Truth and touchdowns

Mike Smith offers one of the less defeatist takes on the Republican victory in Georgia's 6th Congressional District.

When I commented on it earlier, I said I wanted to see the turnout figures and, in the comments, Ignatz cited the general swing, which isn't quite the same thing but certainly suggests that a whole lot of Democrats showed up.

Here are the margins, in percentages, for that district's congressional seat since 2002:

So, yeah, the Democrats lost. Total failure. No signs of ever winning another race anywhere in America. Time to pack it up, give it up, quit and cede everything to the GOP.

I wouldn't mind hearing that from the rightwing. After all, I'm not just a football fan, but I'm a football fan in New England, where a bizarre, last-minute fluke play, from an odd decision by the opposing coach, allowed the Patriots to pull off a Super Bowl win that their fans promptly hailed as proof that they were the best team ever and that everyone else sucks and that they are absolutely unbeatable.

Rather than damn lucky to have escaped a humiliating loss.

But this isn't football, and, while Seattle fans certainly questioned the call -- to put it mildly -- they didn't decide that it meant their team would never win another game ever.

So, while I'm not surprised that Republicans are claiming that a squeak-through win is proof they'll never ever lose, to see the Democrats piling on each other and running up the white flag of surrender is more than dispiriting because, in politics, you are governed in very large part by public perception, which starts with your own.

However, as John Kennedy noted, paraphrasing Tacitus, success has 100 fathers while failure is an orphan.

Though what Tacitus actually said was "This is what is unfair about war: Everyone claims victory, failure is attributed to one alone."

In this case, that would be ...

Again, this ain't the worst of 'em, as conservatives and progressives alike flock to denounce Pelosi's leadership. But Rob Rogers voices -- perhaps unintentionally -- my take on it.

I've never been able to figure out what was wrong with Pelosi, who seems articulate and intelligent and personable, except that Republicans hate her guts and talk radio hosts rain a constant flood of insults and derision on her.

The other day, some on-line troll went off about what a loser she is, and I asked him what she had done that was so bad. He came back with the infamous quote about how, once the ACA was in place, people would see how well it worked and would no longer be worried about the complexity and details. 

Which, I responded, is what the GOP is currently saying about their own healthcare act. To which he pretty much fell over frothing at the mouth because there doesn't seem to be much wrong with Nancy Pelosi except that she's Nancy Pelosi and we all hate Nancy Pelosi.

And if you say it often enough, not only will the Republicans believe you, but so will the Democrats.

Nancy Pelosi, however, does not have a carrot for a nose and did not turn Gingrich into a newt.

Moreover, he hasn't gotten better.

Still, maybe she needs to go, for the same reason that it would be absolutely suicidal for the Democrats to nominate someone for president who had, for the last 20 years, been targeted by rightwingers and talk show pundits with vicious, unending, well-financed attacks over a variety of charges none of which ever panned out but all of which were repeated over and over again until truth became subservient to public perception.

What a funny old world we live in, where the guy who benefits the most from that triumph of false perception is the one screaming loudest about "fake news" and phony attacks.

Funny peculiar.

Not funny ha-ha.

Anyway, as Jack Ohman points out, Trump isn't even trying to mask his contempt for the people who put him in office, having announced that poor people are not smart enough to hold responsible jobs.

Okay, he didn't quite say that. He just said rich people are more qualified for his cabinet, which explains why his administration is basically the Goldman Sachs Alumni Club.

I guess his cunning plan for going after Goldman Sachs, as he promised to do in his campaign, is to rob them of their leadership and watch them founder.

In any case, dissing the poor who elected him might backfire except that they each think that, while their neighbors and even their family members deserve to be poor, their own straitened circumstances are merely the result of some sort of accident, or, more likely, a plot by Nancy Pelosi and illegal Mexican farmworkers, and that it will all be remedied as soon as they win the Powerball drawing.

At which point, America will be great again. 

 

Meanwhile, Pat Bagley clearly did not get the memo, because instead of joining in the general celebration and confirmation of failure, he suggests ways in which the stymied Democrats might address the nation's problems.

He seems to be the only cartoonist on either side of the spectrum who thinks there are any ways at all that the Democrats could find success.

Now that I think of it, I'm not comfortable with my earlier football analogy.

I'm pretty sure that, if a team had repeatedly been getting blown out by 30 and 40 points a game and then dug in and only lost by a field goal, at least their more rational fans would talk about fine-tuning instead of what a pack of hopeless losers they were.

And I'd note that Pete Carroll, who called that inexplicable pass play at the end of the Super Bowl, explained his thinking, took the blame and is still coaching the Seahawks. And they're doing pretty well.

Politics ain't beanbag, as Mr. Dooley said, but apparently it ain't football, either.

 

Now here's your moment of truth:

 

Comments

[sean martin]

IMHO, you dont have one Democrat (Democratic? I can never remember) party any more. You have the Progressive Liberals, the Easily Offended, the Anyone but the GOP, the Single-Issues, etc etc etc — while in the GOP, you basically have Conservative and So Conservative They Never Even Turn Left When Driving.

That's what killed, in many respects, the Obama administration: everyone thought it was cool to vote him in, but then he got hobbled with a Congress that — even when it was a D majority for the first two years — was so agenda-driven that almost nothing got done... and when the GOP commandeered it, Good Lord Above, it's a wonder *anything at all* got done.

Problem is, things havent gotten bad enough for the Left to coalesce: they're still arguing about Hillary and Bernie, for God's sake. Maybe 2016 will show them what they have to do in 2018... but frankly, from across the border, I'm thinking, "Who wants popcorn?"

[Bob]

Talk radio and the Right's problem with Pelosi? Her nominative pronoun begins with the letter "s".