New Yorker cartoon today: (re Schumer)

[IcyPeas]

[Susan Calvin]

1. Ouch. nt

[Grins]

20. Double "Ouch!" Jon Stewart jumped on him last night.

Same issue, the “strongly written letter.”

[rich7862]

2. The shoe fits! He is useless in a fight to keep our democracy. Actually he is just plain useless.

[Xavier Breath]

3. Elaine would get this one.

[yellow dahlia]

4. They took my rants, and turned them into an image.

It is worth a thousand words.

[doc03]

5. Isn't he aware how weak he sounds when

he says he is going to write a strongly worded letter. With all his decades in politics he seems clueless.

[Paladin]

6. Sorry to say it, but Schumer earned that scornful toon, fair and square.

trump is making major errors and overreaches, every single day---he's in the process of gutting his dangerous regime, making his shitty reputation even shittier, and giving Democrats another chance to save this country---if our leadership is smart enough and brave enough to take advantage of it.

Leading Democrats: Get busy! Now!

[lame54]

7. Write it on a fiddle

[calimary]

8. Pretty embarrassing.

Why are you even there, Schumer? What actual good are you doing?

How does this work? You're famous and you're set for life. So what does that mean for the rest of us (besides NOTHING)?

[Buns_of_Fire]

9. The political world changed. Sen. Schumer didn't.

"Rope-a-dope" worked for Ali, but it's not going to work in a political context if he's relying on the common sense of the American electorate.

Today, it's a fight against oligarchs, Nazis, and fanatics. "Let us reason together" doesn't register with a group impervious to reason.

[markodochartaigh]

11. Gingrich saw the possibility

when so many authoritarian Republicans from the South and West were elected under Reagan. He started the zero sum, take no prisoners approach which had fallen out of favor after No Shame" McCarthy's witch hunts became embarrassingly rude. After Gingrich, the Republican far reich-wing were able to gain more and more control of their party. Many elite Democratic politicians and voters really have no understanding that their Republican golf buddies could ever be in bed with, much less controlled by, uncouth rabble-rousing Republicans whose only objectives are power and money. A lot of people on the Democratic side had such fun wrestling with their pet tiger on the Persian rug that it is difficult for them to believe that the tiger has grown up and sees them as prey.

[electric_blue68]

13. Oh, I Hate/d Gingrich! Flame throwing Droog!

[moniss]

10. Pritzker is coming on stronger and stronger. nt

[wolfie001]

17. A good portion of his ranting was directed to the middling crowd

Cooperation is not an option with Nazis.

[Steven Maurer]

12. More apt an analogy than the New Yorker even realizes...

Yes, I get that sternly worded letters to a functional illiterate doesn't do anything.

But when Godzilla is rampaging down 5th Street, what do you propose to do instead?

We don't have the House, the Senate, the Presidency, and most of the Supreme Court have been reduced to partisan hacks.

What is Schumer not doing that would stop this?

[Cirsium]

16. Question

Do you think nothing can be done?

[Steven Maurer]

21. Answer

I think what can be done already is being done.

Trump is breaking the law. Democratic AGs are suing - quite successfully in many places - to stop it.

As for the Senate, honestly all that we can do is point out to Republicans that what goes around comes around. I see Schumer's "strongly worded letter" as about as effective as a "big Sanders rally composed of everyone who already didn't vote for Trump". Neither will actually do anything, but at least they raise awareness.

So I don't see the point in mocking either.

[Cirsium]

23. Sorry

First of all, I did not mean to mock you. It was a serious question. Sorry that it came across wrong.

Thanks for your answer. So you think we are doing OK, and should "stay the course" - what can be done already is being done.

[Steven Maurer]

24. I didn't say we're OK. I said there's nothing better to do.

Voters are often like dumbass teenagers going through a phase. Often they're filled with such pride, arrogance, and foolishness, that the the only thing that teaches them is the consequences of their own actions. They refuse to listen to anything else.

[Cirsium]

25. Whoa

I strongly disagree with everything you just said: blaming the voters for the failures of leadership, saying that they need to be punished to get them to do what we want them to do - "the only thing that teaches them is the consequences of their own actions." Who would ever want to join a movement that said that about them?

"Hey you dumbass teenagers going through a phase, you prideful arrogant, foolish people, you need to be taught a hard lesson. You won't listen to anything, and things are all FUBAR because of YOU. We know what is best for you and if you don't vote for us you will be sorry."

Beside being the worst possible messaging none that is even true.

That attitude represents everything that is wrong with the approach taken by too many Democrats or too long.

[Steven Maurer]

26. The best argument against Democracy....

...is a five minute conversation with an average voter.

~ Winston Churchill


You think Germans didn't know who they were voting for in 1933?

You think racist whites and sexist men of all colors didn't know who they were voting for in 2025?

Obviously evil people don't stop being evil just because they're properly identified as what they are. But I'm not running for office here. I'm just telling the truth.

Leadership did not fail. When racists and sexists get comfortable, they vote their hatreds. Then, when the villainous fools they elect to office hurt them, they'll hold their nose to vote for Democrats to fix things. But as soon as we do, they get comfortable and go right back to voting for evil again. Round and round we go.

[thought crime]

18. To stop Godzilla, do we need King Kong?

As you said, Democrats have almost no power at the federal level, and that is why Schumer looks so weak. Because he is weak, and worse, he personifies weakness.

There is a danger that the urge to “Fight fire with fire” could lead to monsters on both sides. Being a fan of “Godzilla Minus One” (the best Godzilla?) I hope we can fight the monster without becoming monsters, but by resisting as better humans. Bernie and AOC are leading the Movement. We all need to join and grow that movement. Anti-Fascist. Anti-Racist.

[Steven Maurer]

22. More power to Bernie and AOC.... however...

Everything they're doing is EXACTLY as effective as a strongly worded letter. It makes the participants feel good in expressing themselves, but doesn't change the situation.

[LiberalLovinLug]

14. He'll win them over in the Senate work out room

"When you're on that bike in your shorts, panting away next to a Republican, a lot of the inhibitions come off."

[KPN]

15. Yikes! Bet that hurts ... but apt.

[orangecrush]

19. And a giant nerf cannon

[Intractable]

27. "namby pamby"

It's not a phrase I ever use.

It's not one I hear often, if ever.

Eight or ten years ago, I watched someone interview Schumer. I was already not a fan. Never was.

Schumer described something or someone as being "namby pamby."

It really stuck with me. I said to myself, "That's why I don't like him! He's namby pamby. And he uses phrases like namby pamby."

I believe that Schumer is more responsible than anyone else for the exit of Al Franken. Franken would have made an excellent and aggressive Senate Leader, unlike Schumer.