Looking For Mr. Goodnation

I get a fair amount of shit for my opinions on politics. It’s a good thing to stand in the middle of the road when you’re in this business, even if you have to dodge the steamrollers that try to run you down or push you to one side or the other.

And I can hear both of them cursing and flipping me off as they pass me in their little game of chicken, seeing how far they can push each other before swerving into the ditch. Egos so bloated with self-importance that they willingly risk blowing the country to smithereens to prove how god damned righteous they are.

These last four years have been the worst, and have driven me close to the edge. I’m especially pissed off at Republicans, because they chose a flaming asshole so utterly vile that it forced me into voting Democrat in 2020, a party I gave up on twenty years ago.

That’s not to say I’ve given up on being on the liberal side of the road a good part of the time. The vast majority of my friends are Democrats, or at least center-left independents like me. It’s mostly the new generation of so-called “progressives” that I want no part of. The ones who would cancel you when your ideology doesn’t strictly follow their cultural revolution guidelines. The ones who think you should only see and hear their version of truth.

And the ones who may feel the same as I do but won’t speak up for fear of alienating a segment of voters they need to keep their tenuous grip on power. You’re the ones who will end up on the chopping block in the end. Just ask Robespierre.

This week I’ve been called a bitter old man by one side and a goon by the other. Go ahead, do your worst. It only inspires me to keep pushing pins in the voodoo dolls I keep on the shelf above my drawing board.

This entry was posted in Cartoonist Under Fire, Culture, Inept vs. Insane, Politics. Bookmark the permalink.

10 Responses to Looking For Mr. Goodnation

  1. Michael Anderson says:

    Bob, you need to work with Etsy to replicate those dolls and get paid handsomely for your idea. I’d buy a gross + stickpins. Just sayin’…

  2. George Rebane says:

    Bob, et illegitimi non carborundum, and take no prisoners. And best wishes from the irredeemably deplorable side 😉

    • rlcrabb says:

      Thank you, George. It’s a shame your only resolution to the divide is a separate nation, which is where we are headed. The other camp isn’t much better.
      E Pluribus Wishful Thinking.

      • George Rebane says:

        And sadly I must report that such an unfortunate resolution is shared by many more of my betters. In the meantime, the search continues for a ‘common ground’ from which any productive dialogue must begin. This quest, not high on anyone’s list, reminds me of Cortes’ search for El Dorado.

        • Chris Peterson says:

          So, your parable is an immigrant who comes to a powerful empire, is rebuked because of his holier than thou attitude, goes into seclusion and raises a large army of discontent locals, and returns to lay siege and destroy that which he desired.
          I can see where you’d feel akin to Hernan Cortez.

          You know, George, a person of your considerable talent and intellect could move us a long way towards resolving our division, if only you weren’t so bent on highlighting our differences to maintain your false feelings of superiority..

  3. George Rebane26 says:

    “… feelings of superiority”? Hardly. What you again miss are the feelings of inadequacy that I and mine continue to experience during our futile search through today’s political morass for any kind of traction that may start a conversation toward a peaceful resolution. There is nothing ‘superior’ about the ability to correctly apprehend that no common ground has been found or even considered feasible by all the king’s horses and all the king’s men.

  4. Chris Peterson says:

    “…no common ground has been found”? Shirley, you jest.

    According to the latest polling, people in both parties agree on 9 of the top 15 items on their list. For you to make such an erroneous blanket statement on what you, personally, perceive as a “futile search” for “any kind of traction that may start a conversation toward a peaceful resolution” is typically and wholly disingenuous.

    For instance, on issues like background checks for gun purchases, 94% of American voters supported universal background checks, according to a Quinnipiac University Polling Institute poll with a margin of error of +/- 3.4%. A July 2019 poll by NPR found that 89% of respondents supported background checks for all gun purchases at gun shows or other private sales.

    And the list goes on; there are a myriad of issues that the overwhelming majority of American citizens agree on. The problem lies in the fact that the Republican leadership, (and you), for purely political reasons, refuses to acquiesce to their preferences, and the national media is determined, for reasons of ratings, to present both sides as equals.

    No, my friend, there’s no lack of agreed-upon issues that could be utilized to close the chasm between us, there is merely the fear that you will lose the non-existent power that you feign to possess. The only real separation between us is your ego.

    • George Rebane says:

      We continue to talk past each other because we don’t even have the same framework for the needed common ground. It is not issues like background checks for guns et al that to you seem to indicate common ground; that kind of issues, and their partial degrees of agreement in polls, don’t even come close to identifying the real chasm that separates us. Were your vision to possess any reality, then you could cite major national thinkers and leaders from both sides who have co-identified the needed common ground to begin a dialogue. You and your local kindred have a very narrow horizon for what’s going on in the country, and demonstrate that continuously by ascribing misunderstanding of the real problems as originating from the narrow cohort of local conservatives. For more detail on the real scope of the where common ground must be found, I invite you to read –
      https://rebaneruminations.typepad.com/rebanes_ruminations/2021/04/farewell-unity.html

      • Chris Peterson says:

        No thank you, George. I don’t need to read what you have written to understand what is going on outside of my “narrow horizon”, thank you very much. One could fill a thousand toilets with the amount of self-conceit in your every post. You just can’t shake the need to exercise your ego by telling folks that they must read your opinions to truly understand the world around them.

        And that, my friend, is what will continue to be the bane to any genuine conversation between us; that your view of the world and what you write about it, is the end-all of intelligent insight. And the same goes for your view that any of us need to take direction from some lofty politician on high. Those who hold public office in this nation serve me; I do not serve them. I take no other persons opinion as having more, or less, importance than my own; that’s a learned response from over 300 years of American ancestry, not that you need more than a day of citizenry to believe it. Your opinion means no more and no less than the guy or gal who lost their job last year and is living in a tent along the highway. Not one little bit. Your position over others, (which is a figment of your imagination), in a free mans state means diddly-squat. Own that…and we may speak as equals. Dispute it, and you will fulfill your own twisted prophecy of a never-ending morass of conflict.

        And by the way, you obviously have no idea where I live, nor do you know any of my local conservatives.

  5. Chris Peterson says:

    This kinda fits the gist of the conversation and it’s a piece well written.

    America is a Gun

    England is a cup of tea,
    France, a wheel of ripened brie,
    Greece a short, squat, olive tree,
    America is a gun.

    Brazil is football on the sand,
    Argentina, Maradona’s hand,
    Germany, an oompah band,
    America is a gun.

    Holland is a wooden shoe,
    Hungary, a goulash stew,
    Australia, a kangaroo,
    America is a gun.

    Japan is a thermal spring,
    Scotland is a highland fling,
    Oh, better to be anything,
    But America as a gun.

    -Brian Bilston

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *