Gary Trudeau, Republican Shill

[james_davis_nicoll]

No, really. Look at the original trio of characters.

Mike Doonesbury is a Republican, happily married to a much younger woman whose family was murdered by Communists in the 1970s. His previous wife was an insane artist and although I don't think they ever _said_ she was a Democractic Party
voter, I think she was still around when Mike came out of the closet and reacted badly.

BD, of course, is a Republican who volunteered for military duty in combat zones three times.

Mark the former Communist Activist is in a dead end job. In contrast, his lover, a Republican, is wealthy and successful.

I can go on. Compare and contrast Lacey Davenport (R) to the man she defeated back in the 1970s (Ventura, I think (D)). What's her name, the woman who left her husband to look for personal growth and self-realization? She ended up working for _Lacey_. Not a Democrat, a Republican.

Comments

[supergee.livejournal.com]

You mean Mark the former communist activist.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

Yes, I do. Let me go fix that.

[ritaxis.livejournal.com]

I've thought Doonesbury has lost its center a long time ago, for exactly the reasons you mention.

But Mark wasn't, as far as I know, ever a communist. He was generically left-wing like ka lot of other people.

He's also the only person in the strip I care about seeing anymore: everybody else seems pretty shallow these days.

And you hardly ever see Mark anymore -- usually just on mail-reading days.

[thespian.livejournal.com]

mark actually started the commune, so I think there was something there to the communism thing.

[ritaxis.livejournal.com]

"Starting a commune" is not the same as "being a communist." Really.

[thespian.livejournal.com]

oddly enough, I understand that. It was just the most obvious example I could think of, since my books are in storage and I didn't feel like playing 'hunt the citation' on google; the reference I wanted to find was in the broadway play, and for the life of me I can't find it online (with good reason. It was a pretty sucky play). But he mentioned being a communist radical during the scene when he starts begging his listeners to call and demand he be allowed to stay on the air, if I recall. It might, of course, just been what scanned.

Wha

[okumarts.livejournal.com]

I have read what you have written many times and I still don't understand it.
I think it's a code.
(waves) I'm glad you liked the Incredibles. Did anything burn down while you watched it?

Re: Wha

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

It's simple: whether deliberately or by accident, virtually all of the responsible, successful adults in DOONESBURY vote Republican (which isn't to say all Republicans in the strip are responsible, successful adults). Almost every character who would be called a leftist in US terms is unsuccessful or even (Reverend Scott comes to mind) an outright joke.

No more fires so I did get to see the INCREDIBLES this time. There was a small problem with the fire alarm, though.

Re: Wha

[ritaxis.livejournal.com]

It occurs to me that Trudeau's intent may be to portray a real phenomenon in America -- the loss of a center, the loss of a spectrum: but he's married all these years to Jane Pauley, who is as mainstream a media person as there is -- and mainstream these days means right-wing: there has to be an effect from hanging around with these people.

some support, some rebuttal.

[thespian.livejournal.com]

JJ's first sign of actual success, after she did Artville, was working for Donald Trump painting murals on the Trump Princess.

Joanie, however, aside from working for Lacey (which caused her a lot of personal grief), has always been a staunch Democrat, and was a Clinton appointee. Rick works for the Washington Post, and was almost part of the Gore campaign until he decided to stick to reporting.

Mark's father went to jail repeatedly for basically being a republican shill, FWIW.

Re: some support, some rebuttal.

[jeriendhal.livejournal.com]

And Trudeau's take on Bush has been pretty damning all around. I don't think even Nixon got slammed as hard.

Re: some support, some rebuttal.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

But he wasn't notably kind to either Clinton or Carter.

Re: some support, some rebuttal.

[p-o-u-n-c-e-r.livejournal.com]

Nor Reagan, for that matter. Nor Ford.

He did apparently like John Anderson ...

The Hunter Thompson figure, Duke, typically got political appointments to screw up third world nations when the US was under Republican administrations. (When Democrats were in charge, Duke privatized his activities.)

I deeply deeply miss Phred the (former)Terrorist, Vietnam's ambassador to the UN. Many many lost opportunities for a skeptical view of world events, there.

Re: some support, some rebuttal.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

I deeply deeply miss Phred the (former)Terrorist, Vietnam's ambassador to the UN. Many many lost opportunities for a skeptical view of world events, there.

Phred was last seen running a Nike [?] factory in Viet Nam, having been completely corrupted by the system. Late 1990s, maybe?

Re: some support, some rebuttal.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

Come to think of it, one of the angriest denounciations I heard of Bush the last time I was in the US was from a Republican who didn't care for his entitlist policies.

[rezendi.livejournal.com]

I've noticed this myself. I figured he's followed the Churchill liberal/conservative young/old dictum.