I doubt she’d be a good campaign manager for Bernie, and noone can help Hilary win if even running against an orange turd didn’t manage it. Frankly, Dorothy should just stick to legislation. Ironically, Becky indeed makes for a much better face of a campaign.
P.S. I wrote Betty at first. I blame your Dotty. It’s addictive.
Okay, can we put a moratorium on “Nothing could help Hilary win, look who she lost against”? You had the full weight of the Russian government putting their foot on the scale, let’s stop pretending that the 2016 election was anything less than an abortion of democracy.
Not to mention the utter mess that is the Electoral College. When you get the majority of the popular vote, but somehow still lose, something’s broken.
Yup, the one time in 200 plus years that the exact situation the Electoral College was set up to prevent actually occurs, and it failed miserably. I don’t understand why it is still a thing, just go with the popular vote already.
This. Hillary Clinton won the popular vote despite Russian interference, and only lost the election because your system has the electoral college, which is specifically designed to privilege rural areas over population centers.
It’s also worth noting that a lot of the Bernie supporters, after their candidate dropped out of the race, DIDN’T transfer their votes to Hillary. They simply stayed at home and didn’t vote. In hindsight, given the global trend of people voting for unconventional or even extremist leaders as a protest vote against the status quo, I think the Democrat party would have been wise to throw their support behind Bernie instead of Hillary.
I mean, the primaries are a clusterfuck in some states. Nevada’s voice vote was arguably in favor of Bernie and should have went to a more definitive voting system and other states seemed to be pulling the same shenanigans against Bernie that the Republicans pull against Dems. Also, Sanders was a no one that the DNC tried to undermine for entire campaign and he still came close to winning. And polls showed him doing better than Clinton against Trump.
Some of the primaries are a clusterfuck. But they’ve long been that way and candidates need to adapt. Bernie did well in most caucus states and those are at least as messed up as anything.
Nor would I trust polls for the general during the primary – particularly for a non-frontrunner who hadn’t been seriously attacked by the GOP at that point.
A group of Clinton supporters after she lost the 2008 primary. With the usual accusations that Obama was selected by the party leadership, not the voters and of various underhanded primary shenanigans.
Officially registered as “People United Means Action”, but originally
“Party Unity My Ass” – which could easily have been adopted by the Bernie holdouts. There is nothing new under the sun.
I think it would’ve been enough if the upper echelons of the party hadn’t actively worked against Sanders, lost votes for him or declared them void, and given Clinton unfair advantages like letting her team know what questions would be asked beforehand. I can definitely understand why many people who preferred Sanders stayed home then, I wouldn’t have voted for “my” party’s chosen candidate under those circumstances either. The democrat party leadership fucked up on so many levels and displayed such a lack of awareness they were almost on par with Trump. And in a contest of stupidity, experience trumps everything.
Russian interference or not (and personally I think that if there was any such interference it had a marginal effect at worst and is most probably negligible), the democrat party leadership chose one of their least popular candidates and managed to alienate a large part of its base with their blatant display of favouritism during the primaries. That alone would be enough to lose an election pretty much anywhere, but doubly so in the USA where elections on the national level tend to be quite close and there’s a weird electoral college in place. I see the fact that she even won the popular vote as more of a testament to how deeply unpopular Trump was even before being elected. Had she gone up against a more typical republican candidate I think she would’ve lost that one as well.
Contrafactual speculation is hard, but I suspect Sanders would have lost as well. It would have been a very different campaign obviously and we don’t know what would have been thrown at him, but it would have been messy. Sanders never really faced any serious negative campaign attacks, so it’s hard to know how he would have handled it. We’d still have Russian interference driving up conflicts among Democrats.
I’ve speculated before that if Sanders had won the nomination, we’d be sitting here today wishing we’d run the sensible moderate who could have peeled away Republican leaners who were turned off by Trump, but voted for him anyway because of the scary socialist.
It depends. I think Sanders would have campaigned in the “firewall” states that Clinton lost, but I also think we would have had some veiled antisemitism rather than open misogyny from the Trump camp. So I guess it would be a matter of whether Sanders’ populist message would have turned the votes in those states more than crypto-fascists would have stumbled over each other to make ZOG memes.
I just want to make a simple correction in terminology here because the baffling alt-right conspiracy theory that it’s called the “Democrat” party exists.
The name of the left-ish party in the US is the Democratic party, not the Democrat party. There is no Democrat party.
Both party names are horrible. Calling it the Democratic party makes it sound like voting against them means that you do not want a democratic government. “Take away my right to vote please!” Likewise if you don’t vote for the Republican party does it not sound like you don’t want a republic? “All hail the emperor!”
Given that the Nazis support the Republican party, I’m happy to back what is by world terms a centrist party without fussing to much.
We’re a two party system by design. As much as I like much of the Green platform, in recent decades they’ve mostly been played by Republicans to draw off leftist voters from Democrats to allow Republican victories. In some cases getting funding from Republican donors so they can compete.
Even more terrifying to me, the orange dumpster fire wasn’t as bad a candidate as we all thought he was. He ran a classic demagogue “scare the hell out of people, pose as a strong man, throw them scapegoats and promise easy fixes” campaign and that resonated with a lot of Americans. Enough to make it close enough to steal. It made him horribly unpopular with those it didn’t work on, but I don’t think the things we see as drawbacks actually cost him many votes. They just further divided the country.
This is the model the GOP’s been nodding and winking to for decades, but now they’ve learned it works when done openly. We’ll see more of it, assuming we survive Trump.
The Russians wouldn’t have had enough of an opening to do that if a better politician had been run. “Oh, sure, let’s run the person who’s been subject to a many decades-long smear campaign, who uses the phrase ‘AmErIcA iS aLrEaDy GrEaT’ when people are pissed as fuuuuuuck about their living situation. That’ll go over well.”
Changing the candidate the DNC backed at the last minute like that, in the primary, when no other candidates with recent high levels of name recognition had been running, would have probably fed speculation that there was a concrete institutional cause to think Hillary unelectable and that the party was looking to cover its own arse and distance itself from her – and would have inevitably occurred without anyone explaining why.
The opposition’s conspiracy theories would have then gained fertile ground to take root even deeper in the mainstream, harming all future candidates fielded by the party for several elections.
So you’re suggesting that the Democratic Party should have stepped in and blocked Clinton from running? Yeah, that would have gone well.
My strong suspicion is that there was little if any more shenanigans going on in the DNC’s support of Clinton than there has been in previous primaries – including in 2008 where Clinton ran as the establishment favorite and lost to Obama anyway in a closer race than the 2016 primary.
The real difference is that this time Russian hackers exposed some of the internal discussion and a lot of idealistic Sanders supporters saw the dirty process of politics for the first time.
I’m an old cynic. I didn’t see anything in those revelations that struck me as outside the normal. Some favoritism. Some suggestions that apparently weren’t used. No serious ratfucking.
I think that the Democratic party pushed for a hilary candidacy and against a bernie candidacy because they had already set up a ton of political relationships behind the scenes (‘you scratch my back and i’ll scratch yours,’ you know), which is why it appeared to be ‘structured’ to give her the nomination. Because it was.
“Electability” or “what the voters want” is only one factor in deciding who gets the nomination, and it appears that in 2016 it wasn’t a very important one. When i saw Howard Dean say in a TV interview “Hillary Clinton’s going to be our next president” like it was a given, i got a sinking feeling that Trump was going to win. Partly because that sort of arrogance goes over poorly with americans, but also because he (they) clearly thought they had the election in the bag already. Meaning that they didn’t think that pushing for democratic voters to get out and vote wasn’t a big deal. Which is terryifyingly idiotic.
Of course, the really important election is the 2020 one because whoever controls congress will control redistricting. If the republicans get it, they’ll be able to lock in minority control for a decade.
Note that redistricting is not controlled by Congress, but by the various state legislatures and governors.
So vote in your state elections! They matter.
There’s little evidence that 2016 was any more “structured” to give Clinton the nomination than any other recent primary. Clinton was an insider and she’d played the game well, winning a lot of support from establishment politicians. She’d done the same in 2008, though not quite as well. In 2008 that support evaporated as she started losing primary contests to some young upstart named Obama.
In 2016, if she’d started losing to Sanders, the party would have fallen in behind him. But she didn’t.
I live in a country where some candidates ACTUALLY have the full weight of the Russian government behind them. Like, journalists have managed to trace the tens of millions in campaign funds back to Putin.
The campaign amounted to around 200 000 votes, 10-15% of all. Russia can’t successfully buy the elections in a country with less population than the city of New York, so you certainly overstate their importance for the US elections.
Anyway, it’s really funny to watch this. I thought I’d read some insights on Dotty in the comments, yet it’s meltdown over 2016.
Peeling away 10-15% of another candidate’s vote is massive and a really easy/cheap way to win what would otherwise be a mostly 2 way race, if you’re really backing someone else. And it’s not like Russian candidates don’t win in many, many other countries. Belarus is a classic Soviet-era puppet dictatorship in a “Union State” with Russia, right now, in 2019. Need I go on?
Elections are pretty hackable now, especially with a bad system and the right datasets, both of which are readily available in the US. As proven by redistricting, and literal court transcripts about redistricting, from the mapmakers.
Peeling away 200 000 votes is nothing, however.
I think you are conflating Russia buying votes and votes being swayed because of legitimate issues that get brought up by Russian-paid influencers. The first can’t really be combated unless you just pay more. The second is easy to overcome as long as YOU address these legitimate issues too.
Belarus is a dictatorship. We can’t talk about buying votes there. They don’t need to buy votes when they can just lie about the results and arrest the dissenters. Same in Russia.
Liking someone and working with them don’t need to correlate all that highly in upper echelon politics. If it were a dealbreaker, nothing would get done. College probably gets a LOT of government funding that gets reapproved ebery budget cycle.
It’s not Robin solely who reapproves things. And yes, he’s capable of working with her, but that doesn’t translate necessarily to special, personal favours.
OTOH, fast-tracking the enrollment DOES prevent headlines like “Teenager shot at in University campus struggles to get enrolled for being a lesbian.” which is technically true, even if I played with the parsing a bit to make it more outrageous.
I’m pretty sure the process is way faster in community/ city colleges. the dean connection mentioned helps but ultimately i guess it would be easier for the narrative to not hinge on becky’s enrollment status
I’m guessing that she just got the process fast-tracked. Poking the bureaucracy on the behalf of constituents to get it unjammed is something good representatives do. …. and also Robin, apparently.
Dorothy needs to take a serious chill pill. Has she even volunteered to work at any campaign offices? Or is she one of those “theory trumps doing” people?
She’s got a really rigid idea of what her path forward will be, so she probably hasn’t volunteered to do any of that stuff yet, not that she currently even has time to with her schoolwork and journalism.
I wanna say she’s a Ravenclaw because she’s been really going for that whole ‘intelligence and knowledge trumps all’ thing. (Which isn’t bad, but for this situation it won’t give her the edge.) Also, I think if she were Slytherin she’d probably be better at manipulating folks and might’ve actually gotten that RA position.
Nah. Ravenclaw. The idea that ambition is an essential slytherin trait is set up in the first book, but it’s never really carried through–and it’s demolished completely when we run into our first Hufflepuff villain.
Anyone can be ambitious. Or not.
Ambitious Slytherins use ruthlessness and hard-to-catch cheating.
Ambitious Ravenclaws try to learn everything and just outplay people.
Ambitious Hufflepuffs network and outwork everyone.
Ambitious Gryffindors try to do the right thing and just plow through opposition to their goals (in many ways, they act a lot like Slytherins but with different flavor).
Dorothy is a huffleclaw. She thinks that knowledge is the way to power — and that hard work is the way to knowledge.
Becky is a gryfferin. She thinks the most important thing is to do the right thing–but is entirely willing to do below-board, sneaky methods to accomplish them.
This probably doesn’t entirely match Sorting Hat Chat’s system (which expressly does primary=how you define your goals; secondary=how you accomplish them), but I wasn’t focusing on that model so much as conceptualizing the characters.
People don’t really think when they’re sorting characters about the fact it’s not what traits a person has, it’s what traits they value. Crabbe and Goyle are followers without a shred of cunning. BUT they value blood purity (a value Salazar Slytherin had), cunning, and disregard for rules, so Slytherin they went.
That’s true to a certain extent, because as far as I can tell, the sorting hat will put you into whichever house you want if you demand it (like Harry asking not to be put into Slytherin). So you’ll end up in whichever house you value most. But I still maintain that Hermione is a textbook Ravenclaw, and that she would’ve fit in much more with that house.
But she didn’t want Ravenclaw. She believes friendship and bravery are more important than cleverness or learning. She also said Gryffindor sounded by far the best on the train. She wanted Gryffindor because it matched her values more. Yes, looking at personal traits, she fits more with Ravenclaw, but looking at what she values, Gryffindor is pretty clear imo.
I think Rowling is a hack who just came up with the sorting hat as a neat idea and didn’t put much thought into it at all. “Alright, I’ll have one house where all the protagonists are, and one house where all the bad guys are, and then maybe two others to balance it out. But how can I go about that? Hmm… I know! I’ll just pick some random traits people might have and then some magical doohickey decides where these 11-year old children go! What’s a good trait to have? Bravery! Yes, the good guys are all brave. Bad traits… cowardice? ruthlessness? Noo, it has to at least sound a little positive. Ambition… yeah, that works, the bad house gets ambition as its trait. Ok, other two houses… all the nerds go in one house and the final one gets everything else.” And then she promptly decided to not care about any of that while actually writing the books. She needed the hat for one thing only: To get her characters into the right house for whatever plot she could think of. She had absolutely no concerns about keeping the larger picture internally consistent once the hat had fulfilled that purpose.
Mostly I think that last – though I wouldn’t describe her as a hack. The criteria it’s said the Hat uses don’t match the way characters are actually sorted.
Only, again, if you’re looking at whether the characters have inherent traits from those houses vs whether or not the characters actually value those traits. Also, that ignores there’s a variety of traits for each house. The trait that sticks so many bad guys in Slytherin isn’t because they value ambition, it’s because they value blood purity, just like their bigoted founder.
“Blood purity”, or how much you value it, is not something the hat sorts for, though. There are confirmed mudbloods in Slytherin, and the Slytherin trait the hat looks for is stated to be ambition.
The reason all of Slytherin is obsessed with lineage or “blood purity” is because racism is a bad thing, Slytherin is the house for bad things, therefor, every racist character has to be in Slytherin.
I don’t think Rowling would have known how to write anything nuanced when she started the series, she was showing signs of learning by book 6 but it never got better than that. She definitely wouldn’t have considered putting some of those blood purists in any other house than Slytherin.
That’s not true at all. The hat doesn’t only sort for one value. That’s vastly oversimplifying each house. Each house has a variety of values, which is why muggle borns (not mud bloods) end up in Slytherin. The hat is explicitly a stand in for the founders. He takes the kids the founders would have wanted. Salazar Slytherin was a bigoted prick who only wanted to teach purebloods and halfbloods. Yes, he was apparently willing to make rare exceptions for occasional muggle borns, but he was still a bigot and the Hat is looking for how closely a student’s values match the founders to see who the founders would have wanted. Even just looking at the Sorting Hat’s songs will show you more than just ambition for Slytherin. Cunning, a certain disregard for rules, resourcefulness, and yes, blood purity are all other values associated with Slytherin in canon.
There’s more than one value the hat looks for. Others mentioned for Slytherin include cunning, resourcefulness, disregard for rules, and, yes, blood purity, among other things. The Hat is also explicitly there as a stand in for the founders. He picks kids the founders would have picked. Salazar Slytherin was a bigoted prick who only wanted purebloods around, so that’s what Slytherin gets. Yes, he apparently was willing to make rare exceptions for muggle borns, but bigots do that all the time for people they like or are useful to them.
Slytherins are the kids in every school story – the rich kids who think some trait or value makes them better than everyone else. It’s also based a lot in Britain’s own house system. There’s a good post about it here -https://heartofaquamarine.tumblr.com/post/165186336433/slytherin-and-eton-a-primer-on-the-british-school
well, that just sparked an epiphany. 🙂 I’d always thought hermione belonged in ravenclaw, but I made the exact same choice in high school myself – friendship before studying.
As an ambitious Slytherin… No I’m not doing that. I am however using my cunning to get ahead and achieve the things I need. Never by harming anyone, just by showing how all sides can benefit from an arrangement. I don’t cheat. I don’t lie. I just find mutually beneficial opportunities.
High five for being a better kind of Slytherin! Our house kinda gets a bad rap (not surprising, what with how many card carrying mustache-twirling villains get assigned to us), so it’s nice to see a less awful shade of us in the wild.
It is only her first semester. As a Poli major I didn’t start doing that sorta stuff until my 4th semester. She could just be trying to get the hang of her coursework first.
This whole “transfer to Yale” thing has always been problematic. Yale accepts “a small number of extraordinary transfer candidates each year.” If Dorothy wasn’t good enough to make it on the first try, she’s going to have improve by an order of magnitude to make it as a transfer student.
The fact that she’s not attending Yale doesn’t mean “she wasn’t good enough on the first try,” necessarily.
Yeah, probability militates that way. But it could also mean that, y’know, undergrad at a state school will save five figures a year, and she intends to transfer once she’s ready for upper-level coursework.
I was accepted into a couple of schools with cumulative four-year price tags equivalent to some high-end sports cars, and ended up enrolling at the University of Missouri; not that Mizzou was ‘cheap,’ exactly, at $10k’ish/year for an out-of-state student with my grades and SAT scores, but it wasn’t, uh, $45k/year, either.
I don’t recall immediately – she’s definitely said, over and over, that she plans to transfer to Yale, but nothing about why she didn’t go this year. For all we know, she couldn’t afford Yale for all four years.
What she NEEDS to do is not take her frustration out on Becky, but so far all she’s done is have feelings. People are allowed to have feelings. Even selfish, self-centered ones. Even ones that would be unfair to act upon. Because you can’t just choose NOT to have them
Even if her approach were completely wrongheaded and foolish, she’s put in a LOT of hard work and dedication towards a chance at a something maybe happening years down the line, and she just saw it casually dropped into the lap of someone who hadn’t so even expressed interest in it before. It is perfectly natural and okay for her to feel upset about that and lose her composure.
Dorothy clearly recognizes that it would be unfair to hold it against Becky, or she wouldn’t be trying to hide her reaction or congratulating Becky on having secured tuition and having been accepted into IU.
Next strip needs to be “Hired” and the alt-text needs to be about Dorothy swatting at invisible elves. But mostly, Dorothy needs to realise Exactly Here is where she gets that first campaign position of “Internship, but actually paid.”
Yeah, I knew this was not going to go over well with Dorothy. Wonder if she is going to be willing to offer Becky any advice or if she is going to make her figure it out on her own? Also, this shows that when Robin told her to pick 2 out of 3, she has chosen 1 of her 2. I wonder what the other one was?
On one hand, it’s an opportunity to get in on the ground floor of a campaign for an office bigger than county dog catcher.
On the other hand, it’s a campaign trying to elect a hardcore conservative candidate, and that might not fit well with her plans.
On the other other hand, it’s trying to turn public perception of said candidate around 180 degrees without alienating what fans they have left, which is an interesting challenge.
I mean, it’s ROBIN’S campaign. No one involved will know or care about the rules. (The current campaign manager got her job through cyber crimes, for Pete’s sake).
The much more relevant question is – ARE there any campaign funds or have Robin already spent them all on candy floss or something.
I figured when she chose two out of the three, she’d choose staying true to her ideology and the tuition. She’ll get room and board with that, so as long as Leslie’s able to put her up until the end of the semester, it seems like the best choice to me. Plus, wackier hijinks will ensue if she’s working for Robin while living with Leslie.
I wonder if Becky threw “until then, I want a place to live” in as a sacrificial demand, just in case Robin countered with “two out of three” like she did. She can use her campaign manager wages to rent a room, anyway.
She’s getting paid in tuition so I don’t think she’s getting anything else beyond that. If so, great. Chances are good though that she’ll still be working part-time while doing the campaign manager thing and college.
Okay so she took tuition enrollment that’s one of the three pics, now what was the second wish she made? You know what I’m just realizing it but Robin is a shity genie.
Maybe now Dorothy will realize that working yourself to the bone doesn’t mean jack shit when compared to knowing the right people. I get the feeling that she’s never done any networking before.
So far as I can tell Dorothy doesn’t actually have political convictions other than wanting to be President. Love the girl but Billie’s right. If you’re working for the position then you’re gonna be a lower court judge, maybe.
The UK has had two PMs with no convictions but wanting to be PM and one has been the biggest disaster in UK history, and the other is in the process of trying to outdo him.
Dotty, don’t be that Theresa May. It will only end in disaster whoever good a heart you have to start with.
As tragic as it is, I like the story that Dorothy is throwing away big parts of her life to focus on work, when that work just doesn’t matter like she thinks it does
Realigning one’s priorities is a big part of growing up. Walky helped Dorothy come a long way, but she still has to learn that the world won’t arrive in her lap when she checks all the boxes.
Actually…. re-reading that strip, Roz’s corny line about being born into politics (it’s from Batman) fits much better to Becky in this situation.
She got the job because she stuck her neck out and did some crazy underhand shit with Robin’s phone when she had the chance (something Dorothy would never even dream of doing). She then went on to exploit this connection for all it was worth. She created an opportunity for herself do jump right into the deep end of politics, and did so with a splash and a ‘wheeeee!’.
Robin came to her because she’s already doing the job Robin want her to do.
This frankly reckless behavior comes from a) growing up under a tyrant as unforgiving as he was stupid, teaching Becky that the only way to get shit done is to do it yourself, underhand; b) loosing everything, ending up on the street and able to scrape together a living only through the goodwill of her friends and a job she got by being forward and unprincipled (she’s too poor for principles); c) Never for a moment forgetting about having fun – access to a senator’s twitter account???? MEME TIME!!!
Say what you will about Robin, she recognizes talent when she sees it. Becky got a job she absolutely is suited for, because she broke every rule getting there in the first place.
@Fart Captor
I know, right? So many people in the comments seem to read Dorothy as being a calculating robot, but she’s always seemed pretty genuine to me, so I don’t understand where that’s coming from.
Because Dorothy wants to be a calculating robot, but isn’t very good at it.
We see this particularly in her relationship with Walky, from the very start where she talks about it as self-sabotage and distraction, through all the limits she tries to set and can’t keep.
To me she seems fully aware of her emotional and social needs and does her best to fit monkey mastering, sex and upside down Joyce-time with her work schedule.
The problem I see is that she bites over more than she can chew, not that she tries to be something she isn’t and shouldn’t be.
To some extent. She’s aware of somethings, but she also responds to some of those needs in poor ways. First trying to push aside her attraction to Walky as a distraction. Then imposing limits on the relationship and not being able to hold to them. She acknowledged this during the break up in a way, saying she was pushing him away and pulling him in and it wasn’t fair to him.
Even breaking up with Walky was trying to deny those needs. She’s bit off more than she can chew, but when that conflict comes it’s the relationship that has to go.
My read on Dorothy, which isn’t at odds with thejeff’s excellent precis, is that she does things because she thinks she should do them, and be seen to be doing them. What she lacks is the capacity for bullshitting (of others and of herself) that seems to be so necessary to getting ahead.
“listen dotty, if you wanna make it big in politics like me, all you gotta do is pick a political representative and hijack their social media, and start posting liberal ideology, like caring about people! it’s easy!”
Man, with these developments, in my future headcanon Dotty does git gud at politics, but also just becomes completely cynical, disillusioned, bitter and angry from exposure to all the amorals, incompetents and morons involved in the field.
So basically, Malcolm Tucker from The Thick of It.
For all my laughing at Dorothy’s misfortune, I really admire her for remembering to congratulate Becky.
For Dorothy this is an insult, another stone to the growing burden of feeling inadequate and malequipped for her chosen career path. Painful but manageable.
For Becky, this is a door opening to a future that would otherwise be denied her. This is the difference between being allowed to chase HER dream and… not.
And she did it herself, by being herself, by being forward and hillarious and hilarious and loopsidedly orange. Becky is well worth all praise for this.
Eh… I have a feeling her congratulations is more about her performing non-jealousy than actually feeling empathy for Becky’s situation.
I don’t mean to be a Dorothy hater!! I think that’s actually a nice instinct to have, since it’s one that at worst makes people feel good and congratulated (as opposed to instincts that would prompt her to say something mean that would hurt Becky).
I also think it’s likely that in a clearer mind she’ll be more Becky-focused and really understand how big this is for Becky. But right now she’s personally freaking out – and as someone below has said, it’s okay for her to have feelings and all that – and therefore I’m reading her responses as being about her.
(I guess I’m seeing it in this light because I was just binging a random middle section of the comic, and rereading the arc when Dorothy’s aiming for RA and she says in one breath, “Solved that scripting error? If so, good job. If not, I’m sure you will soon” or something like that to Rachel – like, responding before she knows what Rachel’s actual current status is, proving that she doesn’t actually care or isn’t really ready to engage/respond with Rachel as a person in the present moment… Sorry for ranting about a basically completely unrelated strip)
I mean I wouldn’t blame Dorothy for not being super nice to Becky tbh, Becky frequently heckles her, calls her a Hussy, and implies she’s a heartless , godless being, all because Joyce sees her as a friend.
Super not cool of Becky to come to the person she’s frequently unnecessary hostle and mean to, to basically rub her success in her face.
This reminds me of that Robot Chicken Sketch where Dexter from Dexter’s Laboratory couldn’t get into any good colleges because he didn’t have any extracurriculars
Poor Dorothy. Being raised to believe the “you can do anything if you work hard enough, you can be anything” Lie, it’s hard to have the reality that it’s all about money and/or connections laid bare.
I’m kind of annoyed with Becky for the way she’s handling this. She’s treated Dorothy with hostility basically since they met, and now, having gotten a job in a field that she knows Dorothy wants, she’s come over to brag about it and ask for pointers. And then when Dorothy gets frustrated but does her best to stay positive, Becky makes fun of her. Becky’s being kind of an insensitive jerk here.
I don’t see Becky bragging about it at all or making fun of Dorothy?
Becky doesn’t know how stressed out Dorothy is about being successful. They’ve only hung out a few times. And yeah, there’s a bit of tiny resentment that Joyce is really close to her, but she’s never been outright hostile towards Dorothy; they get along well enough.
And Becky’s on an emotional high right now. She just got hired, she just got enrolled, and she wants to make sure she succeeds. So sure, she’s gonna go to a friend that she knows is big on politics.
I’m hardly Becky’s biggest fan, but the most she’s guilty of here is a bit of ignorance and not picking up on Dorothy’s cues that she’s a lot more affected by this than at first glance.
She got kidnapped and disowned by her only family, made homeless, and now has an opportunity to actually enroll in school and pursue the career she wants instead of having to scrape by on minimum wage and MAYBE someday save enough to get loans that will put her in debt for the rest of her life.
She’s allowed to be fucking excited about that. She SHOULD be fucking excited about it. This is HUGE AND LIFE CHANGING FOR HER. Yeah, it’s understandable that Dorothy is having a hard time with it, but she would’ve found out eventually and she’ll get over it because she’s not an asshole.
Seems fairly reasonable for her to think it’s okay to ask Dorothy for advice. The fact that this is an area she knows Dorothy is highly interested in is also a really weird reason to give for why she SHOULDN’T have come to Dorothy? She’s seeking advice from a person she considers knowledgeable in the subject at hand.
She’s also not making fun of Dorothy in the last panel. If you notice her expression you’ll see she isn’t jeering at her. She’s surprised. I get how it could be seen as mocking, but I don’t read it that way at all. She’s just stating the obvious: that Dorothy is in fact quite upset. There’s nothing on her face to suggest She finds that amusing
I totally agree that she’s allowed to be excited about it! This is a great thing for Becky and it makes a bright future much more possible for her. My issue isn’t that Becky’s excited about it, it’s that it seems insensitive to gush about it to Dorothy, given how she’s treated her.
In the strip that you linked, the advice was about how Dorothy’s decision will affect Joyce, which is the primary subject that Becky’s been willing to compromise on with Dorothy (I remember Becky saying something like “I don’t like you and you don’t like me, but let’s truce tonight for Joyce’s sake” at some point). And at the end of the strip you linked, Becky reiterates that she sees Dorothy as a threat to her friendship with Joyce.
My overall read is that Becky’s been resentful towards Dorothy because of her possessiveness about Joyce, but it’s totally possible that I’m misreading a lot/all of this! I can be pretty off the mark about this kind of thing. It would make sense if these things that Becky’s said have been meant in a jokey way and I’m just reading them as more serious than they are.
Also, on reflection, it didn’t occur to me that Becky’s probably not had enough interactions with Dorothy to realize what she’s struggling with.
I think it’s very possible to have someone as a friend while still being a little jealous of them. It’s something that they might have to hash out at some point, but it doesn’t actually impede either of them from being nice to each other right now.
I think Becky knows, on some level, that her possessiveness over Joyce is something she’ll have to address. It’s a matter of when.
That makes sense. The more I think about it, the more it feels like I was misreading Becky’s attitude about this. Not really an insensitive jerk so much as unaware of the situation, like you said.
My read on the whole “rivalry” is that while there was definitely some real resentment behind it at first, Becky realized that was unfair of her pretty quick and has been doing it only playfully at least since she came out. Maybe part of her WANTS to be petty, and she’s defusing that feeling by being too ridiculous about it for anyone to take it seriously (I have a similar tendency to use humor and over-the-top antics to mask feelings I wasn’t comfortable with, and was especially bad about that in college (I could just be projecting but I feel like Becky’s doing something like it))
Like, remember that when she first started that, she was under a LOT of stress, and desperately in love with Joyce while also desperately afraid that she too would reject her when she found out Becky was gay. Once she came out and that didn’t happen she calmed down considerably and the worst she’d done since was call her Dotty (tho if that bothered her, it never showed) and insist that there was a rivalry between them. Even before that the worst she’d really done was call her a boney Poindexter one time, and even then, Dorothy’s never taken it personally.
There is also that the very thing that drives whatever feelings of jealousy Becky may still have also largely prevents her from actually hating Dorothy. The fact that she’s important to Joyce. She misses being the SINGLE most important person to Joyce, but there’s no way she isn’t grateful that Joyce had someone like Dorothy looking out for her. She’s also gotta know by now that it was Dorothy who made the call that brought Amazi-Girl to her rescue. There’s no way a bit of passing jealousy would overpower that, even she hasn’t brought it up. That would require a serious feelings talk and she’s probably still afraid of letting her “always fun and happy” mask down long enough to do that
Also yeah, the two of them don’t really talk often. Though even knowing Dorothy much better, it would be really easy to not think of how Dorothy might feel in her extreme excitement.
I don’t really disagree with the majority of what you’re saying but Becky has called her “friendship stealing hussy, say what?” I’d say calling someone you don’t know a hussy is worse. when Becky did bring up the rivalry when Dorothy was visibly confused/annoyed. We’ve never really gotten to see how Dorothy feels about Becky as a person versus someone needing help before. I could see her being rather annoyed by her behavior even if it was coming from justifiable places.
Beckys behaviour gets a lot of slack given because of her gender, sexuality and circumstances.
Her attitude towards Dorothy has been explained as just coming to terms with the situation, her snarkiness towards Jacob and his religion is written off as well shes had experience of structured religion and it wasn’t good for her, her pettiness towards others is well shes never had the freedom to express herself etc etc
Every time she acts inappropriately towards others someone will always have an excuse for her
“Beckys behaviour gets a lot of slack given because of her gender, sexuality and circumstances.”
Right. People only think she’s a decent person because she’s a poor lesbian. It’s the only explanation for them not having the correct opinion.
…oooorrrrr maybe what’s happening every time she does something that mildly annoys other characters and people don’t hate her for it and you get mad it’s because you’ve already written of any conflicting opinion has “identity politics” like some breitbart asshole
Everyone has biases, its completely natural. I’m biased towards Joe as I identify with him more than other characters so I don’t see why he gets as much flack as he does.
I’d suggest more than a few posters on here identify with Becky and her situation and so are likely to cut her more slack for her behaviour then some other character might get
Come on, Dorothy, connect the dots. Just working harder isn’t gonna get you to where you want to be. You need to get out and actually DO things, like Becky is!
Eh, I tend to view Scrooge as the kind of guy who requires a long journey for him to do the right thing. He’s only not the kind of guy who would be a Republican if you assume that they’re flat out requiring everyone to be Chaotic Evil these days.
….
*checks to see when he left the party and is glad it was awhile ago*
Though at least Carl Bark’s Scrooge came from a very different time. The parties were different.
Even Don Rosa’s wouldn’t have been a Trump Republican.
Rich people paying for a few individuals’ medical treatments and college just perpetuates the myth of private charity being sufficient, which it is not in the current Republican-purchased system.
Scrooge McDuck may or may not be a real Republican, but he seems to be a great propaganda piece for Republicans. I bet he’s also promoted a few people from the mailroom.
I never said it was a substitute for systemic action, I said it didn’t seem very Republican-y. Today’s Republican party seems to have moved from ‘private charity is enough’ back to the bootstrap myth and it’s been doing so since at least the 80s.
Mind you, a central conflict of Scrooge McDuck is he DOES believe in the bootstrap myth because he was an impoverished man who made his fortune from nothing.
Kinda sorta. Like I said, depending on the story, he also puts his money into other people so they can progress themselves, which flies in the face of the bootstrap idea.
Okay, first, remember that Dorothy has asked Becky for advice in the past. People keep saying these two are supposed to be enemies, but no, Dorothy asked Becky for advice and Becky freely gave it. That is the relationship they have.
And now, look at the last panel of this comic. “…Wait, I’m sorry, are you jealous?” That is not said in mockery. It is genuine surprise, with an apology attached. Becky is not rubbing her success into Dorothy’s face, this is a relationship where advice is freely asked for and given about subjects the other knows about, and Becky assumes Dorothy knows more about politics than she. The possibility that Dorothy would be jealous didn’t even occur to her.
This was not an act of braggery or mockery. This was an act of celebration, and reciprocal asking for advice about that which the other partner has greater experience, and Becky sharing something about herself with Dorothy that she thinks they share.
Yeah, stay well away from those hands, Becky. It may be taking all of Dorothy’s control to keep them from wrapping around your throat!
As I’ve said before, this, combined with Joyce’s new attitude and Sal and Walky’s changed approach may lead poor Dorothy to wonder if she’s had a stress-induced breakdown and is having a delusion!
*Breathes out* … okay, that’s out of my system, great.
This is a pretty good page. I like the symmetry of it, with two closeups of their faces in the middle. And Dorothy’s stance in panel two is a nice touch, it shows that she just entered the frame. I’m glad we see Becky’s face in panel six, it shows her surprise well.
Dorothy’s panel six face is horrifying. I do not want to imagine a real human face twisting like that.
I want to remind people that a paycheck wasn’t in the stipulations that Becky made to Robin, so as far as we know she isn’t gonna get paid cash by this campaign manager job. However, being paid in tuition is honestly much better in the long run.
I am REALLY glad this is happening to Dorothy. She NEEDS to learn that, in her chosen field, CONNECTIONS are what really matters in the end. IE She’s just hurting her chances by shutting herself away
I’m sort of expecting Dorothy to do something silly as a rebound; something that may or may not impact strongly on her relationships with other people.
For now… Well, panel 6 is very clear that she’s about to start bawling.
Okay, I’ve kind of gathered my thoughts and will write something of substance.
The problem I see with Dorothy is this: I feel like she places too much emphasis in book learning, grades and a merit-based ideology in a political system that requires social skills over all else. The ability to talk to people and convince them of your world view, the ability to negotiate tough situations, the willingness to rub shoulders with the right people; Dorothy refuses opportunities to get around people with different world views and exercise those skills, would rather take a neutral point of view than argue her values, and actively seeks to cut herself off from people in hopes of finding that perfect workflow to “prepare” herself for some vague future success.
That last one is the kicker. She’s freely admitted to be afraid of failing, and her reaction is to prepare herself through study. She’s so adamant about being prepared for anything that she’ll push everyone away to make sure she figures it all out before actually doing anything. However, it’s precisely that fear of failure that’s capped any chance of future success because it’s through failure that we learn to succeed.
I would write a bit more but it’s super late and I need to sleep. I may get back to this later. The last thing I’ll say is this: As DeSanto’s new campaign manager, I think she’s under authority to hire whoever she feels is up to the task of helping her. Why couldn’t she hire Dorothy? Assuming, of course, Dorothy doesn’t reject her offer out of her “I wanna earn it myself” attitude which I feel is terribly flawed logic, this is absolutely the kind of in that Dorothy’s been needing, and validation that she’s been craving. Granted, she wouldn’t have expected it from someone like Becky, but nothing usually ever happens the way one thinks it does.
At the beginning this is true, and there are remanents of this. However, she immersed herself in way more activies than most students and is arguably more exposed to people than a party or dorm group. She was with the paper chasing down Amazagirl and doing rally work. She gets dismissive when she’s working on a goal but that’s not the same as not making connection she in the first place. She is prioritizing academics, which is false in her field as you’ve said. She probably thinks she needs it to eclipse the female, atheist angle and have a piece of paper that says she’s capable. This is sabbotaging behavior for the reasons pointed out – she’d need more connections and endorsements versus a piece of paper.
Tat being said, when she noticed she was failing she went to councilors to balance out. She’s in therapy because she couldn’t handle the stabbing. She admitted when she was failing the relationship. I’d say she already knows how to handle failure even if she doesn’t like it. She also knows she needs to balance even if she’s sucking at it. She’s prioritizing school and is incredibly optimistic. She just hasn’t found her balance yet and we’re seeing it now.
It occurs to me Dotty could be a great engineer. She could be the next Buckminster Fuller, going from designing buildings to designing plumbing and space elevators and even wilder inventions to designing a society that works for humans. By the time she mellows out at, like, 80 and can get people to care about what she has to say she could save the world.
Things I hope Dorothy takes from this:
1. Staying in your dorm and over-working yourself is no replacement for actually getting out there and DOING something.
2. You don’t need high grades to be a campaign staffer. You need to actually be able to contribute something.
3. She needs to get out of her bubble and expand her worldview.
She THINKS she’s super open-minded and has it all figured out, but she’s never actually lived. No cross-referenced list of things and facts will get you to where you want to go. BE the people to KNOW the people. That’s why Roz had a better shot at being RA then she did a few chapters back.
Decades ago, my parents insisted I didnt need to work as long as I was in school, because they both grew up super poor and both had to drop out to work. I left university having never so much as done a job at McDonald’s and discovered, while it was great I didn’t have to choose between working at school like they did, I was at a massive disadvantage with everyone else who already had five or six years of SOME working experience graduating at the same time as me.
Becky, the ideas + Dorothy, the brains + Desanto, the face and connections = Desanto re-elected? + Dorothy, the politically experienced + Becky, the enrolled
Whether she actually gets re-elected is a toss-up, but this seems like a potential place for it go.
There’s good reason Elizabeth Warren is running far behind Beto O’Rourke. Leadership, especially in a democracy, is about more than being the biggest brain in the room.
And apparently especially ones whose names start with “B” 🙂
I think sexism plays a huge role in the media’s approach. The women in the race really have to struggle to get coverage.
Though as far as I can tell, Warren isn’t running far behind O’Rourke. They’re both in the pack fighting it out for third behind Biden and Sanders. Depending on the poll, sometimes one is ahead, sometimes the other. Both polling somewhere around 7-9%.
Becky deserves it and has the right talents for the job. She’s got charisma, initiative, and resilience in spades. And she’s obviously extremely smart; she’s amassed a huge amount of knowledge and awareness in a very short amount of time. (Also yay for her getting school paid for, which presumably includes getting to live in the dorms!!)
Putting Dorothy and Robin to the side for a moment…
GO BECKY!!!!!
It’s been what… a couple of weeks since she escaped her butthole father with a gun. Since then she has landed a rad haircut, a sweet-ass girlfriend, a bunch of friends, an extended family that includes her Joyce, an awesome Lesbian surrogate mom (with a couch) and a kinda cool bonus dad, TWO jobs and now a friggin’ EDUCATION!
Becky is AWESOME! At this rate she will be president supreme of the extended Galaxy before spring break.
Of course by spring break, we may have developed real space travel and President Supreme of the Extended Galaxy might be a real thing.
Spring break is a long time in the future.
Considering that “I just work harder”… Anyone else thinks that this will be the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back? Dotty is already pushing herself beyond the breaking point and this will, more than likely, push her even Further beyond it. She will most likely collapse, get hospitalized maybe, and might just fall apart psychologically.
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I mean come on, Dotty, you’d be a MUCH better campaign manager for like Hillary or Bernie, why you even mad
I doubt she’d be a good campaign manager for Bernie, and noone can help Hilary win if even running against an orange turd didn’t manage it. Frankly, Dorothy should just stick to legislation. Ironically, Becky indeed makes for a much better face of a campaign.
P.S. I wrote Betty at first. I blame your Dotty. It’s addictive.
Okay, can we put a moratorium on “Nothing could help Hilary win, look who she lost against”? You had the full weight of the Russian government putting their foot on the scale, let’s stop pretending that the 2016 election was anything less than an abortion of democracy.
Not to mention the utter mess that is the Electoral College. When you get the majority of the popular vote, but somehow still lose, something’s broken.
Yup, the one time in 200 plus years that the exact situation the Electoral College was set up to prevent actually occurs, and it failed miserably. I don’t understand why it is still a thing, just go with the popular vote already.
Because it’s set up to be hard to change. Because small states and swing states benefit by it and they’d have to sign on to any change.
When the wealth of the US was vaulted in the agrarian states, the imbalance was at least logically justified.
That hasn’t been the case since the 1900s.
This. Hillary Clinton won the popular vote despite Russian interference, and only lost the election because your system has the electoral college, which is specifically designed to privilege rural areas over population centers.
It’s also worth noting that a lot of the Bernie supporters, after their candidate dropped out of the race, DIDN’T transfer their votes to Hillary. They simply stayed at home and didn’t vote. In hindsight, given the global trend of people voting for unconventional or even extremist leaders as a protest vote against the status quo, I think the Democrat party would have been wise to throw their support behind Bernie instead of Hillary.
Except that in the primaries Clinton also won the popular vote, if I recall correctly.
I mean, the primaries are a clusterfuck in some states. Nevada’s voice vote was arguably in favor of Bernie and should have went to a more definitive voting system and other states seemed to be pulling the same shenanigans against Bernie that the Republicans pull against Dems. Also, Sanders was a no one that the DNC tried to undermine for entire campaign and he still came close to winning. And polls showed him doing better than Clinton against Trump.
Some of the primaries are a clusterfuck. But they’ve long been that way and candidates need to adapt. Bernie did well in most caucus states and those are at least as messed up as anything.
Nor would I trust polls for the general during the primary – particularly for a non-frontrunner who hadn’t been seriously attacked by the GOP at that point.
More Bernie supporters came out for Hillary in 2016 than Hillary voters came out for Obama in 2008.
now that IS surprising
Not really. That primary was nasty.
It just blew over because Obama won, so there was nothing to blame on the “PUMAs”.
Plus, there weren’t Russian troll farms dedicated to keeping the anger going back then. Mostly the first though.
PUMAs?
A group of Clinton supporters after she lost the 2008 primary. With the usual accusations that Obama was selected by the party leadership, not the voters and of various underhanded primary shenanigans.
Officially registered as “People United Means Action”, but originally
“Party Unity My Ass” – which could easily have been adopted by the Bernie holdouts. There is nothing new under the sun.
I think it would’ve been enough if the upper echelons of the party hadn’t actively worked against Sanders, lost votes for him or declared them void, and given Clinton unfair advantages like letting her team know what questions would be asked beforehand. I can definitely understand why many people who preferred Sanders stayed home then, I wouldn’t have voted for “my” party’s chosen candidate under those circumstances either. The democrat party leadership fucked up on so many levels and displayed such a lack of awareness they were almost on par with Trump. And in a contest of stupidity, experience trumps everything.
Russian interference or not (and personally I think that if there was any such interference it had a marginal effect at worst and is most probably negligible), the democrat party leadership chose one of their least popular candidates and managed to alienate a large part of its base with their blatant display of favouritism during the primaries. That alone would be enough to lose an election pretty much anywhere, but doubly so in the USA where elections on the national level tend to be quite close and there’s a weird electoral college in place. I see the fact that she even won the popular vote as more of a testament to how deeply unpopular Trump was even before being elected. Had she gone up against a more typical republican candidate I think she would’ve lost that one as well.
Contrafactual speculation is hard, but I suspect Sanders would have lost as well. It would have been a very different campaign obviously and we don’t know what would have been thrown at him, but it would have been messy. Sanders never really faced any serious negative campaign attacks, so it’s hard to know how he would have handled it. We’d still have Russian interference driving up conflicts among Democrats.
I’ve speculated before that if Sanders had won the nomination, we’d be sitting here today wishing we’d run the sensible moderate who could have peeled away Republican leaners who were turned off by Trump, but voted for him anyway because of the scary socialist.
It depends. I think Sanders would have campaigned in the “firewall” states that Clinton lost, but I also think we would have had some veiled antisemitism rather than open misogyny from the Trump camp. So I guess it would be a matter of whether Sanders’ populist message would have turned the votes in those states more than crypto-fascists would have stumbled over each other to make ZOG memes.
I just want to make a simple correction in terminology here because the baffling alt-right conspiracy theory that it’s called the “Democrat” party exists.
The name of the left-ish party in the US is the Democratic party, not the Democrat party. There is no Democrat party.
Both party names are horrible. Calling it the Democratic party makes it sound like voting against them means that you do not want a democratic government. “Take away my right to vote please!” Likewise if you don’t vote for the Republican party does it not sound like you don’t want a republic? “All hail the emperor!”
Marketing is evil.
Reps and Dems will do just fine.
Not being a republic doesn’t necessarily mean an emperor. For instance, direct democracies wouldn’t be republics. They’d be fictional but 😛
But at least “Democratic Party” is the actual name of the party, not a deliberate tactic by the other party.
Also, “republic” and “emperor” are not mutually exclusive
Just look ancient Rome
I thought the left-ish party in the USA was the green party?
It’s left as compared to Nazis, which in the US that’s all it takes to be a pinko commie.
Given that the Nazis support the Republican party, I’m happy to back what is by world terms a centrist party without fussing to much.
We’re a two party system by design. As much as I like much of the Green platform, in recent decades they’ve mostly been played by Republicans to draw off leftist voters from Democrats to allow Republican victories. In some cases getting funding from Republican donors so they can compete.
The Green Party took the money it raised last election cycle and ran, last I checked. They’re money-grubbing spoilers.
Even more terrifying to me, the orange dumpster fire wasn’t as bad a candidate as we all thought he was. He ran a classic demagogue “scare the hell out of people, pose as a strong man, throw them scapegoats and promise easy fixes” campaign and that resonated with a lot of Americans. Enough to make it close enough to steal. It made him horribly unpopular with those it didn’t work on, but I don’t think the things we see as drawbacks actually cost him many votes. They just further divided the country.
This is the model the GOP’s been nodding and winking to for decades, but now they’ve learned it works when done openly. We’ll see more of it, assuming we survive Trump.
The Russians wouldn’t have had enough of an opening to do that if a better politician had been run. “Oh, sure, let’s run the person who’s been subject to a many decades-long smear campaign, who uses the phrase ‘AmErIcA iS aLrEaDy GrEaT’ when people are pissed as fuuuuuuck about their living situation. That’ll go over well.”
Changing the candidate the DNC backed at the last minute like that, in the primary, when no other candidates with recent high levels of name recognition had been running, would have probably fed speculation that there was a concrete institutional cause to think Hillary unelectable and that the party was looking to cover its own arse and distance itself from her – and would have inevitably occurred without anyone explaining why.
The opposition’s conspiracy theories would have then gained fertile ground to take root even deeper in the mainstream, harming all future candidates fielded by the party for several elections.
It’s a pretty simple calculus.
So you’re suggesting that the Democratic Party should have stepped in and blocked Clinton from running? Yeah, that would have gone well.
My strong suspicion is that there was little if any more shenanigans going on in the DNC’s support of Clinton than there has been in previous primaries – including in 2008 where Clinton ran as the establishment favorite and lost to Obama anyway in a closer race than the 2016 primary.
The real difference is that this time Russian hackers exposed some of the internal discussion and a lot of idealistic Sanders supporters saw the dirty process of politics for the first time.
I’m an old cynic. I didn’t see anything in those revelations that struck me as outside the normal. Some favoritism. Some suggestions that apparently weren’t used. No serious ratfucking.
I think that the Democratic party pushed for a hilary candidacy and against a bernie candidacy because they had already set up a ton of political relationships behind the scenes (‘you scratch my back and i’ll scratch yours,’ you know), which is why it appeared to be ‘structured’ to give her the nomination. Because it was.
“Electability” or “what the voters want” is only one factor in deciding who gets the nomination, and it appears that in 2016 it wasn’t a very important one. When i saw Howard Dean say in a TV interview “Hillary Clinton’s going to be our next president” like it was a given, i got a sinking feeling that Trump was going to win. Partly because that sort of arrogance goes over poorly with americans, but also because he (they) clearly thought they had the election in the bag already. Meaning that they didn’t think that pushing for democratic voters to get out and vote wasn’t a big deal. Which is terryifyingly idiotic.
Of course, the really important election is the 2020 one because whoever controls congress will control redistricting. If the republicans get it, they’ll be able to lock in minority control for a decade.
Note that redistricting is not controlled by Congress, but by the various state legislatures and governors.
So vote in your state elections! They matter.
There’s little evidence that 2016 was any more “structured” to give Clinton the nomination than any other recent primary. Clinton was an insider and she’d played the game well, winning a lot of support from establishment politicians. She’d done the same in 2008, though not quite as well. In 2008 that support evaporated as she started losing primary contests to some young upstart named Obama.
In 2016, if she’d started losing to Sanders, the party would have fallen in behind him. But she didn’t.
I live in a country where some candidates ACTUALLY have the full weight of the Russian government behind them. Like, journalists have managed to trace the tens of millions in campaign funds back to Putin.
The campaign amounted to around 200 000 votes, 10-15% of all. Russia can’t successfully buy the elections in a country with less population than the city of New York, so you certainly overstate their importance for the US elections.
Anyway, it’s really funny to watch this. I thought I’d read some insights on Dotty in the comments, yet it’s meltdown over 2016.
Peeling away 10-15% of another candidate’s vote is massive and a really easy/cheap way to win what would otherwise be a mostly 2 way race, if you’re really backing someone else. And it’s not like Russian candidates don’t win in many, many other countries. Belarus is a classic Soviet-era puppet dictatorship in a “Union State” with Russia, right now, in 2019. Need I go on?
Elections are pretty hackable now, especially with a bad system and the right datasets, both of which are readily available in the US. As proven by redistricting, and literal court transcripts about redistricting, from the mapmakers.
Peeling away 200 000 votes is nothing, however.
I think you are conflating Russia buying votes and votes being swayed because of legitimate issues that get brought up by Russian-paid influencers. The first can’t really be combated unless you just pay more. The second is easy to overcome as long as YOU address these legitimate issues too.
Belarus is a dictatorship. We can’t talk about buying votes there. They don’t need to buy votes when they can just lie about the results and arrest the dissenters. Same in Russia.
That enrollment process went FAST.
That makes me wonder if she was accepted beforehand and is just getting money now or if Robin’s just that good.
Robin knows the dean. He introduced her into the comic itself. 😉
Yes, but he doesn’t like her. 😉
Mm. This is true.
To be fair, if I were him, I wouldn’t like her either. She must be the worst to work with.
Liking someone and working with them don’t need to correlate all that highly in upper echelon politics. If it were a dealbreaker, nothing would get done. College probably gets a LOT of government funding that gets reapproved ebery budget cycle.
It’s not Robin solely who reapproves things. And yes, he’s capable of working with her, but that doesn’t translate necessarily to special, personal favours.
OTOH, fast-tracking the enrollment DOES prevent headlines like “Teenager shot at in University campus struggles to get enrolled for being a lesbian.” which is technically true, even if I played with the parsing a bit to make it more outrageous.
I’m pretty sure the process is way faster in community/ city colleges. the dean connection mentioned helps but ultimately i guess it would be easier for the narrative to not hinge on becky’s enrollment status
Except I think it’s implied Becky is enrolling at IU, not the local JC.
Which shows that Becky knows who she’s dealing with. Get what she want in writing. Get it through official channels. Get it NOW.
That’s the only way to be sure.
Truly a Willis Ex Machina!
I’m guessing that she just got the process fast-tracked. Poking the bureaucracy on the behalf of constituents to get it unjammed is something good representatives do. …. and also Robin, apparently.
Please don’t go out and grab some electrical wires dorothy!!
*Crazy
how long before she cries blood?
About two to three panels, if I’m any judge.
You can do both Dorothy. you can do both.
Narrator: She will do both.
At the same time. Sierra can give her pointers.
looks like someone’s about to have an Elder Price moment
Dorothy needs to take a serious chill pill. Has she even volunteered to work at any campaign offices? Or is she one of those “theory trumps doing” people?
She’s got a really rigid idea of what her path forward will be, so she probably hasn’t volunteered to do any of that stuff yet, not that she currently even has time to with her schoolwork and journalism.
She’s a Slytherin, desperately trying to convince herself and the world she’s Hufflepuff
I wanna say she’s a Ravenclaw because she’s been really going for that whole ‘intelligence and knowledge trumps all’ thing. (Which isn’t bad, but for this situation it won’t give her the edge.) Also, I think if she were Slytherin she’d probably be better at manipulating folks and might’ve actually gotten that RA position.
I can see her being placed as either a Ravenclaw or a Slytherin, but I’d argue that she’s more of a Slytherin because of how ambitious she is.
Nah. Ravenclaw. The idea that ambition is an essential slytherin trait is set up in the first book, but it’s never really carried through–and it’s demolished completely when we run into our first Hufflepuff villain.
Anyone can be ambitious. Or not.
Ambitious Slytherins use ruthlessness and hard-to-catch cheating.
Ambitious Ravenclaws try to learn everything and just outplay people.
Ambitious Hufflepuffs network and outwork everyone.
Ambitious Gryffindors try to do the right thing and just plow through opposition to their goals (in many ways, they act a lot like Slytherins but with different flavor).
Dorothy is a huffleclaw. She thinks that knowledge is the way to power — and that hard work is the way to knowledge.
Becky is a gryfferin. She thinks the most important thing is to do the right thing–but is entirely willing to do below-board, sneaky methods to accomplish them.
This probably doesn’t entirely match Sorting Hat Chat’s system (which expressly does primary=how you define your goals; secondary=how you accomplish them), but I wasn’t focusing on that model so much as conceptualizing the characters.
People don’t really think when they’re sorting characters about the fact it’s not what traits a person has, it’s what traits they value. Crabbe and Goyle are followers without a shred of cunning. BUT they value blood purity (a value Salazar Slytherin had), cunning, and disregard for rules, so Slytherin they went.
That’s true to a certain extent, because as far as I can tell, the sorting hat will put you into whichever house you want if you demand it (like Harry asking not to be put into Slytherin). So you’ll end up in whichever house you value most. But I still maintain that Hermione is a textbook Ravenclaw, and that she would’ve fit in much more with that house.
But she didn’t want Ravenclaw. She believes friendship and bravery are more important than cleverness or learning. She also said Gryffindor sounded by far the best on the train. She wanted Gryffindor because it matched her values more. Yes, looking at personal traits, she fits more with Ravenclaw, but looking at what she values, Gryffindor is pretty clear imo.
I think Rowling is a hack who just came up with the sorting hat as a neat idea and didn’t put much thought into it at all. “Alright, I’ll have one house where all the protagonists are, and one house where all the bad guys are, and then maybe two others to balance it out. But how can I go about that? Hmm… I know! I’ll just pick some random traits people might have and then some magical doohickey decides where these 11-year old children go! What’s a good trait to have? Bravery! Yes, the good guys are all brave. Bad traits… cowardice? ruthlessness? Noo, it has to at least sound a little positive. Ambition… yeah, that works, the bad house gets ambition as its trait. Ok, other two houses… all the nerds go in one house and the final one gets everything else.” And then she promptly decided to not care about any of that while actually writing the books. She needed the hat for one thing only: To get her characters into the right house for whatever plot she could think of. She had absolutely no concerns about keeping the larger picture internally consistent once the hat had fulfilled that purpose.
Mostly I think that last – though I wouldn’t describe her as a hack. The criteria it’s said the Hat uses don’t match the way characters are actually sorted.
Only, again, if you’re looking at whether the characters have inherent traits from those houses vs whether or not the characters actually value those traits. Also, that ignores there’s a variety of traits for each house. The trait that sticks so many bad guys in Slytherin isn’t because they value ambition, it’s because they value blood purity, just like their bigoted founder.
“Blood purity”, or how much you value it, is not something the hat sorts for, though. There are confirmed mudbloods in Slytherin, and the Slytherin trait the hat looks for is stated to be ambition.
The reason all of Slytherin is obsessed with lineage or “blood purity” is because racism is a bad thing, Slytherin is the house for bad things, therefor, every racist character has to be in Slytherin.
I don’t think Rowling would have known how to write anything nuanced when she started the series, she was showing signs of learning by book 6 but it never got better than that. She definitely wouldn’t have considered putting some of those blood purists in any other house than Slytherin.
That’s not true at all. The hat doesn’t only sort for one value. That’s vastly oversimplifying each house. Each house has a variety of values, which is why muggle borns (not mud bloods) end up in Slytherin. The hat is explicitly a stand in for the founders. He takes the kids the founders would have wanted. Salazar Slytherin was a bigoted prick who only wanted to teach purebloods and halfbloods. Yes, he was apparently willing to make rare exceptions for occasional muggle borns, but he was still a bigot and the Hat is looking for how closely a student’s values match the founders to see who the founders would have wanted. Even just looking at the Sorting Hat’s songs will show you more than just ambition for Slytherin. Cunning, a certain disregard for rules, resourcefulness, and yes, blood purity are all other values associated with Slytherin in canon.
Slytherin house is also based off kids with too much money and privilege and thinking that makes them better than anyone else (and were, unsurprisingly, full of bigotry), which was a real problem in British schools in the 90s, particularly those with the house system. There’s a pretty good post about it here: https://heartofaquamarine.tumblr.com/post/165186336433/slytherin-and-eton-a-primer-on-the-british-school
This is false.
There’s more than one value the hat looks for. Others mentioned for Slytherin include cunning, resourcefulness, disregard for rules, and, yes, blood purity, among other things. The Hat is also explicitly there as a stand in for the founders. He picks kids the founders would have picked. Salazar Slytherin was a bigoted prick who only wanted purebloods around, so that’s what Slytherin gets. Yes, he apparently was willing to make rare exceptions for muggle borns, but bigots do that all the time for people they like or are useful to them.
Slytherins are the kids in every school story – the rich kids who think some trait or value makes them better than everyone else. It’s also based a lot in Britain’s own house system. There’s a good post about it here -https://heartofaquamarine.tumblr.com/post/165186336433/slytherin-and-eton-a-primer-on-the-british-school
well, that just sparked an epiphany. 🙂 I’d always thought hermione belonged in ravenclaw, but I made the exact same choice in high school myself – friendship before studying.
As an ambitious Slytherin… No I’m not doing that. I am however using my cunning to get ahead and achieve the things I need. Never by harming anyone, just by showing how all sides can benefit from an arrangement. I don’t cheat. I don’t lie. I just find mutually beneficial opportunities.
High five for being a better kind of Slytherin! Our house kinda gets a bad rap (not surprising, what with how many card carrying mustache-twirling villains get assigned to us), so it’s nice to see a less awful shade of us in the wild.
I think her problem is the opposite. She’s certain she’s a Slytherin, but actually she’s a Hufflepuff.
She canvasses for one of her poli sci classes.
It is only her first semester. As a Poli major I didn’t start doing that sorta stuff until my 4th semester. She could just be trying to get the hang of her coursework first.
Plus, she doesn’t intend to stay here – she plans to transfer to Yale. She might want to wait to get to the bigger pond first.
This whole “transfer to Yale” thing has always been problematic. Yale accepts “a small number of extraordinary transfer candidates each year.” If Dorothy wasn’t good enough to make it on the first try, she’s going to have improve by an order of magnitude to make it as a transfer student.
You see why she’s stressed then. 😛
The fact that she’s not attending Yale doesn’t mean “she wasn’t good enough on the first try,” necessarily.
Yeah, probability militates that way. But it could also mean that, y’know, undergrad at a state school will save five figures a year, and she intends to transfer once she’s ready for upper-level coursework.
I was accepted into a couple of schools with cumulative four-year price tags equivalent to some high-end sports cars, and ended up enrolling at the University of Missouri; not that Mizzou was ‘cheap,’ exactly, at $10k’ish/year for an out-of-state student with my grades and SAT scores, but it wasn’t, uh, $45k/year, either.
Hasn’t she explicitly stated she didn’t get in?
I don’t recall immediately – she’s definitely said, over and over, that she plans to transfer to Yale, but nothing about why she didn’t go this year. For all we know, she couldn’t afford Yale for all four years.
Why would that matter?
What she NEEDS to do is not take her frustration out on Becky, but so far all she’s done is have feelings. People are allowed to have feelings. Even selfish, self-centered ones. Even ones that would be unfair to act upon. Because you can’t just choose NOT to have them
Even if her approach were completely wrongheaded and foolish, she’s put in a LOT of hard work and dedication towards a chance at a something maybe happening years down the line, and she just saw it casually dropped into the lap of someone who hadn’t so even expressed interest in it before. It is perfectly natural and okay for her to feel upset about that and lose her composure.
Dorothy clearly recognizes that it would be unfair to hold it against Becky, or she wouldn’t be trying to hide her reaction or congratulating Becky on having secured tuition and having been accepted into IU.
YES THANK YOU
All feelings are valid to feel
We can’t just not feel pain or pleasure just because we don’t want to
Same with emotional sensations
Next strip needs to be “Hired” and the alt-text needs to be about Dorothy swatting at invisible elves. But mostly, Dorothy needs to realise Exactly Here is where she gets that first campaign position of “Internship, but actually paid.”
So, who wears the wet rag on their head?
We should write a musical version of it.
*waits to see how many people make gravs of that last panel Dorothy face*
*cues up some Club Nouveau for the hacked Muzak*
Yeah, I knew this was not going to go over well with Dorothy. Wonder if she is going to be willing to offer Becky any advice or if she is going to make her figure it out on her own? Also, this shows that when Robin told her to pick 2 out of 3, she has chosen 1 of her 2. I wonder what the other one was?
On one hand, it’s an opportunity to get in on the ground floor of a campaign for an office bigger than county dog catcher.
On the other hand, it’s a campaign trying to elect a hardcore conservative candidate, and that might not fit well with her plans.
On the other other hand, it’s trying to turn public perception of said candidate around 180 degrees without alienating what fans they have left, which is an interesting challenge.
Oh dear.
I don’t think Dorothy’s last couple of weeks have put her in a good place to handle disillusionment.
Sadly, no.
Fortunately, she still has her support network. Walky-sex is off the table, but she can at least get some sweet, sweet upside down Joyce-time.
Are campaign managers allowed to hire people with campaign funds? I have no idea how any of that works and have no desire to look it up.
I mean, it’s ROBIN’S campaign. No one involved will know or care about the rules. (The current campaign manager got her job through cyber crimes, for Pete’s sake).
The much more relevant question is – ARE there any campaign funds or have Robin already spent them all on candy floss or something.
The mega pout in the last panel is just hysterical.
I know, right!
Oh, Becky, honey. Please don’t’ve sold out the people so you don’t have an awkward living situation.
I figured when she chose two out of the three, she’d choose staying true to her ideology and the tuition. She’ll get room and board with that, so as long as Leslie’s able to put her up until the end of the semester, it seems like the best choice to me. Plus, wackier hijinks will ensue if she’s working for Robin while living with Leslie.
…I hope that’s right, at least. >_>;
I wonder if Becky threw “until then, I want a place to live” in as a sacrificial demand, just in case Robin countered with “two out of three” like she did. She can use her campaign manager wages to rent a room, anyway.
She’s getting paid in tuition so I don’t think she’s getting anything else beyond that. If so, great. Chances are good though that she’ll still be working part-time while doing the campaign manager thing and college.
Okay so she took tuition enrollment that’s one of the three pics, now what was the second wish she made? You know what I’m just realizing it but Robin is a shity genie.
Maybe now Dorothy will realize that working yourself to the bone doesn’t mean jack shit when compared to knowing the right people. I get the feeling that she’s never done any networking before.
What are you talking about? She is GREAT at networking:
You know… OKish.
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-7/01-glower-vacuum/groundswell/
So far as I can tell Dorothy doesn’t actually have political convictions other than wanting to be President. Love the girl but Billie’s right. If you’re working for the position then you’re gonna be a lower court judge, maybe.
Yep. Dorothy set herself up for major disappointment and disillusionment long ago.
The UK has had two PMs with no convictions but wanting to be PM and one has been the biggest disaster in UK history, and the other is in the process of trying to outdo him.
Dotty, don’t be that Theresa May. It will only end in disaster whoever good a heart you have to start with.
As tragic as it is, I like the story that Dorothy is throwing away big parts of her life to focus on work, when that work just doesn’t matter like she thinks it does
Realigning one’s priorities is a big part of growing up. Walky helped Dorothy come a long way, but she still has to learn that the world won’t arrive in her lap when she checks all the boxes.
Dorothy, those aren’t mutually exclusive.
Becky, take a couple steps back, just in case. 😛
Last thing we need is someone else trying to kill Becky, she has probably had enough of that.
Eh, what’s a mild throttling between friends? 😛
Oh how the tables have turned!
Jobstealinghussysayswhat
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-5/02-threes-a-crowd/resilient/
So, is there a political-position equivalent to Dina that Dorothy can fall
in love withinto, then?Jake Manley’s campaign?
DEY TOOK ER JERB!
Dorothy: “I…worked on this [career path] for a year…and…she just…she tweeted it out.”
Very much enjoy dotty exploring something other than a calculated and advantageous mood. What does anger look like on her?
“WILL EVERYONE STOP BELIEVING I’M FUCKING PERFECT?!”
Getting angry is useless.
She gets BETTER.
(That’s from Batman)
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-7/01-glower-vacuum/ally/
Actually…. re-reading that strip, Roz’s corny line about being born into politics (it’s from Batman) fits much better to Becky in this situation.
She got the job because she stuck her neck out and did some crazy underhand shit with Robin’s phone when she had the chance (something Dorothy would never even dream of doing). She then went on to exploit this connection for all it was worth. She created an opportunity for herself do jump right into the deep end of politics, and did so with a splash and a ‘wheeeee!’.
Robin came to her because she’s already doing the job Robin want her to do.
This frankly reckless behavior comes from a) growing up under a tyrant as unforgiving as he was stupid, teaching Becky that the only way to get shit done is to do it yourself, underhand; b) loosing everything, ending up on the street and able to scrape together a living only through the goodwill of her friends and a job she got by being forward and unprincipled (she’s too poor for principles); c) Never for a moment forgetting about having fun – access to a senator’s twitter account???? MEME TIME!!!
Say what you will about Robin, she recognizes talent when she sees it. Becky got a job she absolutely is suited for, because she broke every rule getting there in the first place.
Because she’s the Campaign Manager that Robin deserves, but not the one she needs right now.
Robin doesn’t need a campaign manager, she needs a miracle worker.
I dunno, stranger things have happened in politics.
I’m hoping it’s that bad. I don’t really want Robin to win.
When I first saw tonite’s QC I was wondering how few minutes it would take for you to change your gravatar. Great stuff!
Heh, agreed. Awesome gravatar
She’s shown all kinds of emotions that weren’t calculated at all? In fact I’m pretty sure that’s most of the emotions she’s displayed
@Fart Captor
I know, right? So many people in the comments seem to read Dorothy as being a calculating robot, but she’s always seemed pretty genuine to me, so I don’t understand where that’s coming from.
Because Dorothy wants to be a calculating robot, but isn’t very good at it.
We see this particularly in her relationship with Walky, from the very start where she talks about it as self-sabotage and distraction, through all the limits she tries to set and can’t keep.
Does she really?
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2017/comic/book-7/04-the-do-list/shrink/
To me she seems fully aware of her emotional and social needs and does her best to fit monkey mastering, sex and upside down Joyce-time with her work schedule.
The problem I see is that she bites over more than she can chew, not that she tries to be something she isn’t and shouldn’t be.
To some extent. She’s aware of somethings, but she also responds to some of those needs in poor ways. First trying to push aside her attraction to Walky as a distraction. Then imposing limits on the relationship and not being able to hold to them. She acknowledged this during the break up in a way, saying she was pushing him away and pulling him in and it wasn’t fair to him.
Even breaking up with Walky was trying to deny those needs. She’s bit off more than she can chew, but when that conflict comes it’s the relationship that has to go.
My read on Dorothy, which isn’t at odds with thejeff’s excellent precis, is that she does things because she thinks she should do them, and be seen to be doing them. What she lacks is the capacity for bullshitting (of others and of herself) that seems to be so necessary to getting ahead.
“listen dotty, if you wanna make it big in politics like me, all you gotta do is pick a political representative and hijack their social media, and start posting liberal ideology, like caring about people! it’s easy!”
Dorothy, being a workaholic won’t get you a job, it will only cause you depression and rage issues.
yes
Dunno… the campaign manager of a running senator just dropped by to offer her a job based on her hard work. I’d say it pays off fine.
(In my Gir voice)
Dorothy’s gonna go ‘splodey!!!
Man, with these developments, in my future headcanon Dotty does git gud at politics, but also just becomes completely cynical, disillusioned, bitter and angry from exposure to all the amorals, incompetents and morons involved in the field.
So basically, Malcolm Tucker from The Thick of It.
She’s gonna blow…
*Chloe walks by*
“Ah, Becky, is it? I just wanted to know if you want to be our new RA. You living illegally here for a while shows you have what it takes.”
Dorothy: “I don’t get jealous, I don’t get jealous, I don’t get jealous,…”
*Chloe Price walks by*
“Hey, cool hair!”
“Thanks! You’ve got pretty rad hair yourself! Are you a lesbian too?”
“Oh yeah I’m hella gay!”
*high fives*
For all my laughing at Dorothy’s misfortune, I really admire her for remembering to congratulate Becky.
For Dorothy this is an insult, another stone to the growing burden of feeling inadequate and malequipped for her chosen career path. Painful but manageable.
For Becky, this is a door opening to a future that would otherwise be denied her. This is the difference between being allowed to chase HER dream and… not.
And she did it herself, by being herself, by being forward and hillarious and hilarious and loopsidedly orange. Becky is well worth all praise for this.
Eh… I have a feeling her congratulations is more about her performing non-jealousy than actually feeling empathy for Becky’s situation.
I don’t mean to be a Dorothy hater!! I think that’s actually a nice instinct to have, since it’s one that at worst makes people feel good and congratulated (as opposed to instincts that would prompt her to say something mean that would hurt Becky).
I also think it’s likely that in a clearer mind she’ll be more Becky-focused and really understand how big this is for Becky. But right now she’s personally freaking out – and as someone below has said, it’s okay for her to have feelings and all that – and therefore I’m reading her responses as being about her.
(I guess I’m seeing it in this light because I was just binging a random middle section of the comic, and rereading the arc when Dorothy’s aiming for RA and she says in one breath, “Solved that scripting error? If so, good job. If not, I’m sure you will soon” or something like that to Rachel – like, responding before she knows what Rachel’s actual current status is, proving that she doesn’t actually care or isn’t really ready to engage/respond with Rachel as a person in the present moment… Sorry for ranting about a basically completely unrelated strip)
I mean I wouldn’t blame Dorothy for not being super nice to Becky tbh, Becky frequently heckles her, calls her a Hussy, and implies she’s a heartless , godless being, all because Joyce sees her as a friend.
Super not cool of Becky to come to the person she’s frequently unnecessary hostle and mean to, to basically rub her success in her face.
This reminds me of that Robot Chicken Sketch where Dexter from Dexter’s Laboratory couldn’t get into any good colleges because he didn’t have any extracurriculars
…and then in 20 years Becky and Dorothy are both running for President against each other.
A few million years from now, our human-alien-robot hybrid descendants will learn which of them wins that election.
Dotty and Becky should just make out and get it over with. I’ve seen enough to know that bitter rivalries like these always lead to bone city.
Poor Dorothy. Being raised to believe the “you can do anything if you work hard enough, you can be anything” Lie, it’s hard to have the reality that it’s all about money and/or connections laid bare.
Money, connections and sometimes blind luck and rule-breaking. :-/
Left its seeds while I was sleeping
I’m kind of annoyed with Becky for the way she’s handling this. She’s treated Dorothy with hostility basically since they met, and now, having gotten a job in a field that she knows Dorothy wants, she’s come over to brag about it and ask for pointers. And then when Dorothy gets frustrated but does her best to stay positive, Becky makes fun of her. Becky’s being kind of an insensitive jerk here.
I don’t see Becky bragging about it at all or making fun of Dorothy?
Becky doesn’t know how stressed out Dorothy is about being successful. They’ve only hung out a few times. And yeah, there’s a bit of tiny resentment that Joyce is really close to her, but she’s never been outright hostile towards Dorothy; they get along well enough.
And Becky’s on an emotional high right now. She just got hired, she just got enrolled, and she wants to make sure she succeeds. So sure, she’s gonna go to a friend that she knows is big on politics.
I’m hardly Becky’s biggest fan, but the most she’s guilty of here is a bit of ignorance and not picking up on Dorothy’s cues that she’s a lot more affected by this than at first glance.
She got kidnapped and disowned by her only family, made homeless, and now has an opportunity to actually enroll in school and pursue the career she wants instead of having to scrape by on minimum wage and MAYBE someday save enough to get loans that will put her in debt for the rest of her life.
She’s allowed to be fucking excited about that. She SHOULD be fucking excited about it. This is HUGE AND LIFE CHANGING FOR HER. Yeah, it’s understandable that Dorothy is having a hard time with it, but she would’ve found out eventually and she’ll get over it because she’s not an asshole.
Also worth noting is that Dorothy has sought out Becky for advice in the past, and Becky gave it freely.
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2017/comic/book-7/02-everything-youve-ever-wanted/bridges-2/
Seems fairly reasonable for her to think it’s okay to ask Dorothy for advice. The fact that this is an area she knows Dorothy is highly interested in is also a really weird reason to give for why she SHOULDN’T have come to Dorothy? She’s seeking advice from a person she considers knowledgeable in the subject at hand.
She’s also not making fun of Dorothy in the last panel. If you notice her expression you’ll see she isn’t jeering at her. She’s surprised. I get how it could be seen as mocking, but I don’t read it that way at all. She’s just stating the obvious: that Dorothy is in fact quite upset. There’s nothing on her face to suggest She finds that amusing
I totally agree that she’s allowed to be excited about it! This is a great thing for Becky and it makes a bright future much more possible for her. My issue isn’t that Becky’s excited about it, it’s that it seems insensitive to gush about it to Dorothy, given how she’s treated her.
In the strip that you linked, the advice was about how Dorothy’s decision will affect Joyce, which is the primary subject that Becky’s been willing to compromise on with Dorothy (I remember Becky saying something like “I don’t like you and you don’t like me, but let’s truce tonight for Joyce’s sake” at some point). And at the end of the strip you linked, Becky reiterates that she sees Dorothy as a threat to her friendship with Joyce.
My overall read is that Becky’s been resentful towards Dorothy because of her possessiveness about Joyce, but it’s totally possible that I’m misreading a lot/all of this! I can be pretty off the mark about this kind of thing. It would make sense if these things that Becky’s said have been meant in a jokey way and I’m just reading them as more serious than they are.
Also, on reflection, it didn’t occur to me that Becky’s probably not had enough interactions with Dorothy to realize what she’s struggling with.
I think it’s very possible to have someone as a friend while still being a little jealous of them. It’s something that they might have to hash out at some point, but it doesn’t actually impede either of them from being nice to each other right now.
I think Becky knows, on some level, that her possessiveness over Joyce is something she’ll have to address. It’s a matter of when.
That makes sense. The more I think about it, the more it feels like I was misreading Becky’s attitude about this. Not really an insensitive jerk so much as unaware of the situation, like you said.
My read on the whole “rivalry” is that while there was definitely some real resentment behind it at first, Becky realized that was unfair of her pretty quick and has been doing it only playfully at least since she came out. Maybe part of her WANTS to be petty, and she’s defusing that feeling by being too ridiculous about it for anyone to take it seriously (I have a similar tendency to use humor and over-the-top antics to mask feelings I wasn’t comfortable with, and was especially bad about that in college (I could just be projecting but I feel like Becky’s doing something like it))
Like, remember that when she first started that, she was under a LOT of stress, and desperately in love with Joyce while also desperately afraid that she too would reject her when she found out Becky was gay. Once she came out and that didn’t happen she calmed down considerably and the worst she’d done since was call her Dotty (tho if that bothered her, it never showed) and insist that there was a rivalry between them. Even before that the worst she’d really done was call her a boney Poindexter one time, and even then, Dorothy’s never taken it personally.
There is also that the very thing that drives whatever feelings of jealousy Becky may still have also largely prevents her from actually hating Dorothy. The fact that she’s important to Joyce. She misses being the SINGLE most important person to Joyce, but there’s no way she isn’t grateful that Joyce had someone like Dorothy looking out for her. She’s also gotta know by now that it was Dorothy who made the call that brought Amazi-Girl to her rescue. There’s no way a bit of passing jealousy would overpower that, even she hasn’t brought it up. That would require a serious feelings talk and she’s probably still afraid of letting her “always fun and happy” mask down long enough to do that
Also yeah, the two of them don’t really talk often. Though even knowing Dorothy much better, it would be really easy to not think of how Dorothy might feel in her extreme excitement.
I don’t really disagree with the majority of what you’re saying but Becky has called her “friendship stealing hussy, say what?” I’d say calling someone you don’t know a hussy is worse. when Becky did bring up the rivalry when Dorothy was visibly confused/annoyed. We’ve never really gotten to see how Dorothy feels about Becky as a person versus someone needing help before. I could see her being rather annoyed by her behavior even if it was coming from justifiable places.
Beckys behaviour gets a lot of slack given because of her gender, sexuality and circumstances.
Her attitude towards Dorothy has been explained as just coming to terms with the situation, her snarkiness towards Jacob and his religion is written off as well shes had experience of structured religion and it wasn’t good for her, her pettiness towards others is well shes never had the freedom to express herself etc etc
Every time she acts inappropriately towards others someone will always have an excuse for her
“Beckys behaviour gets a lot of slack given because of her gender, sexuality and circumstances.”
Right. People only think she’s a decent person because she’s a poor lesbian. It’s the only explanation for them not having the correct opinion.
…oooorrrrr maybe what’s happening every time she does something that mildly annoys other characters and people don’t hate her for it and you get mad it’s because you’ve already written of any conflicting opinion has “identity politics” like some breitbart asshole
Everyone has biases, its completely natural. I’m biased towards Joe as I identify with him more than other characters so I don’t see why he gets as much flack as he does.
I’d suggest more than a few posters on here identify with Becky and her situation and so are likely to cut her more slack for her behaviour then some other character might get
I’m not a woman, gay, I’ve never been homeless, home schooled, or anything resembling a fundie
but yeah sure it’s lets just pin that on identity-based biases and pretend there’s nothing you should unpack there
And fyi: there was an ENTIRE STORY ARC explaining why Joe gets the flak that he does, and it wasn’t exactly subtle about it!
“Dorothy, a girl can get jealous, but not out loud. Women don’t get jealous, they only work harder.”
Come on, Dorothy, connect the dots. Just working harder isn’t gonna get you to where you want to be. You need to get out and actually DO things, like Becky is!
Dorothy is a decent enough person but I cannot help but dislike her
Let’s all consider the idea that Dorothy gets hired on by Becky as an assistant manager because that would be amazing.
So she she secured tuition. Now all we need to know is wait to see if she is still living with Leslie, and we will know what her second pick was.
Even Scrooge McDuck said, “Work smarter, not harder.” And he’s a lifelong Republican.
Dot could learn from that.
Is he? Scrooge McDuck pays for random people’s medical treatments and for their kids to go to college.That doesn’t sound very republican-y.
There are a few different versions of Scrooge, some are far nicer than others. Personally I prefer the hidden heart of gold Scrooge.
Same.
True, Cark Barks’ and Don Rosa’s Scrooge is the most canon either way. And he def not a Rep. 😛
Eh, I tend to view Scrooge as the kind of guy who requires a long journey for him to do the right thing. He’s only not the kind of guy who would be a Republican if you assume that they’re flat out requiring everyone to be Chaotic Evil these days.
….
*checks to see when he left the party and is glad it was awhile ago*
Fair enough. I tend to prefer ‘big talk but heart of gold’ kinds of Scrooge, like the one here: http://blenderbender1811.tumblr.com/post/177591949885/iconuk01-tomorrowwoman-tomorrowwoman
When you have this much evidence, it’s no longer “assuming”.
Though at least Carl Bark’s Scrooge came from a very different time. The parties were different.
Even Don Rosa’s wouldn’t have been a Trump Republican.
Rich people paying for a few individuals’ medical treatments and college just perpetuates the myth of private charity being sufficient, which it is not in the current Republican-purchased system.
Scrooge McDuck may or may not be a real Republican, but he seems to be a great propaganda piece for Republicans. I bet he’s also promoted a few people from the mailroom.
I never said it was a substitute for systemic action, I said it didn’t seem very Republican-y. Today’s Republican party seems to have moved from ‘private charity is enough’ back to the bootstrap myth and it’s been doing so since at least the 80s.
Mind you, a central conflict of Scrooge McDuck is he DOES believe in the bootstrap myth because he was an impoverished man who made his fortune from nothing.
One of the central conflicts of Scrooge is he hates other rich people who inherited their money so, yes, he’d not be fond of Cheeto.
Kinda sorta. Like I said, depending on the story, he also puts his money into other people so they can progress themselves, which flies in the face of the bootstrap idea.
Okay, first, remember that Dorothy has asked Becky for advice in the past. People keep saying these two are supposed to be enemies, but no, Dorothy asked Becky for advice and Becky freely gave it. That is the relationship they have.
And now, look at the last panel of this comic. “…Wait, I’m sorry, are you jealous?” That is not said in mockery. It is genuine surprise, with an apology attached. Becky is not rubbing her success into Dorothy’s face, this is a relationship where advice is freely asked for and given about subjects the other knows about, and Becky assumes Dorothy knows more about politics than she. The possibility that Dorothy would be jealous didn’t even occur to her.
This was not an act of braggery or mockery. This was an act of celebration, and reciprocal asking for advice about that which the other partner has greater experience, and Becky sharing something about herself with Dorothy that she thinks they share.
THIS is an act of FRIENDSHIP, you boops!
Another distinction lacking in the comments: being friendly is not being friends.
Yeah, stay well away from those hands, Becky. It may be taking all of Dorothy’s control to keep them from wrapping around your throat!
As I’ve said before, this, combined with Joyce’s new attitude and Sal and Walky’s changed approach may lead poor Dorothy to wonder if she’s had a stress-induced breakdown and is having a delusion!
*Breathes out* … okay, that’s out of my system, great.
This is a pretty good page. I like the symmetry of it, with two closeups of their faces in the middle. And Dorothy’s stance in panel two is a nice touch, it shows that she just entered the frame. I’m glad we see Becky’s face in panel six, it shows her surprise well.
Dorothy’s panel six face is horrifying. I do not want to imagine a real human face twisting like that.
Good job, Willis.
I want to remind people that a paycheck wasn’t in the stipulations that Becky made to Robin, so as far as we know she isn’t gonna get paid cash by this campaign manager job. However, being paid in tuition is honestly much better in the long run.
Noooo Dorothy, just face it
They could just, team-up I guess.
But this is Dumbing of age, not Coming of age 😛
I am REALLY glad this is happening to Dorothy. She NEEDS to learn that, in her chosen field, CONNECTIONS are what really matters in the end. IE She’s just hurting her chances by shutting herself away
I’m sort of expecting Dorothy to do something silly as a rebound; something that may or may not impact strongly on her relationships with other people.
For now… Well, panel 6 is very clear that she’s about to start bawling.
Accidental Revenge of the Goof-ass
Decent. When you are feeling jealousy but are trying hard not to let it overshadow someone else’s moment in the sun.
Dorothy is a decent person.
Strike that. Dorothy is a good person.
Okay, I’ve kind of gathered my thoughts and will write something of substance.
The problem I see with Dorothy is this: I feel like she places too much emphasis in book learning, grades and a merit-based ideology in a political system that requires social skills over all else. The ability to talk to people and convince them of your world view, the ability to negotiate tough situations, the willingness to rub shoulders with the right people; Dorothy refuses opportunities to get around people with different world views and exercise those skills, would rather take a neutral point of view than argue her values, and actively seeks to cut herself off from people in hopes of finding that perfect workflow to “prepare” herself for some vague future success.
That last one is the kicker. She’s freely admitted to be afraid of failing, and her reaction is to prepare herself through study. She’s so adamant about being prepared for anything that she’ll push everyone away to make sure she figures it all out before actually doing anything. However, it’s precisely that fear of failure that’s capped any chance of future success because it’s through failure that we learn to succeed.
I would write a bit more but it’s super late and I need to sleep. I may get back to this later. The last thing I’ll say is this: As DeSanto’s new campaign manager, I think she’s under authority to hire whoever she feels is up to the task of helping her. Why couldn’t she hire Dorothy? Assuming, of course, Dorothy doesn’t reject her offer out of her “I wanna earn it myself” attitude which I feel is terribly flawed logic, this is absolutely the kind of in that Dorothy’s been needing, and validation that she’s been craving. Granted, she wouldn’t have expected it from someone like Becky, but nothing usually ever happens the way one thinks it does.
At the beginning this is true, and there are remanents of this. However, she immersed herself in way more activies than most students and is arguably more exposed to people than a party or dorm group. She was with the paper chasing down Amazagirl and doing rally work. She gets dismissive when she’s working on a goal but that’s not the same as not making connection she in the first place. She is prioritizing academics, which is false in her field as you’ve said. She probably thinks she needs it to eclipse the female, atheist angle and have a piece of paper that says she’s capable. This is sabbotaging behavior for the reasons pointed out – she’d need more connections and endorsements versus a piece of paper.
Tat being said, when she noticed she was failing she went to councilors to balance out. She’s in therapy because she couldn’t handle the stabbing. She admitted when she was failing the relationship. I’d say she already knows how to handle failure even if she doesn’t like it. She also knows she needs to balance even if she’s sucking at it. She’s prioritizing school and is incredibly optimistic. She just hasn’t found her balance yet and we’re seeing it now.
SUFFERING INTENSIFIES
It occurs to me Dotty could be a great engineer. She could be the next Buckminster Fuller, going from designing buildings to designing plumbing and space elevators and even wilder inventions to designing a society that works for humans. By the time she mellows out at, like, 80 and can get people to care about what she has to say she could save the world.
I’m really into the movement of scientists as politicians.
“You can’t always get what you want.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jv9sDn_2XkI
(From Let It Bleed)
Things I hope Dorothy takes from this:
1. Staying in your dorm and over-working yourself is no replacement for actually getting out there and DOING something.
2. You don’t need high grades to be a campaign staffer. You need to actually be able to contribute something.
3. She needs to get out of her bubble and expand her worldview.
She THINKS she’s super open-minded and has it all figured out, but she’s never actually lived. No cross-referenced list of things and facts will get you to where you want to go. BE the people to KNOW the people. That’s why Roz had a better shot at being RA then she did a few chapters back.
Decades ago, my parents insisted I didnt need to work as long as I was in school, because they both grew up super poor and both had to drop out to work. I left university having never so much as done a job at McDonald’s and discovered, while it was great I didn’t have to choose between working at school like they did, I was at a massive disadvantage with everyone else who already had five or six years of SOME working experience graduating at the same time as me.
Becky, the ideas + Dorothy, the brains + Desanto, the face and connections = Desanto re-elected? + Dorothy, the politically experienced + Becky, the enrolled
Whether she actually gets re-elected is a toss-up, but this seems like a potential place for it go.
There’s good reason Elizabeth Warren is running far behind Beto O’Rourke. Leadership, especially in a democracy, is about more than being the biggest brain in the room.
You’re confusing leadership with popularity.
No it’s because the media loves mediocre white men with non-threatening centrist ideas
And apparently especially ones whose names start with “B” 🙂
I think sexism plays a huge role in the media’s approach. The women in the race really have to struggle to get coverage.
Though as far as I can tell, Warren isn’t running far behind O’Rourke. They’re both in the pack fighting it out for third behind Biden and Sanders. Depending on the poll, sometimes one is ahead, sometimes the other. Both polling somewhere around 7-9%.
Her hands are shaking, because she is so happy for you, and not because she is fighting the urge to strangle you.
Becky deserves it and has the right talents for the job. She’s got charisma, initiative, and resilience in spades. And she’s obviously extremely smart; she’s amassed a huge amount of knowledge and awareness in a very short amount of time. (Also yay for her getting school paid for, which presumably includes getting to live in the dorms!!)
I know, right!
Robin offered her the job since she’s ALREADY DOING IT. Just imagine what she is capable of with official access.
Putting Dorothy and Robin to the side for a moment…
GO BECKY!!!!!
It’s been what… a couple of weeks since she escaped her butthole father with a gun. Since then she has landed a rad haircut, a sweet-ass girlfriend, a bunch of friends, an extended family that includes her Joyce, an awesome Lesbian surrogate mom (with a couch) and a kinda cool bonus dad, TWO jobs and now a friggin’ EDUCATION!
Becky is AWESOME! At this rate she will be president supreme of the extended Galaxy before spring break.
Of course by spring break, we may have developed real space travel and President Supreme of the Extended Galaxy might be a real thing.
Spring break is a long time in the future.
Considering that “I just work harder”… Anyone else thinks that this will be the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back? Dotty is already pushing herself beyond the breaking point and this will, more than likely, push her even Further beyond it. She will most likely collapse, get hospitalized maybe, and might just fall apart psychologically.
If I’m remembering correctly, doesn’t Dorothy want to go to Yale for the connections?????
Cause everyone here is saying she doesn’t think about connections. I think shes thinking she needs to get to Yale first.
This is where you become the power behind the power behind the throne. Dorothy! Seize this chance!
That’s the Conservative work myth right there: work hard, and you’ll have everything.
It’s essentially a myth to keep the lower classes working hard and themselves doing little but chancing their arm or living off inherited wealth.
Sadly, some people are programmed into it.