Becky sounds like she’d run for president one day as a joke
WIN
then lose the second term election, but when she fails to concede, it’ll be a jovial rivalry, and when President Keener is inaugurated, Becky will just hang out in the Oval Office and bug Dotty
(there would be a humourous accompanying link but I can’t find it sry)
One thing that actually might escalate this beyond a friendly rivalry is that Becky has a natural talent for campaigning and politics, and Dorothy doesn’t. The traits that make a successful politician aren’t in her nature. That’s a compliment in my book, but it’s the sort of thing that would make succeeding at her career aspirations very difficult.
Yeah there is every sign a Keener v McIntyre presidential race would be a political disaster for the Democratic Party of the first order in the vein of Clinton v Trump.
And Becky wouldnt need the bloody Russians either.
Reminder that Hillary *got more votes* than Trump, who won via the electoral college via some very narrow margins in states where GOP officials work to disenfranchise Democratic voters.
Becky would make one hell of a press secretary after she’s done as campaign advisor. A good manager surrounds themselves with people whose strengths offset their own weaknesses.
Hillary Clinton was honestly a pretty good candidate – I don’t really want to acknowledge it since he’s otherwise a walking disaster, but Trump looks like he’s a once-in-a-generation master of self-promotion. I mean, in his second run, despite destroying the economy and killing hundreds of thousands of Americans, he somehow managed to get the second-highest popular vote total in US history, in an election that saw record turnout. And even the first time around, he pretty much crushed every other potential Republican candidate while a new scandal was being reported every week, so it’s not just blind partisanship.
Despite that, Russian interference, polls that were dead wrong, a media with a weird e-mail obsession, and an FBI director who flouted regulations to undermine her campaign, she still only lost because of an archaic system designed to protect slave owners at the expense of the rest of the country. As you say, in a system where everyone’s vote had equal value, she would be the president.
Prior to last November, one could make the case that some Mystery Candidate X could have trounced Trump, but seeing how close he came this time (again, in electoral votes, not the popular vote)… Well, without someone of her caliber, I think we he might have won the popular vote as well, and some swing states. I don’t think Kerry, for instance, would have stood a chance.
I’ll never understand it, but apparently Trump scammed his way into a mind control ray, or something.
Clinton was not a good candidate. She was, arguably, an awful one, though a lot of that was arguably not her fault, but rather just the way things lined up. But she was very, very badly suited for the moment.
She had been under a heavy, heavy barrage of right-wing fire for 25 years by 2016. She had a lot of baggage, had a huge unfavorability rating, and was the consummate insider in an election where both the left and the right had a huge upswell of anti-establishment feeling. She was very *qualified,* but she wasn’t a great campaigner, and it showed, and she put far too much trust in traditional political wisdom and failed to account for changing times.
And, yes, Trump is completely min-maxed for self-promotion. It’s his one, absolutely devastating ability.
If that were the case, Biden would have won by a much safer margin. He very nearly lost the same states that sunk Clinton last time, and Georgia has far more to do with Stacy Abrams than anything Biden personally did. Nevada, too, has more to do with changing demographics than it does his campaign.
I would also point out that this is after everyone was able to see just how terrible Trump is in general. In 2016, people deluded themselves into thinking he was a brilliant businessman, or that his advisors would do all the real work, or that he’d just be an empty suit, or that someone would talk him out of human right abuses. In 2020, we know that he’s exactly as deranged as he appeared, and that the Republican party completely capitulated to him. If Clinton were running against 2020 Trump, I honestly believe she would have won.
Now, one could argue that Biden was a terrible candidate as well, but we had a field full of good candidates in the primary, and none of them beat him; he also has good favorable ratings, and didn’t make any mistakes that showed up in the polling. He wasn’t my first pick, but I think there’s strong evidence that he was the most electable candidate in the field.
I could argue Clinton’s merits, but it’s an argument people have been having for four years now. Now, we have proof that another popular candidate barely won against a weaker Trump. Isn’t this rather strong evidence that 2016 should be attributed to Trump’s strength rather than Clinton’s weakness? Or we could say that nobody can win a third term in today’s America, or that the media is completely broken and unable to properly convey danger, or something similar – but either way, I can’t see how this can be attributed to the candidate. If a good candidate barely wins in 2020, then a bad candidate should have lost in a landslide in 2016.
“And, yes, Trump is completely min-maxed for self-promotion. It’s his one, absolutely devastating ability.”
I think this is a mistake a lot of people on the left make with Trump. They assume that because they personally find him repugnant that he isn’t charismatic. Which is wrong. He’s extremely charismatic. It’s just that it’s a targeted charisma and if it doesn’t work on you then it ends up repulsing you.
I’d be wary of making any comments though about Trump being a “once in a generation master of self promotion”. It may not be to the same level but the success of Johnson in the UK, Morrison in Australia, Bolsonaro in Brazil (amoungst others) have demonstrated that a lot of the public is perfectly happy to vote for variations on the “charismatic strongman leader who isn’t a regular politician” no matter how demonstrably that isn’t true.
The media has been caught short over the past decade or so, unable to cope with either social media or a Murdoch-driven press that doesn’t play fair. They don’t have an effective counter for it, and Trump exploited it for all it’s worth.
Eh, “once in a generation” might have been hyperbolic, but… I genuinely can’t think of any Republican politician since Reagan who’s been able to convince people to ignore their own self-interest in favor of his to this extent. I mean, at this moment, he’s openly telling his supporters not to vote for two critical senate seats, and the party is still willing to cover for him. If anyone else were to try that, the party would be in open mutiny.
Oh, I get that Trump is potentially very much the Final Form of this particular politician. But I also think that all of us are guilty of perhaps not knowing enough about other countries to maybe be a bit blind to the rise of extreme populism across the globe. We’re just obviously gonna hear more about Trump than, say Viktor Orbán, even though the later has also packed the courts, vilified the media and underminded democratic institutions.
We are making the assumption that Trump is getting away with things that no-one else will. The depressing thing will be finding out that others will also get away with them.
While this is a global phenomenon and it’s important to be aware of this trend, I’m also not entirely certain that it’s productive to compare across countries in the “Greatest Strongman” contest – each country has different standards and safeguards against this kind of thing. A Danish politician can get away with saying things about Muslims that would make Trump sound downright tame, for instance, while Erdogan had to provoke a coup before he could get away with shutting down the press in his country.
It’s just easier to compare within a country for this kind of thing than without, because it means everyone’s working from the same baseline and facing the same expectations.
I feel like I should keep dragging out my buddy’s observation:
Dems lose bc the base takes an all-or-nothing approach, so the most electable candidate loses bc “Bernee or Bust” (for instance) just bc the electable candidate is only 80-90% good or w/e
Meanwhile, Reps know how to dig in on the one or two issues that matter* most and can compromise beyond all moral reason to get what they want… and they DO get it.
I know liberals have been traumatized by the past four years, and are kinda basking in the euphoria of the Biden/Harris victory, but the number of people who are thinking that Trump will just retire and never be heard from again really worries me. He’s still the leader of the Republican party at this point, and as he’s only served one term, he can easily RUN AGAIN. And potentially, WIN AGAIN. Trump has a taste for the spotlight, and the funds he’s been raising to ‘save the election’ will go straight into his re-election coffers. He didn’t lose by a terribly wide margin, like Carter did, so the Republicans could back him. If you think there aren’t plans for Trump 2024, you need to think again.
I don’t know anyone serious who thinks Trump’s going to just retire and never be heard from again.
Trump’s definitely planning on campaigning at least. It gets him fundraising and rallies. I’m not sure whether he’d actually run again – he didn’t like being president and if he can find other grifting opportunities, he may find an excuse to avoid it. He’ll also be older and he’s already in decline.
He’s fighting to stay in power now partly because he can’t admit to losing, but also because he’s terrified of legal consequences. That’s why he’s trying to work out the best way to get himself and his family pardoned. Won’t help with state crimes though. Letitia Jones is coming for him.
I think the odds are better he’ll be in prison in 2025 than back in the White House. He certainly won’t shut up in the mean time though. He may be trying to set himself up as a Republican kingmaker, with candidates having to come kiss the ring to get his blessing and his base’s support.
@Ana: That might be some of it. Progressive defections – to not voting or to the Greens, were enough for the margin in 2016, but so were a lot of other factors. The leftist defectors piss me off more, since it feels like betrayal from those who are supposed to be on the same side, but I’m not sure they’re the real problem.
It’s also not clear the GOP is really any better about defectors. There’s plenty of anger on the right about RINOs. Witness the attempts to get Trumpists not to back the GOP Georgia Senators because they didn’t help Trump steal the White House.
If you lurk on right wing sites, you’ll see the same kinds of complaints you see here, just the mirror image. About RINOs and how Republicans never stick together and Democrats are so disciplined.
The mind control ray is called “Reality TV”. After many years of politicians dabbling into Reality TV techniques to win votes, finally you have an experienced professional taking it to the max. If I were a Democratic Party mastermind I would be frantically watching YouTube/Instagram/the rest looking for the 2028 winner.
Social media bubbles are also immensely powerful. If you can control the narrative someone’s exposed to, you control their worldview. Why do you think dark money is propping up fringe outlets and “free speech alternatives” to established platforms?
Though I think those “free speech alternatives” are generally less dangerous. The crazy people segregating themselves lets them keep further radicalizing each other, but it makes recruitment harder by raising the barrier to entry. If you’re already on a platform it’s easy to slide down the rabbit hole, being recommended more and more extreme content. If you have to sign up for a new platform to find it, you’re not going to bother, unless you’ve already been radicalized.
She’s a skilled politician, but not a good candidate. She let conservative media walk all over her and prop her up as their boogeyman. (They successfully applied the “all-powerful and too weak” doublethink against her, after thirty years of conspiracy theories had time to fester.) If you applied the Clinton 2016 platform to another Democrat who didn’t have decades lf baggage to work against, they may have been up for reelection this year.
It’s certainly possible, but the point is that after 2016, there was a lot of talk about how she must be especially horrible at it, because she couldn’t even beat Trump, who was clearly a horrible candidate himself. That any other candidate would have beat Trump in a landslide, because Trump was himself so unpopular.
Trump driving up turnout massively this year, despite a disastrous 4 years, confirms what really should have been obvious all along: That Trump, in his own awful way, is in fact a formidable candidate.
Trump is the exact opposite of Clinton in that sense: a good candidate but a bad politician. He’s a charismatic carnival barker who rode to power on the wave of stupid, gullible, and hateful people he empowered.
He was in it for the attention and adoration, not the actual job. In his ideal world, he would have lost, gotten his own show on Fox (or one of the splinter echo chamber channels), done more rallies, and played more golf-kickball. If not for the impending indictments, he’ll probably do that anyway once he’s done licking his wounds.
I mean, that would require Becky to not be running on the Democratic ticket when she’s pretty hardcore embraced progressive ideology. Which to be fair is entirely possible given the current political climate of the Democratic party flipping the bird to progressives and going back to play with their moderate Republican friends now that fascism is “over.”
I could imagine a weird timeline where Dorothy ran as a Republican in a state without a functioning Democratic party and won as the “moderate” choice. Then, when running for President, managing to win as the “moderate” choice again when her half-dozen opponents fractured the field while sprinting right to chase what they believed to be the base – and alienating everyone to the left of Pinochet in the process.
I mean, she’d lose rather hard because said base wouldn’t turn out for her, but I could see a way for her character end up nominated.
By the time Becky and Dorothy are old enough to run for president, I’d like to think there might be some entirely different political parties for them to run as. Assuming civilization hasn’t collapsed due to climate change by then.
Eh, for that to happen in the modern era, we’d need to switch from FPTP to ranked choice voting, or something similar. Which would mean that we’d need to get the general public to actually care about how our elections are conducted, which… Doesn’t seem very likely. I mean, we can’t even get everyone to sign on to the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact despite perennial dissatisfaction with the electoral college, let alone reform of that magnitude.
I could easily imagine both parties becoming something radically different as the older generation dies out, and newer voters adopt significantly different political philosophies, but we’ll most likely still have Republicans and Democrats a hundred years from now. Assuming the country still exists at the point, as you say.
We’re in a level of political turmoil that has historically caused massive shifts in the US party system – see the Federalists fading to nothing and the Democratic-Republicans splitting into the Democrats and the Whigs, or the Whigs collapsing and ultimately coalescing into the Republicans.
(Of course, every party system change since then has been the parties keeping the same names but changing roles.)
Additionally, there are some mechanisms for a third party to take hold in the US despite FPTP, by not touching the presidency. You can get a hell of a lot of influence by only ever going after “safe” local, state, and legislative seats, but the third parties so often end up trying to go after the presidency and wasting resources.
But each of those happened back in the days when regional parties still existed, waiting to take up the slack when a major party failed; that’s no longer the case. Without a solid base to retain political talent and build a public profile with, it simply isn’t possible to build something large enough to displace one of the major parties.
Ironically, your second paragraph speaks well to that problem; a realistic path to build a sustainable third party is by building their party infrastructure on a state level to accomplish local goals, and grow their reputation as a serious party instead of a protest vote or vanity campaign. But everyone who understands that eventually ends up disillusioned by the unrealistic ambitions that our current third parties pursue, and either join the major parties to change them from within, or drop out of politics entirely.
I think party collapse and replacement is still possible, though radical shifts within the two parties are much more likely.
Previous party replacements haven’t come through slow declines in one and their replacement by a growing third party, but by the outright collapse of one and something new being built out of the corpse.
I don’t think that there is a sustainable third party path though, not much beyond the very low numbers of elected councilmen and the like we see today. Even with things like ranked choice voting in Maine, I doubt we’ll see much change in voting patterns.
It’s not so much that I think it likely that we’d see meaningfully large third parties if we had ranked choice, so much as I think it’s outright impossible to have them without. In our current system, when people are split between the two decent options, it just means the option neither of them wanted gets picked – and that means that after a couple of cycles, they just stick with the bigger name and get pretty bitter towards the smaller.
That said, there haven’t been any major parties of note since the civil war, so I’m not really certain that there’s much value in looking to history here. Politics have changed dramatically since the Whigs, and scandals that would have destroyed a party in those days now get shrugged off after four years.
The way to think about parties in the US vs multi-party democracies is that in those countries, there are generally multiple parties that win elections then make coalitions to form a government. In the US, we make coalitions to form the parties and then elect one of the coalitions directly.
Third party activists tend to not realize this, see the parties as monolithic, and try to emulate multi-party countries without understanding it doesn’t work in this system.
Third party activists in the US tend to be… Not very serious people, in my experience.
But that said, the way I see it is like this; Michael Steel and Nicolle Wallace shouldn’t have to be in a party that increasingly views them with contempt just because they want taxes to be lower. When one half of the party goes completely off the rails, they shouldn’t be able to hold the sane half hostage – they should have the option of going elsewhere, without the only other option being their diametrical opposite.
I mean, in practice, things would usually look exactly like they do now – but in theory, it would help at times like these when a substantial part of the party feels like they have no part in the coalition anymore.
@Ferret: Maybe we can at least let the transition happen before we decide the Democrats are flipping the bird to progressives and going back to their Republican friends? You know, see how they actually govern?
I mean, they’re not going to go far enough to satisfy the hardcore lefties. Which shouldn’t surprise anyone, since moderate voters are a huge part of the Democratic coalition and they’re scared of the hardcore lefties. Plus, without control of the Senate (or with marginal control, if we manage to pull off a minor miracle in Georgia), legislation is going to be moderate at best – but that’s because of the nature of divided control of government.
I’m still hoping that Biden is preaching the whole “Not gonna prosecute, America needs to heal, not further division” thing to back off and not push Trump into further madness and destruction (which he’s already doing quite enough of, on top of what he hath already wrought)–but that tune will change the moment he’s in office and Trump can’t be destroying the government and country anymore.
I also really want some of the holes in the laws patched up. Like the whole thing about having a ridiculously corrupt administration, just blatantly, cartoonishly corruption, and then pardoning the lot of them, ahead of time, including himself. That’s not how any of that should work!!
Thing is, at the end of the day, Becky’s hyping how awesome she is, and Dorothy organizes the thing that will address the problem.
You wanna bet for all her “natural talent at campaigning”, about any of the cool stuff she had DeSanto promise ever happen? Becky’s got narrative for days, but that only gets you so far.
Well, Robin’s out of office, so you can’t really blame Becky for that. And even if she hadn’t dropped out, she’s one Congresscritter so what she could do on her own is very limited.
Becky would be an improvement if she did, if only because she’s not dunking herself in orange… something.
Since this has veered into politics, a question: If the Senate happens to go 50/50, and therefore there’s no majority leader, who decides what gets put to a vote? I know the VP breaks voting ties in the Senate, but “what gets put to a vote” feels like takes far too much time for an outsider to be doing it.
The Majority Leader is determined by a Senate vote, so the VP gets to cast the tie-breaking vote there. Then Democrats get to organize the Senate and control the agenda.
So, for those of you in Georgia, please vote in the runoffs. It’s critical. And those of us who aren’t, volunteer and donate.
Also, double-check that you’re still registered to vote!! Apparently a lot of people in Georgia who were registered to, and did vote in the presidential election have found themselves mysteriously deregistered since. And the deadline to register again in time to vote in Georgia is like Dec. 7th!!
About 1 year into Dorothy’s first term
Becky: *Walks into the oval office* Hey Dotty!
Dorothy: *Sigh* How did you get back in this time?
Becky: Trap door under the Lincoln bedroom.
Dorothy: Just how many more secret entrances to the Whitehouse do you know about?
Becky: I can make it about half way through your second term before I need to start rationing them. Maybe only show up every 2-3 days.
Let’s be honest here. They’re never graduating let alone actually getting to the point they serve in congress. I’m not even sure Dorothy will get to Yale, but let’s pretrend for now they all aren’t stuck in a near perpetual college themed purgatory.
Becky will fall ass-backwards into an actual career in politics because of course she will, Dorothy will get herself hired as her valet because that way Becky will let her make all the real decisions, and that’s how we get a gender-swapped remake of Jeeves and Wooster set in Washington DC.
Well, the Cadbury Club are the real rulers of the world, so it might be a surer path to changing the world for Dorothy. Assuming she can put up with all the wacky hijinks that go along with making sure her employer makes the right decision, at least…
She would. What kind of crazy magic is this? She made an appointment with a medical professional for later the same day! She’s got more pull than I ever imagined.
Becky is giving Joyce what she’s asking for (agreement)
Dorothy is giving Joyce what she needs (a firm hand to make her face reality when avoiding it is doing her real harm)
I look forward to seeing how Becky reacts when Joyce ends up needing glasses, and hope she learns to be a better friend and not just an enabler.
Unless Willis decides to just mess with us all and have Joyce not need glasses after all.
I’m not sure if Becky’s giving Joyce what she’s asking for or just contradicting Dorothy. Or maybe both. They line up pretty well in this instance. When all your cards line up, you play them!
A buddy tells you what you want to hear.
A friend tells you what you need to hear.
Dorothy is being a true friend, and it looks to me like Becky is loosing ground, …
I think … ?maybe? because of her fear of/rivalry of Dorothy?
Actually the loser of a contest would say “This is bullshit, you were carried by your stupid cheap ass character. You just spammed cheap moves and got lucky. Whatever GGs.”
At least in my experience. When I lose.
Love Becky repping one of the lesbian pride flags!
Looks like Dorothy took that ‘Ask, it doesn’t get done’ bit from last semester to heart. Normally I’d say ‘ask first’ but if even Joyce agrees the only way to make her do necessary but unwanted things is to literally make her do it, I can accept its necessary.
She’ll probably play it off and say that Dorothy got lucky, or she’ll be on Joyce’s side. After Joyce disocvers that she needs glasses but still doesn’t want to admit it.
It’s for the best. Should Becky and Dorothy work together, then President Keener will be Inaugurated despite being underage for the role and when the 22nd Amendment (which btw just about every other democracy considers to be a weird American thing) is revoked (though without her support) becomes the first President since F.D.R. to gain a third term. And when sometime in her fourth term the cure for aging is discovered, she becomes President forever.
Actually, given the strange and terrifying process that is US politics, the. Only two term rule is all the keeps the rest of the democratic world from despair.
You can at least try to sit the worst one‘s out.
Also, I shudder to think about who will follow Merkel, they are no politicians who really have enough experience to lead the country and have a chance of winning.
So we‘ll probably be stuck with more trump clones, as the social Democrats fall into oblivion and the Green Party manages to be stupid in campaigning.
Trump didn’t get a second term. Bush was wildly unpopular at the end of his and would have lost even if he’d been able to run again. The first Bush also didn’t get a second term. They might have been able to prop Reagan up for a third term.
OTOH, if Obama had been able to run again, he likely would have won, even against Trump. He was very charismatic and a natural campaigner. Much like Bill Clinton, who would have had a decent chance, despite the scandals.
Unless you’ve got a very different take on the “worst ones” than I do, we might have done better without the 2 term limit.
To be fair, the first Bush lost because he committed political suicide, raising taxes on companies as a Republican, to try to mitigate Reagan’s fuckery.
To the outsider, the selection of people running for president makes no sense at all. And someone with experience of long term chancellors: if they are not leaning in the way you want the never ending story of it is totally exhausting. Given how slim the margin was for Biden to win, we could easil have been stuck with another 4 years of Trumpism. But not 12 or 16. So, to me, the two-term rule is one of the things that makes most sense in all of the election system of the US.
Honestly, I’m not at all convinced that we wouldn’t have had 3rd Trump term. With 4 years more to solidify control of government, I don’t think he would have stepped down. He was already talking about how he was owed a 3rd term because Democrats investigated and impeached him and thus his first shouldn’t count.
And he’s still flailing around trying to pull off a coup to stay in office now.
Or if he hadn’t been able to break the system that far, to use election fraud to install one of his offspring as a dynastic heir.
If it wasn’t risking somehting so important, his attempts would be hilarious though. I mean, Ghouliani’s latest attempt is that mail-in ballots should be thrown out because “they’re discriminatory of able-bodied people”… somehow.
I get that this is probably a fear of change thing but honestly it’s so bizarre to me given I started wearing glasses when I was, like, five or six, and by the time I was seven had internalized them as a key part of my face. (Like, obviously I change frames periodically and have no trouble there, but I feel a bit odd when they’re off because I’m so used to the sensation of wearing them.)
Honestly I would not be shocked if this denial is another autobiographical thing because. Seriously. THIS much resistance?
The only reason I remember how old I was is because I had exactly one yearbook picture taken pre-glasses. By the time the yearbook arrived I was already not immediately reading it as my face due to lack of glasses. (In fairness, I am pretty faceblind.)
I wish it were faux. Becky has a lot invested in it for it to be faux. It’s not even a friendly rivalry. It’s Becky being tiresomely jealous with just enough of a veneer of humor that when someone finally tells her to knock it off, she can claim “I’m only joking,” that is, the coward’s excuse.
I *want* to like Becky, but her b.s. around Dorothy makes that very hard.
Yeah, this has gotten old fast. It’s entirely justified in their characters, but at this point it’s taking Becky way past lovable scamp and is getting pretty deep into getting on my nerves territory.
How did…how did Dotty make an appointment for Joyce, and so fast?
Is there like, a student optometry center?? Or does Dotty just have all of Joyce’s personal info saved?
I wondered that myself. But for a basic eye exam, not sure they care who shows up; Dorothy might have just made an appointment for herself and will swap Joyce in.
Depends on how she made the appointment; people make doctor appointments for people who can’t do so (too busy at work, incapacitated, mentally disabled, etc.) all the time, it only crosses over into “technically identity fraud” if Dorothy made it while pretending to be Joyce. 🙂
She might have just made an appointment at a store that sells glasses and not some clinic, since they offer the service of doing those checkups. Then it wouldnt have been worse than scheduling a spot at the hairdresser
No, I can see it. Up till now, Becky had been terrible to Dorothy over Joyce, but you could put that up to she caring too much about Joyce. Now she’s willing to throw Joyce’s well-being under the bus to be Joyce’s favourite. This shtick was already tired for me, but there’s a definitive escalation of “bad” for people for whom it wasn’t.
Because she hasn’t had any reason to stop yet. She’s still feeling jealous and is manifesting it in the same way she manifests most other emotions: by making jokes about it. But despite it making sense for her character, I too have been over it for a while now.
Becks, I love ya doll. But you’re setting yourself up to suddenly be on the wrong side of history. Remember, a real friend doesn’t tell you what you want to hear, they tell you what you *need* to hear. And you’re missing the boat on helping Joyce.
Votes on this being Willis priming the pump to either straighten sort Becky out, or to really elevate her conflict with Dotty?
I’m thinking that this it might turn into Joyce and Becky having a harsh friendship failure because “sometimes friendships fail violently” is the sort of thing I’d expect Willis to want to say.
Is there a chance they grew up with some kind of religion aspect that’s making both of them push back this hard against the idea? Either something like a “God made you perfect the way you are” or maybe something more gendered (since her brothers have glasses.)
I think that Joyce was always under pressure to be the perfect girl and later woman so that a good, faithful man would want her to be his wife. That has created a complex about being imperfect in any way. Hence the issue about having a visible defect (glasses) or damage (the toenail).
“Guys don’t make passes at Girls who wear glasses”…
I tried to translate that into “Joyce church speech”, but every attempt came out as demeaning and hideously ableist (well more so than the original, which is saying something).
Well… it’s not at all unusual for abusive religious groups to have an idea of the correct appearance for women that happens, coincidentally, to hit one of the head honcho’s preferences. (See: Gothard and his thing about long hair.)
Perhaps it is because the USAF won’t consider training you as a pilot if you don’t have 20/20 vision. Or so I have heard. Julia Gray can’t wear classes.
Pilots must have normal color vision, near visual acuity of 20/30 without correction, distance visual acuity of no worse than 20/70 in each eye correctable to 20/20 and meet other refraction, accommodation and astigmatism requirements. Corrective eye surgery may also disqualify applicants for pilot or other specific roles.
That’s not true. Her point wasn’t “you got a B and you should fix this immediately!”…her point was “you are really good at this subject and you suddenly seem to be slipping. I worry.”
I’m thinking that there is going to be no good outcome of the eye test for the current state of Joyce’s friendships. Either way, I’m sure that Becky is going to try to make it seem like Dorothy’s fault and that she’s supporting Joyce against her. I’m sure that being told she needs glasses by a doctor will mess up Joyce and I think it’s inevitable that she will blame someone.
Ok so is it that wearing glasses would be “change” and Joyce doesn’t want change? Like if her entire family wears glasses there is genetically very little chance she doesn’t need them, so why is she so against needing them?
If I remember back, ok, I was 11 or something and frames of prescription glasses looked horrible, I also hated to need them. Also, back then, it was actual glass, which was heavy and I was afraid of accidents during sports.
So, Becky’s behavior is going to lose her a friend if she doesn’t knock it off… but that doesn’t make Dorothy’s behavior appropriate. Joyce isn’t her child, or her project. Joyce is her same-age friend. It’s not okay to just make appointments for her like this.
The problem being that Joyce is in such strong denial that she will neglect herself and insist that she doesn’t have a problem because… (reasons as yet unrevealed in-strip). So, Dorothy has to walk the narrow line between ‘breach of autonomy’ and ‘enabling self-neglect’.
This is still out of line. Again, Joyce isn’t a child. Talk her into it. Also, Dorothy literally found out the problem at the beginning of this strip. That’s hardly an attempt to get her to do the right thing herself.
Even Joyce has said sometimes the only way to get her to do things that are necessary but she doesn’t want to do is to make her. I don’t think it’s great but even Joyce has said, to Dorothy, it can be necessary sometimes.
Over here in the UK, there are big brand optometrist shops that will test and prescribe glasses without any access to your medical records. If such things exist in the US (and I’m sure they do), Dorothy booked online in Joyce’s name.
As for the schedule…? Dorothy strikes me as the sort of woman who has all her friends’ schedules tabulated in a calendar ap so she can ‘make sure they’re ready for their classes’ (read: nag the to do their homework) and the like.
So in America, getting glasses is a needlessly expensive process. However, many college campuses have a medical center for dealing with common minor health conditions, and I’m confident a vision test would be doable there. If the conclusion was that she needed glasses, they may or may not be able to give out glasses. If they did, little to no choice in frames. If you wanted to go to a glasses store, like Lenscrafter, you’d have to pay for an eye exam with their people, even if you knew exactly what you needed. So, since I see this happening on campus, not too surprising Dorothy scheduled it.
You actually have to pay for the eye exam when purchasing glasses from them?!
🤣
I the country that’s supposed to have invented customer service?
No glasses store in Germany would sell anything if they did that.
The cost of an eye test in the UK is usually about £25 (I think. Despite having one yearly I can’t remember). Actual costs of glasses vary wildly. Most people I know would probably go for around £80 to get a pair with anti-glare, scratch protection etc etc. Lots of places will do deals of a “buy one get one free” or “get a cheap pair of prescription sunglasses at the same time” variety. But you can get NHS ones that are much much cheaper.
If Joyce is still 18 then I think she would be eligible for a free eye test in the UK. I think they’ve free to anyone under 16 or under 18 and in full time education.
To be fair, eye tests nowadays do cover a lot more than just whether you are short or long-sighted. They’ll do tests for things like glaucoma at the same time.
(Also you don’t need an eye test to get glasses as long as you know your prescription.)
Tests for glaucoma and macular degeneration have been things you need to go to the doctor for (and if you have a good reason like someone in the family who already has it) the insurance pays for those.
I vaguely remember seeing a job ad for a company building a machine who could scan your eyes for those with an AI based recognition system, so it might be the check can become much more easil available in the future,
Funnily enough, thsi came up in the comments yesterday. Quotinf Needfuldoer:
“On the vision side, glasses usually cost at least a couple hundred for good frames and another couple hundred for basic plastic lenses. (If you want them to be multi-vision, anti-scratch, anti-glare, extra thin, or photochromatic, each of those is an additional charge.)”
Same reason you can get $5 reading glasses from the pharmacy: because you’re buying sunglasses out of pocket at a mall kiosk, not regular glasses with health insurance from an optometrist’s office.
Nobody would buy sunglasses if they cost $500 out of pocket.
In some states you can’t buy reading glasses off the rack. You have to see an eye doctor or just squint.
And I completely deny that an optician in NY once casually mentioned that I could get my mom OTC reading glasses in GA and bring them up to NY for her.
Also, it used to be you needed to go to a doctor to get your eyes scanned and a prescription for glasses. This has been moved into the realm of opticians, who always thought they were more competent about it anyway.
Glasses are not covered by health insurance for adults, you can only try to get some money back when filing your tax return forms.
Well there’s also vision coverage, which is its own specialized, lower-stakes version of the health insurance industry. You still have a monthly premium to pay, but it’s 1/10th or less of a general health insurance premium.
Unless there is some special vision income tax break, rather unlikely, as only medical expenses* over 7.5% of your income are deductible. But if you have a Health Savings Account or similar that applies.
* Medical expenses that you paid that year, not incurred. Another way poor people get screwed.
My vision plan pays for annual eye exams, and has an allowance for basic lenses every year and frames every two years. I think the premium is something like $15 a month. If you want add-ons like Transitions, or the frames you pick out cost more than the allowance, you have to pay the difference either out of pocket or from a health savings account.
Yes, you‘d need to exceed a certain percentage of your income that went into health costs that are not covered by the insurance. As varifocals are incredibly expensive, it’s not so unlikely to qualify the year you buy them.
And yes, getting money back in tax returns is something that requires you to made money in the first place and have some to spend it on your health.
I think the simple answer, fatigue from all the change in her life, is why Joyce is hesitant to take action regarding her eyeballs. I cannot ever see her putting contacts into her eyes.
I have trouble walking through aisles covered in peg boards. I can do it without revealing my discomfort, but my eyes and face just start to feel weird even just standing and looking down the aisle. Almost like I can feel the flesh behind my eyes getting ready to tell me, “yep, ya got a peg in your eye.”
That said, I never had a problem toucing the whites of my eyes. Probably stems from lifelong allergies and rubbing to relieve the sense of wishing I could rip my eyes out.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. THIS is why Dorothy won’t succeed in politics. The key to success is convincing people that the path to getting what they want (or avoiding what they don’t want) is by supporting you. NOT by just trying to do what’s best for everyone without selling them on the idea first.
Not necessarily, but a politician should at least have the skillset of selling rather than dictating a path forward and know when to apply it. And getting someone ELSE to see to THEIR medical needs is a time to sell, rather than dictate.
if Joyce gets glasses will she
a) get the same style as Dorothy
b) get some older style (think hollywood nerdy girl glasses from like the 2000s) which causes becky to go all “blue screen of death”
I’m sort of foreseeing a running joke for a few chapters of no-one immediately recognising her and thus she gets a ‘blank slate’ reaction from people like Joe, Asher, Danny and Booker.
Everyone’s tagging on Becky but I think it is SO overstepping and controlling for Dorothy to schedule a doctor’s appointment for Joyce without permission. Yeah yeah it’s what Joyce needs, but it’s not Dorothy’s place and I think it’s really rude
The first semester Becky didn’t push thia bit nearly so hard, and there were several times the two did have an honest heart-to-heart with only one or two jabs that were still largely punchlines and not too far.
Unfortunately, Becky has let it balloon into a pretty bad out-and-out character flaw. Well, Dina is still perfect, so we’ve got that.
On one hand, Joyce has a problem and denies it. On the other hand, Dorothy wants to help her with said problem. But force her to go to a visit seems excessive. But necessary?
While very forward, Dotty isn’t *forcing* Joyce to go. She is definitely close to the line, but at present is still safely on the side of just lowering the barrier of entry for Joyce. I know that I would love to be close enough to my friends for them to feel ok doing such a thing. (And I’m refering to my good friends, not acquaintances)
She made the appointment for her. C’mon, that’s crossing the line. Only my parents ever made appointments for me without my consent. When I was a child. Joyce isn’t a child, and Dorothy isn’t her mom.
As I said, I have a personal take that makes Dorothy’s behaviour acceptable to me. Clearly you don’t, and that’s ok too. We disagree, which makes it clear that the bahviour is in a not fully defined middle ground that makes it potentially ok and potentially not ok. Fortunately, as you said, Joyce isn’t a child, so if she feels her friend overstepped, she can say so. I find your position weird, as it sounds like your fighting to protect Joyce’s interests while claiming that Joyce is an adult who doesn’t need people to fight for her interests. And as is evident you disagree with my position, and I can respect that, even if it seems strange an inconsistent to me. Dorothy hasn’t broken any obviously explicit rules, and certainly this makes for an interesting interaction. Also, for all her commentary, Becky isn’t cancelling or discouraging Joyce’s appointment.
As for consent, my dad always included me in making appointment plans, so I can’t say he really did it without consent, even though he didn’t need my consent. Despite that obvious push towards independence, I feel fine about Dorothy’s actions.
Part of becoming friends with Dotty involves her quietly getting your power of attorney so she can secretly manage your affairs.
I bet any one of Dorothy’s friends would be surprised that it’s not the university that leaves a hand-embroidered card on their pillow reminding them to drink some water and pay their dorm fees for the semester.
Y’all know that making appointments for other people who don’t want them ain’t cool, right? I know the consensus is that Becky is garbage compared to Dorothy, but that’s still not a cool thing to do. Convince Joyce if you must, but don’t give her an obligation she didn’t ask for. An official obligation at that.
I mean, Joyce isn’t actually obligated to go. She’s not exactly gonna get penalised for not showing up to what I can only assume is a shopping mall optometrist. I’m not sure what “official obligation” means, but unless there’s some binding rules I’m unaware of, Joyce is 100% free to simply not appear and the people working at whatever place won’t mind all that much.
i am gonna echo the statement of others here that dorothy making an unwanted appointment for joyce is like, very not cool and comes off as kinda an ass move? altho i get the feeling behind it of course. also, i’m really not bein irritated by becky’s faux-rivalry joke thing? at least not yet lol. idk
Breaking this out into its own comment.
Yes, consent is important.
Yes, Joyce is an adult.
But if she’s going to act like a child (which, IMO, she is here), she should expect to be treated like one.
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Becky sounds like she’d run for president one day as a joke
WIN
then lose the second term election, but when she fails to concede, it’ll be a jovial rivalry, and when President Keener is inaugurated, Becky will just hang out in the Oval Office and bug Dotty
(there would be a humourous accompanying link but I can’t find it sry)
One thing that actually might escalate this beyond a friendly rivalry is that Becky has a natural talent for campaigning and politics, and Dorothy doesn’t. The traits that make a successful politician aren’t in her nature. That’s a compliment in my book, but it’s the sort of thing that would make succeeding at her career aspirations very difficult.
Dorothy put all her points into intelligence and wisdom and had nothing left to invest in charisma.
Yeah there is every sign a Keener v McIntyre presidential race would be a political disaster for the Democratic Party of the first order in the vein of Clinton v Trump.
And Becky wouldnt need the bloody Russians either.
Reminder that Hillary *got more votes* than Trump, who won via the electoral college via some very narrow margins in states where GOP officials work to disenfranchise Democratic voters.
The obvious solution is that Dorothy hire Becky as her campaign manager. 🙂
Becky would make one hell of a press secretary after she’s done as campaign advisor. A good manager surrounds themselves with people whose strengths offset their own weaknesses.
Hillary Clinton was honestly a pretty good candidate – I don’t really want to acknowledge it since he’s otherwise a walking disaster, but Trump looks like he’s a once-in-a-generation master of self-promotion. I mean, in his second run, despite destroying the economy and killing hundreds of thousands of Americans, he somehow managed to get the second-highest popular vote total in US history, in an election that saw record turnout. And even the first time around, he pretty much crushed every other potential Republican candidate while a new scandal was being reported every week, so it’s not just blind partisanship.
Despite that, Russian interference, polls that were dead wrong, a media with a weird e-mail obsession, and an FBI director who flouted regulations to undermine her campaign, she still only lost because of an archaic system designed to protect slave owners at the expense of the rest of the country. As you say, in a system where everyone’s vote had equal value, she would be the president.
Prior to last November, one could make the case that some Mystery Candidate X could have trounced Trump, but seeing how close he came this time (again, in electoral votes, not the popular vote)… Well, without someone of her caliber, I think we he might have won the popular vote as well, and some swing states. I don’t think Kerry, for instance, would have stood a chance.
I’ll never understand it, but apparently Trump scammed his way into a mind control ray, or something.
Clinton was not a good candidate. She was, arguably, an awful one, though a lot of that was arguably not her fault, but rather just the way things lined up. But she was very, very badly suited for the moment.
She had been under a heavy, heavy barrage of right-wing fire for 25 years by 2016. She had a lot of baggage, had a huge unfavorability rating, and was the consummate insider in an election where both the left and the right had a huge upswell of anti-establishment feeling. She was very *qualified,* but she wasn’t a great campaigner, and it showed, and she put far too much trust in traditional political wisdom and failed to account for changing times.
And, yes, Trump is completely min-maxed for self-promotion. It’s his one, absolutely devastating ability.
If that were the case, Biden would have won by a much safer margin. He very nearly lost the same states that sunk Clinton last time, and Georgia has far more to do with Stacy Abrams than anything Biden personally did. Nevada, too, has more to do with changing demographics than it does his campaign.
I would also point out that this is after everyone was able to see just how terrible Trump is in general. In 2016, people deluded themselves into thinking he was a brilliant businessman, or that his advisors would do all the real work, or that he’d just be an empty suit, or that someone would talk him out of human right abuses. In 2020, we know that he’s exactly as deranged as he appeared, and that the Republican party completely capitulated to him. If Clinton were running against 2020 Trump, I honestly believe she would have won.
Now, one could argue that Biden was a terrible candidate as well, but we had a field full of good candidates in the primary, and none of them beat him; he also has good favorable ratings, and didn’t make any mistakes that showed up in the polling. He wasn’t my first pick, but I think there’s strong evidence that he was the most electable candidate in the field.
I could argue Clinton’s merits, but it’s an argument people have been having for four years now. Now, we have proof that another popular candidate barely won against a weaker Trump. Isn’t this rather strong evidence that 2016 should be attributed to Trump’s strength rather than Clinton’s weakness? Or we could say that nobody can win a third term in today’s America, or that the media is completely broken and unable to properly convey danger, or something similar – but either way, I can’t see how this can be attributed to the candidate. If a good candidate barely wins in 2020, then a bad candidate should have lost in a landslide in 2016.
“And, yes, Trump is completely min-maxed for self-promotion. It’s his one, absolutely devastating ability.”
I think this is a mistake a lot of people on the left make with Trump. They assume that because they personally find him repugnant that he isn’t charismatic. Which is wrong. He’s extremely charismatic. It’s just that it’s a targeted charisma and if it doesn’t work on you then it ends up repulsing you.
I’d be wary of making any comments though about Trump being a “once in a generation master of self promotion”. It may not be to the same level but the success of Johnson in the UK, Morrison in Australia, Bolsonaro in Brazil (amoungst others) have demonstrated that a lot of the public is perfectly happy to vote for variations on the “charismatic strongman leader who isn’t a regular politician” no matter how demonstrably that isn’t true.
The media has been caught short over the past decade or so, unable to cope with either social media or a Murdoch-driven press that doesn’t play fair. They don’t have an effective counter for it, and Trump exploited it for all it’s worth.
Eh, “once in a generation” might have been hyperbolic, but… I genuinely can’t think of any Republican politician since Reagan who’s been able to convince people to ignore their own self-interest in favor of his to this extent. I mean, at this moment, he’s openly telling his supporters not to vote for two critical senate seats, and the party is still willing to cover for him. If anyone else were to try that, the party would be in open mutiny.
Oh, I get that Trump is potentially very much the Final Form of this particular politician. But I also think that all of us are guilty of perhaps not knowing enough about other countries to maybe be a bit blind to the rise of extreme populism across the globe. We’re just obviously gonna hear more about Trump than, say Viktor Orbán, even though the later has also packed the courts, vilified the media and underminded democratic institutions.
We are making the assumption that Trump is getting away with things that no-one else will. The depressing thing will be finding out that others will also get away with them.
While this is a global phenomenon and it’s important to be aware of this trend, I’m also not entirely certain that it’s productive to compare across countries in the “Greatest Strongman” contest – each country has different standards and safeguards against this kind of thing. A Danish politician can get away with saying things about Muslims that would make Trump sound downright tame, for instance, while Erdogan had to provoke a coup before he could get away with shutting down the press in his country.
It’s just easier to compare within a country for this kind of thing than without, because it means everyone’s working from the same baseline and facing the same expectations.
I feel like I should keep dragging out my buddy’s observation:
Dems lose bc the base takes an all-or-nothing approach, so the most electable candidate loses bc “Bernee or Bust” (for instance) just bc the electable candidate is only 80-90% good or w/e
Meanwhile, Reps know how to dig in on the one or two issues that matter* most and can compromise beyond all moral reason to get what they want… and they DO get it.
*arguably
So if the rallying force that got us Biden doesn’t keep going, Dems will LOSE 2022 and DESERVE IT
I know liberals have been traumatized by the past four years, and are kinda basking in the euphoria of the Biden/Harris victory, but the number of people who are thinking that Trump will just retire and never be heard from again really worries me. He’s still the leader of the Republican party at this point, and as he’s only served one term, he can easily RUN AGAIN. And potentially, WIN AGAIN. Trump has a taste for the spotlight, and the funds he’s been raising to ‘save the election’ will go straight into his re-election coffers. He didn’t lose by a terribly wide margin, like Carter did, so the Republicans could back him. If you think there aren’t plans for Trump 2024, you need to think again.
I don’t know anyone serious who thinks Trump’s going to just retire and never be heard from again.
Trump’s definitely planning on campaigning at least. It gets him fundraising and rallies. I’m not sure whether he’d actually run again – he didn’t like being president and if he can find other grifting opportunities, he may find an excuse to avoid it. He’ll also be older and he’s already in decline.
He’s fighting to stay in power now partly because he can’t admit to losing, but also because he’s terrified of legal consequences. That’s why he’s trying to work out the best way to get himself and his family pardoned. Won’t help with state crimes though. Letitia Jones is coming for him.
I think the odds are better he’ll be in prison in 2025 than back in the White House. He certainly won’t shut up in the mean time though. He may be trying to set himself up as a Republican kingmaker, with candidates having to come kiss the ring to get his blessing and his base’s support.
@Ana: That might be some of it. Progressive defections – to not voting or to the Greens, were enough for the margin in 2016, but so were a lot of other factors. The leftist defectors piss me off more, since it feels like betrayal from those who are supposed to be on the same side, but I’m not sure they’re the real problem.
It’s also not clear the GOP is really any better about defectors. There’s plenty of anger on the right about RINOs. Witness the attempts to get Trumpists not to back the GOP Georgia Senators because they didn’t help Trump steal the White House.
If you lurk on right wing sites, you’ll see the same kinds of complaints you see here, just the mirror image. About RINOs and how Republicans never stick together and Democrats are so disciplined.
The mind control ray shoots Fear.
The mind control ray is called “Reality TV”. After many years of politicians dabbling into Reality TV techniques to win votes, finally you have an experienced professional taking it to the max. If I were a Democratic Party mastermind I would be frantically watching YouTube/Instagram/the rest looking for the 2028 winner.
Social media bubbles are also immensely powerful. If you can control the narrative someone’s exposed to, you control their worldview. Why do you think dark money is propping up fringe outlets and “free speech alternatives” to established platforms?
Though I think those “free speech alternatives” are generally less dangerous. The crazy people segregating themselves lets them keep further radicalizing each other, but it makes recruitment harder by raising the barrier to entry. If you’re already on a platform it’s easy to slide down the rabbit hole, being recommended more and more extreme content. If you have to sign up for a new platform to find it, you’re not going to bother, unless you’ve already been radicalized.
She’s a skilled politician, but not a good candidate. She let conservative media walk all over her and prop her up as their boogeyman. (They successfully applied the “all-powerful and too weak” doublethink against her, after thirty years of conspiracy theories had time to fester.) If you applied the Clinton 2016 platform to another Democrat who didn’t have decades lf baggage to work against, they may have been up for reelection this year.
It’s certainly possible, but the point is that after 2016, there was a lot of talk about how she must be especially horrible at it, because she couldn’t even beat Trump, who was clearly a horrible candidate himself. That any other candidate would have beat Trump in a landslide, because Trump was himself so unpopular.
Trump driving up turnout massively this year, despite a disastrous 4 years, confirms what really should have been obvious all along: That Trump, in his own awful way, is in fact a formidable candidate.
Trump is the exact opposite of Clinton in that sense: a good candidate but a bad politician. He’s a charismatic carnival barker who rode to power on the wave of stupid, gullible, and hateful people he empowered.
He was in it for the attention and adoration, not the actual job. In his ideal world, he would have lost, gotten his own show on Fox (or one of the splinter echo chamber channels), done more rallies, and played more golf-kickball. If not for the impending indictments, he’ll probably do that anyway once he’s done licking his wounds.
Jim Comey did not undermine Clinton’s campaign, Trump’s people did.
Lots of familiar names in there: Flynn, Giuliani.
We really need to see some jail time.
I mean, that would require Becky to not be running on the Democratic ticket when she’s pretty hardcore embraced progressive ideology. Which to be fair is entirely possible given the current political climate of the Democratic party flipping the bird to progressives and going back to play with their moderate Republican friends now that fascism is “over.”
I could imagine a weird timeline where Dorothy ran as a Republican in a state without a functioning Democratic party and won as the “moderate” choice. Then, when running for President, managing to win as the “moderate” choice again when her half-dozen opponents fractured the field while sprinting right to chase what they believed to be the base – and alienating everyone to the left of Pinochet in the process.
I mean, she’d lose rather hard because said base wouldn’t turn out for her, but I could see a way for her character end up nominated.
By the time Becky and Dorothy are old enough to run for president, I’d like to think there might be some entirely different political parties for them to run as. Assuming civilization hasn’t collapsed due to climate change by then.
Eh, for that to happen in the modern era, we’d need to switch from FPTP to ranked choice voting, or something similar. Which would mean that we’d need to get the general public to actually care about how our elections are conducted, which… Doesn’t seem very likely. I mean, we can’t even get everyone to sign on to the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact despite perennial dissatisfaction with the electoral college, let alone reform of that magnitude.
I could easily imagine both parties becoming something radically different as the older generation dies out, and newer voters adopt significantly different political philosophies, but we’ll most likely still have Republicans and Democrats a hundred years from now. Assuming the country still exists at the point, as you say.
Not necessarily.
We’re in a level of political turmoil that has historically caused massive shifts in the US party system – see the Federalists fading to nothing and the Democratic-Republicans splitting into the Democrats and the Whigs, or the Whigs collapsing and ultimately coalescing into the Republicans.
(Of course, every party system change since then has been the parties keeping the same names but changing roles.)
Additionally, there are some mechanisms for a third party to take hold in the US despite FPTP, by not touching the presidency. You can get a hell of a lot of influence by only ever going after “safe” local, state, and legislative seats, but the third parties so often end up trying to go after the presidency and wasting resources.
But each of those happened back in the days when regional parties still existed, waiting to take up the slack when a major party failed; that’s no longer the case. Without a solid base to retain political talent and build a public profile with, it simply isn’t possible to build something large enough to displace one of the major parties.
Ironically, your second paragraph speaks well to that problem; a realistic path to build a sustainable third party is by building their party infrastructure on a state level to accomplish local goals, and grow their reputation as a serious party instead of a protest vote or vanity campaign. But everyone who understands that eventually ends up disillusioned by the unrealistic ambitions that our current third parties pursue, and either join the major parties to change them from within, or drop out of politics entirely.
I think party collapse and replacement is still possible, though radical shifts within the two parties are much more likely.
Previous party replacements haven’t come through slow declines in one and their replacement by a growing third party, but by the outright collapse of one and something new being built out of the corpse.
I don’t think that there is a sustainable third party path though, not much beyond the very low numbers of elected councilmen and the like we see today. Even with things like ranked choice voting in Maine, I doubt we’ll see much change in voting patterns.
It’s not so much that I think it likely that we’d see meaningfully large third parties if we had ranked choice, so much as I think it’s outright impossible to have them without. In our current system, when people are split between the two decent options, it just means the option neither of them wanted gets picked – and that means that after a couple of cycles, they just stick with the bigger name and get pretty bitter towards the smaller.
That said, there haven’t been any major parties of note since the civil war, so I’m not really certain that there’s much value in looking to history here. Politics have changed dramatically since the Whigs, and scandals that would have destroyed a party in those days now get shrugged off after four years.
The way to think about parties in the US vs multi-party democracies is that in those countries, there are generally multiple parties that win elections then make coalitions to form a government. In the US, we make coalitions to form the parties and then elect one of the coalitions directly.
Third party activists tend to not realize this, see the parties as monolithic, and try to emulate multi-party countries without understanding it doesn’t work in this system.
Third party activists in the US tend to be… Not very serious people, in my experience.
But that said, the way I see it is like this; Michael Steel and Nicolle Wallace shouldn’t have to be in a party that increasingly views them with contempt just because they want taxes to be lower. When one half of the party goes completely off the rails, they shouldn’t be able to hold the sane half hostage – they should have the option of going elsewhere, without the only other option being their diametrical opposite.
I mean, in practice, things would usually look exactly like they do now – but in theory, it would help at times like these when a substantial part of the party feels like they have no part in the coalition anymore.
@Ferret: Maybe we can at least let the transition happen before we decide the Democrats are flipping the bird to progressives and going back to their Republican friends? You know, see how they actually govern?
I mean, they’re not going to go far enough to satisfy the hardcore lefties. Which shouldn’t surprise anyone, since moderate voters are a huge part of the Democratic coalition and they’re scared of the hardcore lefties. Plus, without control of the Senate (or with marginal control, if we manage to pull off a minor miracle in Georgia), legislation is going to be moderate at best – but that’s because of the nature of divided control of government.
I’m still hoping that Biden is preaching the whole “Not gonna prosecute, America needs to heal, not further division” thing to back off and not push Trump into further madness and destruction (which he’s already doing quite enough of, on top of what he hath already wrought)–but that tune will change the moment he’s in office and Trump can’t be destroying the government and country anymore.
I also really want some of the holes in the laws patched up. Like the whole thing about having a ridiculously corrupt administration, just blatantly, cartoonishly corruption, and then pardoning the lot of them, ahead of time, including himself. That’s not how any of that should work!!
Thing is, at the end of the day, Becky’s hyping how awesome she is, and Dorothy organizes the thing that will address the problem.
You wanna bet for all her “natural talent at campaigning”, about any of the cool stuff she had DeSanto promise ever happen? Becky’s got narrative for days, but that only gets you so far.
Well, Robin’s out of office, so you can’t really blame Becky for that. And even if she hadn’t dropped out, she’s one Congresscritter so what she could do on her own is very limited.
If Becky’s not going to brag about routine sexual assault on a live mike, I’d still call it an improvement.
Becky would be an improvement if she did, if only because she’s not dunking herself in orange… something.
Since this has veered into politics, a question: If the Senate happens to go 50/50, and therefore there’s no majority leader, who decides what gets put to a vote? I know the VP breaks voting ties in the Senate, but “what gets put to a vote” feels like takes far too much time for an outsider to be doing it.
The Majority Leader is determined by a Senate vote, so the VP gets to cast the tie-breaking vote there. Then Democrats get to organize the Senate and control the agenda.
So, for those of you in Georgia, please vote in the runoffs. It’s critical. And those of us who aren’t, volunteer and donate.
Thanks.
Also, double-check that you’re still registered to vote!! Apparently a lot of people in Georgia who were registered to, and did vote in the presidential election have found themselves mysteriously deregistered since. And the deadline to register again in time to vote in Georgia is like Dec. 7th!!
^^^^^
About 1 year into Dorothy’s first term
Becky: *Walks into the oval office* Hey Dotty!
Dorothy: *Sigh* How did you get back in this time?
Becky: Trap door under the Lincoln bedroom.
Dorothy: Just how many more secret entrances to the Whitehouse do you know about?
Becky: I can make it about half way through your second term before I need to start rationing them. Maybe only show up every 2-3 days.
Becky: Joyce can see fine!
Joyce: Thank you, Joe.
I appreciate Becky’s outfit perfectly matching the five-color lesbian flag in this strip.
I am sure Becky did that intentionally.
Well fuck.
Now I want a lesbian flag outfit.
I wonder which one of these two Joyce will be voting for in the 2052 democratic primary.
Tell Becky she’s voting for her, but quietly vote for Dorothy when she’s actually in the booth?
In 2052 they might be old enough to run for Congress.
Let’s be honest here. They’re never graduating let alone actually getting to the point they serve in congress. I’m not even sure Dorothy will get to Yale, but let’s pretrend for now they all aren’t stuck in a near perpetual college themed purgatory.
My take home from this is that they all look great in those hats.
Becky’s kind of makes it looks like an invisible person is dumping a bowl of marinara on her head.
It’s perfect, in other words.
It also looks like she’s on her way to vote for the next Pope.
That’s silly. The Pope isn’t an elected posti…… oh, you are right!
Maybe Becky can reform Russia. She could be the Cardinal in the Kremlin.
Hooray for hats!
what
You win.
If she doesn’t become president she could have a career as a Jeeves level personal assistant.
Like whats-their-name in QC?
Tilly.
Taffy.
‘Sup?
Station?
Yay Newfriend?
Pint-size?
Hanelore? (To Marigold Farmer)
Yelling Bird?
Who doesn’t need a friend like Yelling Bird?
SUCK MY CLOACA SHITBREATH
YOU’RE WELCOME
Becky will fall ass-backwards into an actual career in politics because of course she will, Dorothy will get herself hired as her valet because that way Becky will let her make all the real decisions, and that’s how we get a gender-swapped remake of Jeeves and Wooster set in Washington DC.
I find your ideas intriguing and would like to subscribe to your Ao3 fic.
Dorothy would need *a lot* of character development to reach Jeeves’ level of snark.
I think a few years working for Becky would do the trick.
Well, the Cadbury Club are the real rulers of the world, so it might be a surer path to changing the world for Dorothy. Assuming she can put up with all the wacky hijinks that go along with making sure her employer makes the right decision, at least…
She would. What kind of crazy magic is this? She made an appointment with a medical professional for later the same day! She’s got more pull than I ever imagined.
Becky is giving Joyce what she’s asking for (agreement)
Dorothy is giving Joyce what she needs (a firm hand to make her face reality when avoiding it is doing her real harm)
I look forward to seeing how Becky reacts when Joyce ends up needing glasses, and hope she learns to be a better friend and not just an enabler.
Unless Willis decides to just mess with us all and have Joyce not need glasses after all.
I’m not sure if Becky’s giving Joyce what she’s asking for or just contradicting Dorothy. Or maybe both. They line up pretty well in this instance. When all your cards line up, you play them!
A buddy tells you what you want to hear.
A friend tells you what you need to hear.
Dorothy is being a true friend, and it looks to me like Becky is loosing ground, …
I think … ?maybe? because of her fear of/rivalry of Dorothy?
Actually the loser of a contest would say “This is bullshit, you were carried by your stupid cheap ass character. You just spammed cheap moves and got lucky. Whatever GGs.”
At least in my experience. When I lose.
Maybe if you’d stop picking Maxi, you’d win a match.
*plays Kiss’ “I” from Music From The Elder on the hacked P.A. speakers*
Dotty’s now Joyce’s PA? xD
Joyce claims that she has no problem seeing the blackboard for her college classes. But can she see why Kids love Cinnamon Toast Crunch?
THEY JUST DO wait that’s apple jacks
I love that ad, strictly because it’s the marketing people just giving up entirely.
Love Becky repping one of the lesbian pride flags!
Looks like Dorothy took that ‘Ask, it doesn’t get done’ bit from last semester to heart. Normally I’d say ‘ask first’ but if even Joyce agrees the only way to make her do necessary but unwanted things is to literally make her do it, I can accept its necessary.
Wonder how Becky will feel if Dorothy is right?
She’ll probably play it off and say that Dorothy got lucky, or she’ll be on Joyce’s side. After Joyce disocvers that she needs glasses but still doesn’t want to admit it.
it feels like every update i like becky less and less 🙁
that doesnt mean i dont love her tho, i think shes great!! she just needs to turn down the “harassing dorothy” dial
It’s for the best. Should Becky and Dorothy work together, then President Keener will be Inaugurated despite being underage for the role and when the 22nd Amendment (which btw just about every other democracy considers to be a weird American thing) is revoked (though without her support) becomes the first President since F.D.R. to gain a third term. And when sometime in her fourth term the cure for aging is discovered, she becomes President forever.
Slippery slope people, slippery slope. 🙂 🙂
Actually, given the strange and terrifying process that is US politics, the. Only two term rule is all the keeps the rest of the democratic world from despair.
You can at least try to sit the worst one‘s out.
Also, I shudder to think about who will follow Merkel, they are no politicians who really have enough experience to lead the country and have a chance of winning.
So we‘ll probably be stuck with more trump clones, as the social Democrats fall into oblivion and the Green Party manages to be stupid in campaigning.
Trump didn’t get a second term. Bush was wildly unpopular at the end of his and would have lost even if he’d been able to run again. The first Bush also didn’t get a second term. They might have been able to prop Reagan up for a third term.
OTOH, if Obama had been able to run again, he likely would have won, even against Trump. He was very charismatic and a natural campaigner. Much like Bill Clinton, who would have had a decent chance, despite the scandals.
Unless you’ve got a very different take on the “worst ones” than I do, we might have done better without the 2 term limit.
To be fair, the first Bush lost because he committed political suicide, raising taxes on companies as a Republican, to try to mitigate Reagan’s fuckery.
Reagan raised taxes too, but Reagan was teflon.
You’d think that, with all the Republican xenophobia, calling the Taliban “men of strong moral character” would have sunk the fucker, and yet.
To the outsider, the selection of people running for president makes no sense at all. And someone with experience of long term chancellors: if they are not leaning in the way you want the never ending story of it is totally exhausting. Given how slim the margin was for Biden to win, we could easil have been stuck with another 4 years of Trumpism. But not 12 or 16. So, to me, the two-term rule is one of the things that makes most sense in all of the election system of the US.
Honestly, I’m not at all convinced that we wouldn’t have had 3rd Trump term. With 4 years more to solidify control of government, I don’t think he would have stepped down. He was already talking about how he was owed a 3rd term because Democrats investigated and impeached him and thus his first shouldn’t count.
And he’s still flailing around trying to pull off a coup to stay in office now.
Or if he hadn’t been able to break the system that far, to use election fraud to install one of his offspring as a dynastic heir.
If it wasn’t risking somehting so important, his attempts would be hilarious though. I mean, Ghouliani’s latest attempt is that mail-in ballots should be thrown out because “they’re discriminatory of able-bodied people”… somehow.
I wonder what would have happened if Biden chose Obama to be his vice-presidential candidate?
Michelle would have left him.
Could be wrong, but I believe a VP has to be eligible to be President, which thanks to the two terms Obama no longer is.
Beyond that, it would have sent the conspiracy theorists even wilder than they are, with talk of Biden being senile and resigning for 3rd Obama term.
(William Shatner voice): We.must.keep.them.apart. — forever.
Joyce. Joyce.
I get that this is probably a fear of change thing but honestly it’s so bizarre to me given I started wearing glasses when I was, like, five or six, and by the time I was seven had internalized them as a key part of my face. (Like, obviously I change frames periodically and have no trouble there, but I feel a bit odd when they’re off because I’m so used to the sensation of wearing them.)
Honestly I would not be shocked if this denial is another autobiographical thing because. Seriously. THIS much resistance?
I don’t understand it either, but that’s probably because I’ve been wearing glasses since I was about 3 or 4 years old.
The only reason I remember how old I was is because I had exactly one yearbook picture taken pre-glasses. By the time the yearbook arrived I was already not immediately reading it as my face due to lack of glasses. (In fairness, I am pretty faceblind.)
I’m so tired of this faux rivalry.
It’s not Faux if she sees Dotty as her Foe
I wish it were faux. Becky has a lot invested in it for it to be faux. It’s not even a friendly rivalry. It’s Becky being tiresomely jealous with just enough of a veneer of humor that when someone finally tells her to knock it off, she can claim “I’m only joking,” that is, the coward’s excuse.
I *want* to like Becky, but her b.s. around Dorothy makes that very hard.
Yeah, this has gotten old fast. It’s entirely justified in their characters, but at this point it’s taking Becky way past lovable scamp and is getting pretty deep into getting on my nerves territory.
How did…how did Dotty make an appointment for Joyce, and so fast?
Is there like, a student optometry center?? Or does Dotty just have all of Joyce’s personal info saved?
I wondered that myself. But for a basic eye exam, not sure they care who shows up; Dorothy might have just made an appointment for herself and will swap Joyce in.
im sure dotty has everybody’s student identification numbers memorized. technically this is identify fraud
Depends on how she made the appointment; people make doctor appointments for people who can’t do so (too busy at work, incapacitated, mentally disabled, etc.) all the time, it only crosses over into “technically identity fraud” if Dorothy made it while pretending to be Joyce. 🙂
On-campus eye care clinics are a thing, and IU does have one.
I suspect that’s it. Probably much easier to get into than a regular one.
I mean Dorothy is the Mom friend lets be honest, she WOULD do it
She might have just made an appointment at a store that sells glasses and not some clinic, since they offer the service of doing those checkups. Then it wouldnt have been worse than scheduling a spot at the hairdresser
Over here, you can walk into any optometrist to get your eyesight checked.
No ID required at all.
Reeeeeally getting tired of Becky’s petty and unnecessary bullshit rivalry.
Best part is Dorothy’s winning by not playing, tho.
You were okay with it up till now, but this strip pushed you over the edge?
Honestly, this strip is where it became tiresome for me as well. It only takes a single straw to break a camel’s back.
No, I can see it. Up till now, Becky had been terrible to Dorothy over Joyce, but you could put that up to she caring too much about Joyce. Now she’s willing to throw Joyce’s well-being under the bus to be Joyce’s favourite. This shtick was already tired for me, but there’s a definitive escalation of “bad” for people for whom it wasn’t.
I’ve been tired of it for some time now. Don’t know why Becky’s still keeping it up at this point.
Because she hasn’t had any reason to stop yet. She’s still feeling jealous and is manifesting it in the same way she manifests most other emotions: by making jokes about it. But despite it making sense for her character, I too have been over it for a while now.
Becks, I love ya doll. But you’re setting yourself up to suddenly be on the wrong side of history. Remember, a real friend doesn’t tell you what you want to hear, they tell you what you *need* to hear. And you’re missing the boat on helping Joyce.
Votes on this being Willis priming the pump to either
straightensort Becky out, or to really elevate her conflict with Dotty?I’m thinking that this it might turn into Joyce and Becky having a harsh friendship failure because “sometimes friendships fail violently” is the sort of thing I’d expect Willis to want to say.
Is there a chance they grew up with some kind of religion aspect that’s making both of them push back this hard against the idea? Either something like a “God made you perfect the way you are” or maybe something more gendered (since her brothers have glasses.)
I doubt it. Her mom wears contacts.
Joyce doesn’t like her family and likely doesn’t like anything that reminds her of them.
I think that Joyce was always under pressure to be the perfect girl and later woman so that a good, faithful man would want her to be his wife. That has created a complex about being imperfect in any way. Hence the issue about having a visible defect (glasses) or damage (the toenail).
“Guys don’t make passes at Girls who wear glasses”…
I tried to translate that into “Joyce church speech”, but every attempt came out as demeaning and hideously ableist (well more so than the original, which is saying something).
Well… it’s not at all unusual for abusive religious groups to have an idea of the correct appearance for women that happens, coincidentally, to hit one of the head honcho’s preferences. (See: Gothard and his thing about long hair.)
Perhaps it is because the USAF won’t consider training you as a pilot if you don’t have 20/20 vision. Or so I have heard. Julia Gray can’t wear classes.
Pilots must have normal color vision, near visual acuity of 20/30 without correction, distance visual acuity of no worse than 20/70 in each eye correctable to 20/20 and meet other refraction, accommodation and astigmatism requirements. Corrective eye surgery may also disqualify applicants for pilot or other specific roles.
https://www.airforce.com/frequently-asked-questions/medical/what-are-the-vision-requirements-if-i-hope-to-be-an-air-force-pilot
b’s get degrees
But, to Dorothy, if you’re not excelling, you might as well go home.
That’s not true. Her point wasn’t “you got a B and you should fix this immediately!”…her point was “you are really good at this subject and you suddenly seem to be slipping. I worry.”
Second day in a row with no binder references!
What’s going on here?
I’m thinking that there is going to be no good outcome of the eye test for the current state of Joyce’s friendships. Either way, I’m sure that Becky is going to try to make it seem like Dorothy’s fault and that she’s supporting Joyce against her. I’m sure that being told she needs glasses by a doctor will mess up Joyce and I think it’s inevitable that she will blame someone.
Becky, shut up. Caring about Joyce’s health is not a contest.
But if it was, Dorothy would be winning.
(Apologies in advance)
That’s what the winner of a contest would say.
UG I dislike Becky. So irritating. I wonder how long till she cries at Joyce that she still loves her???
Becky dear, you’re starting to sound like Joe. Stop. (https://www.dumbingofage.com/2017/comic/book-7/03-the-thing-i-was-before/upgrade/)
Ok so is it that wearing glasses would be “change” and Joyce doesn’t want change? Like if her entire family wears glasses there is genetically very little chance she doesn’t need them, so why is she so against needing them?
If I remember back, ok, I was 11 or something and frames of prescription glasses looked horrible, I also hated to need them. Also, back then, it was actual glass, which was heavy and I was afraid of accidents during sports.
Maybe she doesn’t want to be like her family
Where can I acquire a Dorothy friend? I need someone in my life with this level of gumption.
Yes!
. . . why is she even so angry at the idea of having to wear glasses
She doesn’t want to be physically imperfect.
So, Becky’s behavior is going to lose her a friend if she doesn’t knock it off… but that doesn’t make Dorothy’s behavior appropriate. Joyce isn’t her child, or her project. Joyce is her same-age friend. It’s not okay to just make appointments for her like this.
The problem being that Joyce is in such strong denial that she will neglect herself and insist that she doesn’t have a problem because… (reasons as yet unrevealed in-strip). So, Dorothy has to walk the narrow line between ‘breach of autonomy’ and ‘enabling self-neglect’.
This is still out of line. Again, Joyce isn’t a child. Talk her into it. Also, Dorothy literally found out the problem at the beginning of this strip. That’s hardly an attempt to get her to do the right thing herself.
She still has to convince her to go. She made an appointment, she’s not dragging Joyce across campus.
Joyce is not a child, but she is behaving like one. This is part of the problem.
The fact that she’s behaving childishly doesn’t make it okay to treat her as though she is not just a child, but specifically Dorothy’s child.
Even Joyce has said sometimes the only way to get her to do things that are necessary but she doesn’t want to do is to make her. I don’t think it’s great but even Joyce has said, to Dorothy, it can be necessary sometimes.
1. This isn’t a life or death matter.
2. Nor is it a life or limb matter.
3. It’s only come up just now. It’s not like Joyce has been putting off this appointment for months.
4. Which is her right to do anyway, because one beautiful thing about adulthood is you have total medical autonomy.
I just want to know how she booked an optometrist appointment for someone else in a manner of seconds.
Also whether she actually knew Joyce’s schedule was clear (not her school timetable, but her schedule overall)
Over here in the UK, there are big brand optometrist shops that will test and prescribe glasses without any access to your medical records. If such things exist in the US (and I’m sure they do), Dorothy booked online in Joyce’s name.
As for the schedule…? Dorothy strikes me as the sort of woman who has all her friends’ schedules tabulated in a calendar ap so she can ‘make sure they’re ready for their classes’ (read: nag the to do their homework) and the like.
So in America, getting glasses is a needlessly expensive process. However, many college campuses have a medical center for dealing with common minor health conditions, and I’m confident a vision test would be doable there. If the conclusion was that she needed glasses, they may or may not be able to give out glasses. If they did, little to no choice in frames. If you wanted to go to a glasses store, like Lenscrafter, you’d have to pay for an eye exam with their people, even if you knew exactly what you needed. So, since I see this happening on campus, not too surprising Dorothy scheduled it.
You actually have to pay for the eye exam when purchasing glasses from them?!
🤣
I the country that’s supposed to have invented customer service?
No glasses store in Germany would sell anything if they did that.
Actually, what are the prices for simple glasses like in the US?
The cost of an eye test in the UK is usually about £25 (I think. Despite having one yearly I can’t remember). Actual costs of glasses vary wildly. Most people I know would probably go for around £80 to get a pair with anti-glare, scratch protection etc etc. Lots of places will do deals of a “buy one get one free” or “get a cheap pair of prescription sunglasses at the same time” variety. But you can get NHS ones that are much much cheaper.
If Joyce is still 18 then I think she would be eligible for a free eye test in the UK. I think they’ve free to anyone under 16 or under 18 and in full time education.
To be fair, eye tests nowadays do cover a lot more than just whether you are short or long-sighted. They’ll do tests for things like glaucoma at the same time.
(Also you don’t need an eye test to get glasses as long as you know your prescription.)
Now there is testing for glaucoma and macular-degeneration.
Don’t want your retina to detach as you age? Eat your leafy green vegetables.
Tests for glaucoma and macular degeneration have been things you need to go to the doctor for (and if you have a good reason like someone in the family who already has it) the insurance pays for those.
I vaguely remember seeing a job ad for a company building a machine who could scan your eyes for those with an AI based recognition system, so it might be the check can become much more easil available in the future,
Funnily enough, thsi came up in the comments yesterday. Quotinf Needfuldoer:
“On the vision side, glasses usually cost at least a couple hundred for good frames and another couple hundred for basic plastic lenses. (If you want them to be multi-vision, anti-scratch, anti-glare, extra thin, or photochromatic, each of those is an additional charge.)”
How do frames cost hundreds when I can get sunglasses for 20 bucks with perfectly serviceable frames?
I get that the lenses are expensive. That makes some sense.
I dunno, that was what Needfuldoer said, you’d have to take it with them.
Same reason you can get $5 reading glasses from the pharmacy: because you’re buying sunglasses out of pocket at a mall kiosk, not regular glasses with health insurance from an optometrist’s office.
Nobody would buy sunglasses if they cost $500 out of pocket.
It’s a racket.
In some states you can’t buy reading glasses off the rack. You have to see an eye doctor or just squint.
And I completely deny that an optician in NY once casually mentioned that I could get my mom OTC reading glasses in GA and bring them up to NY for her.
Because that would have been wrong.
Oh, it’s a total racket, but until very recently the companies that made the frames and lenses had us over a total barrel. Now… a little less so.
Also, it used to be you needed to go to a doctor to get your eyes scanned and a prescription for glasses. This has been moved into the realm of opticians, who always thought they were more competent about it anyway.
Glasses are not covered by health insurance for adults, you can only try to get some money back when filing your tax return forms.
Well there’s also vision coverage, which is its own specialized, lower-stakes version of the health insurance industry. You still have a monthly premium to pay, but it’s 1/10th or less of a general health insurance premium.
Unless there is some special vision income tax break, rather unlikely, as only medical expenses* over 7.5% of your income are deductible. But if you have a Health Savings Account or similar that applies.
* Medical expenses that you paid that year, not incurred. Another way poor people get screwed.
My vision plan pays for annual eye exams, and has an allowance for basic lenses every year and frames every two years. I think the premium is something like $15 a month. If you want add-ons like Transitions, or the frames you pick out cost more than the allowance, you have to pay the difference either out of pocket or from a health savings account.
Yes, you‘d need to exceed a certain percentage of your income that went into health costs that are not covered by the insurance. As varifocals are incredibly expensive, it’s not so unlikely to qualify the year you buy them.
And yes, getting money back in tax returns is something that requires you to made money in the first place and have some to spend it on your health.
So, actually did something vs stood to the side and made the same noises she tends to.
Dorothy wins this round.
Dorothy is a good friend.
I wonder if Joyce doesn’t want glasses because glasses cost money and she might have to talk to her parents to get help with insurance or something.
I am annoyed with everyone here.
In the comments? Or in the comic? … or both?
The comic, of course. Not everyone in the comments annoy me. ;p
I think the simple answer, fatigue from all the change in her life, is why Joyce is hesitant to take action regarding her eyeballs. I cannot ever see her putting contacts into her eyes.
That honestly freaks me out. There is something primal deep in my mind yelling “DON’T PUT THINGS IN YOUR EYES!”
I have trouble walking through aisles covered in peg boards. I can do it without revealing my discomfort, but my eyes and face just start to feel weird even just standing and looking down the aisle. Almost like I can feel the flesh behind my eyes getting ready to tell me, “yep, ya got a peg in your eye.”
That said, I never had a problem toucing the whites of my eyes. Probably stems from lifelong allergies and rubbing to relieve the sense of wishing I could rip my eyes out.
My eye doctor once advised me against considering contacts, based on how much trouble he had getting even the drops into my eyes.
Yeah, eye drops. I used to have to back my head against a wall to prevent myself from snapping my head back when the cold drop landed on my cornea.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. THIS is why Dorothy won’t succeed in politics. The key to success is convincing people that the path to getting what they want (or avoiding what they don’t want) is by supporting you. NOT by just trying to do what’s best for everyone without selling them on the idea first.
Are you implying that in order to succeed as a politician, one must act as a politician in all aspects of their personal life?
Not necessarily, but a politician should at least have the skillset of selling rather than dictating a path forward and know when to apply it. And getting someone ELSE to see to THEIR medical needs is a time to sell, rather than dictate.
if Joyce gets glasses will she
a) get the same style as Dorothy
b) get some older style (think hollywood nerdy girl glasses from like the 2000s) which causes becky to go all “blue screen of death”
Pilot glasses because of her dream of becoming a fighter pilot?
wait i thought pilot glasses were those sunglasses, u mean the “80s” style glasses with the double nose bridge?
prescription sunglasses can get pretty expensive (speaking as someone with terrible vision w/o glasses)
Graduated aviator goggles.
Willis said the Julia Gray model sheet came out recently. I bet she’ll at least try aviators.
I’m sort of foreseeing a running joke for a few chapters of no-one immediately recognising her and thus she gets a ‘blank slate’ reaction from people like Joe, Asher, Danny and Booker.
I think Joe’s reaction will be more like this:
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2018/comic/book-8/03-faz-is-great/lying/
And then the last panel from this one:
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2017/comic/book-7/04-the-do-list/chubby/
I hope Willis is taking pictures of everyone getting Booster’s name wrong and then makes a hilarious compilation of it.
No shade, BenRG, I just love your new addition to the list haha
Dorothy and Becky might as well shrink and sit on Joyce’s shoulders. Doing angel / demon to perfection. Dis gonna be gud.
Everyone’s tagging on Becky but I think it is SO overstepping and controlling for Dorothy to schedule a doctor’s appointment for Joyce without permission. Yeah yeah it’s what Joyce needs, but it’s not Dorothy’s place and I think it’s really rude
Joyce can just not go. It’s not that intrusive.
Why IS Becky being given this treatment?
The first semester Becky didn’t push thia bit nearly so hard, and there were several times the two did have an honest heart-to-heart with only one or two jabs that were still largely punchlines and not too far.
Unfortunately, Becky has let it balloon into a pretty bad out-and-out character flaw. Well, Dina is still perfect, so we’ve got that.
Becky: Hey Dotty, I don’t think you’re winning our contest.
Dorothy: Becky, we have to get these transformation pens into the DoA game before it opens.
Becky: That sounds like what a loser would say.
Dorothy: Becky this is very I do not have thumbs.
*very hard
This site needs an edit button.
and thumbs
On one hand, Joyce has a problem and denies it. On the other hand, Dorothy wants to help her with said problem. But force her to go to a visit seems excessive. But necessary?
While very forward, Dotty isn’t *forcing* Joyce to go. She is definitely close to the line, but at present is still safely on the side of just lowering the barrier of entry for Joyce. I know that I would love to be close enough to my friends for them to feel ok doing such a thing. (And I’m refering to my good friends, not acquaintances)
She made the appointment for her. C’mon, that’s crossing the line. Only my parents ever made appointments for me without my consent. When I was a child. Joyce isn’t a child, and Dorothy isn’t her mom.
As I said, I have a personal take that makes Dorothy’s behaviour acceptable to me. Clearly you don’t, and that’s ok too. We disagree, which makes it clear that the bahviour is in a not fully defined middle ground that makes it potentially ok and potentially not ok. Fortunately, as you said, Joyce isn’t a child, so if she feels her friend overstepped, she can say so. I find your position weird, as it sounds like your fighting to protect Joyce’s interests while claiming that Joyce is an adult who doesn’t need people to fight for her interests. And as is evident you disagree with my position, and I can respect that, even if it seems strange an inconsistent to me. Dorothy hasn’t broken any obviously explicit rules, and certainly this makes for an interesting interaction. Also, for all her commentary, Becky isn’t cancelling or discouraging Joyce’s appointment.
As for consent, my dad always included me in making appointment plans, so I can’t say he really did it without consent, even though he didn’t need my consent. Despite that obvious push towards independence, I feel fine about Dorothy’s actions.
Wow I wish I had a friend like Dorothy to schedule all the appointments I didn’t want to go to. Dorothy just got +500 friendship points.
You can’t make a medical appointment for someone who is not your spouse, child, yourself, or your court appointed charge.
She is practicing before becoming a politician.
True, but the computer, scheduling the appointment, does not know that. All it cares about is a name, and a date.
Part of becoming friends with Dotty involves her quietly getting your power of attorney so she can secretly manage your affairs.
I bet any one of Dorothy’s friends would be surprised that it’s not the university that leaves a hand-embroidered card on their pillow reminding them to drink some water and pay their dorm fees for the semester.
Not with that attitude.
Dorothy is probably a better mom than half of the moms in the comic.
Dorothy’s a better mom than most moms.
Is this because the Bible doesn’t have eyeglasses or contact lenses?
Cause, I’m one of God’s very imperfect creatures who can’t see without technology.
Y’all know that making appointments for other people who don’t want them ain’t cool, right? I know the consensus is that Becky is garbage compared to Dorothy, but that’s still not a cool thing to do. Convince Joyce if you must, but don’t give her an obligation she didn’t ask for. An official obligation at that.
I mean, Joyce isn’t actually obligated to go. She’s not exactly gonna get penalised for not showing up to what I can only assume is a shopping mall optometrist. I’m not sure what “official obligation” means, but unless there’s some binding rules I’m unaware of, Joyce is 100% free to simply not appear and the people working at whatever place won’t mind all that much.
Doting Dotty dictates diagnostic date with doctor
Becky Bongos Because Bitterly Begrudging Best Friend’s Buddy Benefit.
Slartibeast slanders silly situations saucily ‘sinuating something salacious.
I LOVE BECKY’S LESBIAN OUTFIT AND I WANT ONE NOW
Why is Joyce so anti-glasses? Glasses make everyone look better.
I’m wondering myself. Maybe it’s just being averse to more change? Or more similarity to her family from whom she is now more distant?
i am gonna echo the statement of others here that dorothy making an unwanted appointment for joyce is like, very not cool and comes off as kinda an ass move? altho i get the feeling behind it of course. also, i’m really not bein irritated by becky’s faux-rivalry joke thing? at least not yet lol. idk
Damn, she scheduled an appointment just like that? Is the University of Indiana somewhere in Europe?
Breaking this out into its own comment.
Yes, consent is important.
Yes, Joyce is an adult.
But if she’s going to act like a child (which, IMO, she is here), she should expect to be treated like one.
They’re still using blackboards in 2020?
Yes, as does my university (or at least it did before SOMETHING -glares at Corona virus- shut everything down).
Dotty and Becky make a surprisingly good team…
BULLPOO!!!!!!!!!!!!
i’m going to quietly point out that becky is literally the lesbian flag rn