cut is losses though he should have avoided this scenario in the first place.
Yeah, it’s not as though anyone has been upset with him over the genocide in Gaza,
Biden hasn’t much wiggle room here apart from trying to keep this conflict from escalating further and trying to negotiate a ceasefire.
Also its not like the people calling it a genocide will vote for Trump.
I’m sure pictures of bleeding drowned kids at the border will boost his approval ratings right on up.
Tump is already leading Biden in polls as things are and the clock is ticking.
My impression is that people angry with Biden over Gaza are very upset with, and even loathe, Netanyahu. (I certainly loathe him.) But as Americans, I think it makes a lot of sense to focus more on trying to change what Biden does, since he has more reason to care what we think than Netanyahu does.
I do agree that people pay more attention to Biden than Congress; the job often seems to entail being the celebrity in chief. But Biden does actually have some indiependent decision-making here that’s independent of Congress, and also, there’s a perception (true or not) that Biden could change a lot of Democrats’ votes in Congress if he took the lead on objecting to genocide or ethnic cleansing in Gaza.
How did you come to that conclusion? Because I have yet to hear Biden making any promises on policies favored by far-left voters, such as abolishing/ drastically reducing the power of the police, raising taxes on the 1%, a nationally guaranteed right to abortion, single-payer healthcare… My impression is that, like Clinton and Obama before him, he is comfortably centrist in his policies. The only reason he is considered a left-leaning politician is the fact that the GOP has shifted so far to the right that even conservative Democrats are seen that way.
Now, I do think that the Democrats should worry about the far left voters, not because they will vote for Trump, but because they might just not bother voting. I absolutely do not agree with that approach, because Trump is so much worse on all these issues and “teaching the centrists a lesson” as a way to assert ideological purity will not help anyone and actually make things sooo much worse, especially those for whom the far-left is supposed to be fighting, but unfortunately the sentiment exists. It was exploited during Trumps first election by Russian propaganda on social media, because sometimes just demoralizing the other team is just as effective as making them switch sides. I see the same thing happening again and it is frightening that some people apparently haven’t learned anything from the past.
The media certainly isn’t helping, but it is still disheartening how bad Biden’s team seems to be at making people aware of the things his administration actually has accomplished.
There have been so many studies on so called “swing voters” and most of them may not be registered, bbut regularly favor one party over the other. The election is far more ikely to come down to who is better at motivating their base to show up and vote than who can convince some independents to change their vote.
So they claim. I would say they are doing it to uphold the propaganda about an issue that gets blown way out of proportion with reliable regularity whenever there is an election coming up and to create the fake impression that they are dealing with that “problem”, by taking actions that are blatantly illegal.
Annd while the people who are disgusted by the razor-wire and the policies it stands for might not have voted for Trump if Biden hadn’t donne anything about it, they might have been among those desillusioned enough to just not bother.
You seem convinced that there is this untapped group of voters who will show up for Biden if he just moves a little more to the right and accuse people who do not want him to do so of throwing those votes away. But if getting those votes comes at the price of loosing more of the votes of those on the left, how is that of any use? And why are center-right votes more valuable than those from the left?
Fair enough. I’ve loathed Netanyahu for years for what he’s doing to Israel, even ignoring, for the moment, what he and his party have done and are doing to Gaza.
True, any president gets a lot of credit and/or blame that they don’t deserve. But it’s not the Democrats but the Republicans who are blocking aid to Gaza so I’m not sure how much pull Biden has there. Especially with the overtly fascist wing of the Republican party, which doesn’t even listen to their own speaker.
There’s more to it than aid to Gaza (although that’s important). And I’m not confident that most Democrats would have voted against it if it had been a separate bill – only nine Democrats in the Senate supported Sander’s bill to investigate Israel for possible human rights violations. (I agree that Republicans in Congress have been worse than Dems.)
Biden could block a lot of specific sales of arms to Israel. As I understand it, and I’m not an expert, Biden (via his secretaries of state and defense) needs to decide by May if Israel’s assurances that they’re not committing human rights violations are “credible and reliable,” and if not, decide if the US will start blocking arms sales. I’m not at all confident of what Biden will do, and I think keeping the pressure up on Biden, insofar as activists are able to pressure him at all, is a good idea.