206

Hail Mary
Posted on June 7, 2019 by David M Willis

206 thoughts on “Hail Mary”

  1. Ana Chronistic

    Dumbing of Age Book 9: Most Importantly, You Should Trust Becky.

    Dumbing of Age Book 10: COMPARED TO ME.

    1. Airyu

      Lmao perf

      1. Clif

        Nah. DOA: Let’s Not Make This More Exciting Than It Has To Be.

        or even better,

        DOA: Best of Frienemies, Dotty.

        1. Batman

          Hitler was a centrist, compared to me.

  2. Thursday Violist

    Try putting “COMPARED TO ME” at the end of any sentence.

    1. Lacuna

      They’re out of bread on this aisle COMPARED TO ME

      That was a really good movie COMPARED TO ME

      I’m so proud of you COMPARED TO ME

      1. Khyrin

        What I gather from this post is you have a surfeit of bread, and low self-esteem.

        1. Lacuna

          Bread is amazing.

        2. Librain

          https://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=3723

        3. Clif

          Wouldn’t that be, bread is amazing compared to me?

    2. LeslieBean4shizzle

      Personally, I think Roz is a bit of a centrist COMPARED TO ME.

      I know this was a bit, but I was actually going into the comments to say exactly that. Roz is such a privileged twit of a lefty. Get on my level, Roz.

    3. Delicious Taffy

      Electric Light Orchestra is a Japanese anime music group, COMPARED TO ME.

    4. Yotomoe

      Jojo Part 4 is the best jojo part COMPARED TO ME.

    5. 3oranges

      Try putting “COMPARED TO ME” at the end of any sentence COMPARED TO ME.

  3. ValdVin

    Good job, Dotto.

    Let’s not make this more exciting than it has to be, indeed.

  4. tim gueguen

    “What about 21st Century Karl Marx?”

    “Him too!”

    1. Slartibeast Button, BIA

      Mecha-Robo-Marx!

      1. JessWitt

        Anime Bishoujo Marx!

        1. Jeff K!,

          Martian cloning technology Karl Marx

        2. Charles Kuhman

          One word … Harpo

  5. Aeromechanicalace

    Why do i sense Roz is the kind of person who wouldn’t even be satisfied with Fully Automated Luxury Gay Space Communism?

    1. Solenoid

      Roz is the sort of person who is too short on humor for posadism jokes.

      1. drs

        TIL posadism. Get a load of their embrace of nuclear war. https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Posadism

        But I think FALGSC is a reference to the Culture.

        1. Sunny

          Well, they’re not exactly wrong about the potential effects of a nuclear war. But still: Wow.

      2. dethtoll

        In other words a tankie. The only difference between her and most tankies I know is that she’s a woman of color, and most tankies are… neither of those things. (Being a humorless authoritarian bully sure seems to appeal to white dudes, huh?)

        1. Clif

          Surely, being an authoritarian bully with a sense of humor would be much worse.

        2. Knayt

          Which authoritarian dictators has Roz supported again? Last I checked that was none of them and this is entirely speculation – and I use the term “speculation” in its loosest possible sense.

    2. woobie

      Maybe if she was in charge.

    3. C.T Phipps

      Roz is a Brujah. The point is not what you rebel against but that you rebel.
      -90s vampire reference!

      1. LeslieBean4shizzle

        The fact that I get this joke makes me feel old.

      2. DaveM

        So would you classify Robin as Venture or Malkavian? I can make a case either way!

        1. Kat

          Well, she’s definitely a member of the Venture family. Lol.

          But typo jokes aside, I think she works best with that weird Requiem stuff where they tried to publish Malkavian as a disease that infected vampires and didn’t think we’d notice it was weird. Best of both worlds. But in old Masquerade, she’s a Ventrue who failed a few derangement rolls due to the constant pressure. Not enough moments of insight to justify Malkavian in my book.

        2. not someone else

          Pooka pretending to be a Ventrue, didn’t think it would go as far as it did, pissed off way too many people to stop now (anger is a source of Glamour, after all).

        3. DaveM

          Yeah, a crazed Ventrue (danged nabbit typos, in my day… 🙂 ) fits the bill rather well. Which makes sense as Roz is clearly a (less crazed) Ventrue.

          I haven’t looked at the requiem stuff at all, but downgrading Malkavian to a disease sounds weird. My only real connection to the game system is the classic “Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines” game (with the unofficial patch to keep it running on modern systems).

        4. C.T Phipps

          They released a 5th Edition and had my company (the one I write for at least) re-release the novels from the 90s. Re-reading them was very amusing as they’re as cheesy as I remember. Plus a new bloodlines game in 2020!

          As for characters:

          Becky: Anarch Malk, High Humanity or Pooka
          Roz: Brujah
          Robin: Ventrue
          Leslie: Salubri
          Mike: Sabbat
          Ethan: Keeps trying to play a Transformer
          Amber: Brujah (the anger is born from injustice) or Marauder
          Joyce: Celestial Choir or imbued as a Hunter

          Wow….I am a NERD.

        5. DaveM

          Becky: Anarch Malkavian
          Roz: Brujah (or possibly asshole Ventrue)
          Robin: demented Ventrue
          Leslie: Unknown as she’s a genuinely nice person.
          Mike: Sabbat
          Amber: Gangrel (or possibly Malkavian depending on how separate the personalities are)
          Joyce: Toreador

          And you say you’re a Nerd?

          YOU. SAY. THAT. WITH. PRIDE!

        6. C.T Phipps

          Yes, sir!

          You are now the Prince of Indiana University!

  6. DailyBrad

    Damn, I’m legitimately impressed with Dorothy here. Like, that was a superb mediation job, and she backed it up, too, with examples, not just platitudes.

    I know she is the one with political aspirations here of the three of them, but this I think is one of the first times I’ve seen her demonstrate a knack for it. I guess it hasn’t really been needed before, though, granted.

    1. Jess

      Yes!! I love her.

      1. Hazel

        Dorothy is so great here! I hope we get to see her more strips like this.

    2. ian livs

      Yes! I was just coming to comment on this. Super impressive. ^-^

    3. Needfuldoer

      She’s good at logic-based conflict resolution, but struggles with charisma. See also the self-appointed RA campaign with Roz. Successful politicians need both, or at least a heavy dose of the latter, to sell their ideas. People don’t want to think, they want to feel!

      1. CJ

        Yes, that’s why Trump and people like him get into office. They tell people it’s great they *feel* like they got the short stick and promise to pass the short stick to whichever group the voter despises.

        1. Needfuldoer

          Yuuuup, unfortunately feels matter more than facts.

          “Computers may be twice as fast as they were in 1973 but your average voter is as drunk and stupid as ever!”

          – Richard Nixon’s Head, Futurama S02 E07 “A Head in the Polls”

        2. He Who Abides

          And yet his sad supporters say “Facts don’t care about your feelings”.

          There’s probably more I could say about that, but we just got home so I’d rather just go to bed.

        3. thejeff

          That’s one of those brilliant evil tactics. It’s designed to make the listener feel like they’re hearing a logical fact-based argument, whether it actually is or not.
          A common tactic on the supposed Intellectual Dark Web.
          It seems to work quite well.

        4. CJ

          That’s probably why my brain starts to hurt when people try to explain why they voted for AfD. What they say doesn’t make sense at all but they are still convinced it does.

        5. thejeff

          It can be used to inspire as well, though it’s harder than playing off of fear and hate.

    4. Daisy

      She needs chutzpah lessons from Richard! But the fact she stepped into this conflict does show something. I’m not sure she’d make it to President but I would like to see her as AG* or something.

      She would’ve made an amazing RA and it’s absolutely for the best that she wasn’t given the role.

      *AG in non-dumbiverse world means attorney general.

  7. Bagge

    “Let’s not make this more exciting than it has to be”

    Yeah…. I’m not optimistic about that one.

    Still, A+ diplomating, Dorothy. A few well chosen words spoken with authority and Becky went from snide remarks to singing the highest praise she has of Dorothy yet, and Roz went from fistfights to accepting a common cause.

    “Best of Frienemies”. D’aaaaaaaaaw

    1. Schpoonman

      Dorothy in panel 2 reminds me of Becky when she was giving Robin her three conditions. I don’t have the same extent of “chills” as when Becky laid down the law, but goddamn, Dotty. Goddamn.

    2. ShinyNeen

      Becky won’t take an easy out that’s just handed to her. But honest, straightforward respect from her rival best frienemy? Reassuring her that she’s not sore about Becky succeeding where she has not? Telling her that she has faith in what Becky’s doing? Yeah, she’ll take that.

      1. Bagge

        That is BIG

  8. Opus the Poet

    American politics used to be Center-Right compared to the rest of the world, now even our “leftist” pols would be Right to Far Right, while the other party has gone full fascist.

    When I was growing up we had WWII vets living on the same street, and for a while in the other half of the Duplex. Now we have actual fascists in our government, thumbing their noses at the values we fought for in that war.

    1. Schpoonman

      I think the Blue Wave since 2016 is pretty far left. We’re pushing universal healthcare, free admission to university and trade schools (better be pushing for trade schools as well, at least), and free housing. That’s fairly standard leftist policy in Europe and in the rest of the world.

    2. drs

      “now even our “leftist” pols would be Right to Far Right”

      Can you back that up?

      1. DudeMyDadOwnsADealership

        I doubt this goes anywhere near the left vs. right debate, but haven you noticed how Blue Dems have started calling things they used to call fascist ‘uninformed’ and how Red Repubbers how call things they used to call pinko or commie ‘unpatriotic?’

        As if a lot of people on both sides needed something easier to say with a straight face?

        1. thejeff

          Not really? Examples?
          I’ve seen more use of “fascist” in the last few years, since we’ve had people openly rallying with fascist symbols and rhetoric in support of Republicans and not being immediately denounced.

    3. desolation0

      The extent to which the center-left have moved on their positions to the right seems to be overstated a bit here. They’ve mostly been the same rut for a fair while now (hence why the far left sees them as a roadblock at best). A sharp right turn on the right and a tendency to compromise to the new center has dragged the whole system further right without them having to move out of their comfort zone. That said European politics have moved a modest step left when not facing a flare up of the same sort of hard right move as the US has seen.

    4. C.T Phipps

      “To the rest of the world”? No. In fact, America is a little to the left there with the free speech and fact gay people aren’t being arrested or killed. To EUROPE? That is a different story and the Overtone Window has moved a good deal further left in the face of Republican uncompromising hate.

    5. ESM

      You really should go back and read some old Democratic Party platforms sometimes. Howard Dean’s healthcare plan was tax credits to make insurance more affordable, and back in 2004 that was enough to make him the Bernie Sanders of his day.

      I realize a lot of leftists think of Obama as a disappointment, but comparing the pre-Obama Democrats to the post-Obama Democrats it’s clear that he pushed the party SIGNIFICANTLY to the left.

      1. Needfuldoer

        Speaking of times changing, remember how one excited, kinda weird yell at the end of a speech was enough to sink Howard Dean? Today that’s just background noise, but back then it was enough to make you a laughingstock.

      2. Clif

        Yeah, there’s a reason that Republicans like to quote old John F. Kennedy speeches.

    6. Deadjolras

      This thread is fun. Americans are a fun bunch.

      1. Delicious Taffy

        Must be nice sitting in your ivory tower, over there in France.

        1. Deadjolras

          The June Rebellion was not as fun as it looked like on the musical, to be honest.

          (For real, though, I’m from South America.)

        2. Delicious Taffy

          South America? What, you mean like Arkansas or something?
          *rimshot*

        3. JBento

          Yeah, France, that paragon of liberty who’s not only been voting right, it also JUST voted the racist xenophobes into the EU parliament. Grand place indeed.

        4. Delicious Taffy

          Looks like I picked the wrong name out of the hat, then. I don’t keep up with French politics, but now I’m kinda glad for that.

        5. JBento

          Pick Sweden. Sweden has mostly been a safe bet.

          Watch as in half an hour Bagge will correct me.

        6. Delicious Taffy

          A certain infamous YouTuber is from there. On the other hand, they also produced Joel from Vinesauce, and I haven’t heard of any problems from him.

        7. Bagge

          Yeah we like to brag about our internet and IT prowess in Sweden (“we invented minecraft you know”), so we like to brag that we have one of youtubes most famous contributors. Although we tend to avoid the topic if someone asks just WHICH youtuber we talk about.

          I honestly have no idea what vinesauce OR Joel is. Something I should brag about?

          But yeah, we usually are pretty smug, and right now we have A BIT less stupid politics than many other countries. Also, since Greta Thunberg is Swedish we have strong cards at the moment.

        8. Tan

          Yeah, um… You might not wanna brag too much about Notch these days, considering…

        9. Bagge

          We…. tend to focus on the Minecraft part, not the Notch part.

        10. Ninjamaid

          New Zealand’s doing well right now, the Prime Minister’s pretty awesome

      2. Schpoonman

        “You guys are really closer to fascism than you think.”

        Did you just want us to take that on the fucking chin?

        1. Deadjolras

          Was my comment too flippant? I apologize.

    7. Callid13

      Eh, I wouldn’t say it’s quite that extreme, even when compared to Europe (the rest of the world is far more right, naturally).

      By European standards, the Democratic party as a whole is probably roughly centrist, becoming more center-left recently, and people like Bernie Sanders are moderate left (social democratic).

      Republican position, meanwhile, are right-extremist on average (with moderate Republicans – the few that still exist – being moderate right), and occasionally venture into territory further right than any established party except fascist one.

      Or put differently, the average between the Republicans and Democrats is about center-right to moderate right by European standards. It helps that while American politics are moving left ATM, European politics have made a significant right-shift recently.

    8. JBento

      The “values you fought for in that war” were “let’s make the Japanese pay for bombing Pearl Harbor.” Which, fair enough, is a good enough value, but let’s not pretend it was some sort of humanitarian concern.

      1. thejeff

        A common alt-right talking point these days is that the modern left would call those who fought in WWII fascists because they wouldn’t have been sufficiently “woke” on race or feminism or LGBTQ rights.

        1. Fart Captor

          I mean, it wouldn’t exactly be wrong to call them that. Maybe the soldiers weren’t but countries and plenty of leaders who were instrumental in defeating the Nazis were fascists, eugenicists, or otherwise horrible.

          Hitler modeled a lot of his ideology off of American fascists. The UK let millions of Indians starve and chemically castrated the man who broke the Enigma code because he was gay. The US rounded up the Japanese into camps, kinda nuked two civilian population centers, and was practicing eugenics before and after WWII. Compulsory, non-consensual sterilization was a common practice.

          The goal of that alt-right talking point is to portray it as irrational and performative to consider more nuance than “Allies = good, Axis = bad”. They would really like “is [group/person] literally WWII Nazi Germany?” to be the criteria for judging fascism and genocide

        2. thejeff

          I’d also tend to distinguish between fascism and just racism (or other bigotries). Racism is a tool of fascist nationalistic authoritarianism. It’s not the whole thing, though we tend to see it that way.
          The US at the time was racist as hell and I don’t want to minimize that, but it wasn’t authoritarian.

    9. thejeff

      Yeah, as others have said, while I agree that American politics has generally been shifted right as compared to other Western nations at least, I don’t seen the recent shift of leftist pols to center or far right. I’d argue that over the last 5 years or so the left side of US politics has actually shifted significantly left. Nothing hard-left in the mainstream, but still plenty of high-profile representation compared to a decade ago. I’m not at all sure what you’re thinking of as a shift to the far right?

      The Republican party has jumped off the deep end of course.

  9. Kyrik Michalowski

    Speaking of Becky’s father, I have horrible feelings regarding him and Blaine. That whole thing is still waiting for us and I am expecting fire and death to come raining down upon us soon.

    1. JessWitt

      Yeah I dread what is to happen. Probably during Robin’s campaign rally.

  10. Stephen Bierce

    So I was wrong about Ruth.
    Are you sure it’s not Groucho Marx? “Whatever It Is–I’m Against It!”
    Or maybe Richard Marx? “Don’t you know…we won’t give up until we’re Satisfied!”

    1. Stephen Bierce

      Why should I stop…

    2. Slartibeast Button, BIA

      Harpo and Chico might fit here better. Except Harpo would get creamed by Amazi-Girl for sexual harassment.

  11. Derek

    I’m with Dorothy: there’s no reason for Becky and Roz to be fighting other than apparently they rustle each other’s jimmies. Roz needs to learn to back down but that’s not news

    1. Bagge

      Rustling each others jimmies is an EXCELLENT* reason to fight.

      …or a pretty on the nose euphemism for sex, I suppose.

      *) You know, kinda.

    2. ninja_jesus

      Let’s be fair, Becky could’ve also backed down too, but it’s difficult to do so when opportunities to sass people are so plentiful.

      1. Sam

        She could have, but she was likely fed up with Roz shouting in her face while refusing to listen and decided to clapback at her for it.

  12. Jupiterror

    Thank you dotty

  13. BBCC

    Oh, Dorothy, I love you.

    Dorothy Keener – Not head cheerleader, yet still a problem solver.

    1. Bagge

      She is very goal oriented.

  14. Jay

    Hiring Becky may have been a Hail Mary, but with Robin, the longer the odds, the more likely it is to happen. At the very least it will be close.

    1. OBBWG

      Robin’s odds of winning after hiring Becky are a million to one.

      1. Jay

        Then it’s a certainty.

  15. Foxhack

    Why did Roz’s eyes go full Sonic Ice Cream Popsicle on us D:

    1. DailyBrad

      It’s hard to demonstrate an eyeroll or avoiding eye contact when you don’t have sclera.

      1. Delicious Taffy

        There’s a certain genetic disorder that results in people’s eyes looking like jelly beans, sorta like these characters’ do. I’d forgotten what it was called, so I looked up a phrase I’d heard someone say while they were talking about it.

        Unfortunately, the very first image of it is a fucking nightmare and now I wish I’d never remembered it was a thing in the first place.

        1. Sunny

          What’s the genetic disorders name? Googling for ‘genetic disorder eyes jelly beans’ didn’t get me any relevant results.

        2. Delicious Taffy

          I really don’t want to say it, because the images are honestly some of the most upsetting shit I’ve ever seen, and I’d rather not inflict that on other people. The absolute most I’ll say is that it starts with H.

        3. Emily

          Problem is that now I’m going down a list of genetic eye disorders starting with H and googling because of CURIOSITY and I still haven’t found it. Closest thing I’m finding to what you described was homocystinuria, but there wasn’t particularly disturbing imagery there unless asymmetrically-sized eyes bother you. (In which case don’t google, fellow comment-lurkers.)

        4. Fox

          Same, Emily. I have diagnosed OCd and I’m googling like crazy.

        5. Fox

          If I give you my email will you send me the name because not knowing is killing me.

  16. Piotr W

    Hey, being a centrist isn’t a bad thing!

    1. Schpoonman

      Centrism isn’t inherently bad. It is when you’re splitting the difference with facism.

    2. Apostate

      Yes it is.

    3. Wizard

      Centrism often manages to combine the flaws of each side while jettisoning their virtues. So while I don’t automatically condemn so-called centrists, I am automatically suspicious.

    4. Zero

      Defining yourself as “neither” without regard for what the two things are is… pretty bad.

      1. C.T Phipps

        It depends what you’re in the center of. I am happy with mixing chocolate and vanilla.

        Less so Freedom and Fascism.

        1. not someone else

          Yeah I’d say it depends entirely on whether your ethics happen to put you in the center of something or, as many notable centrists, your ethics are that you believe the truth is whatever is in the middle of the two largest factions in power so you can pander to both of them and happily move your actual positions to fit.

          Or worse yet, the people who are “centrists” because they hate the idea that people might ask them to have ethics- there’s a small but loud and terrifying group of people who consider themselves “radical centrists” who literally agree with the alt-right in every aspect except they don’t want to enact violence or take over the government personally because that sounds like effort.

    5. LiamKav

      There’s an argument in the UK that Labour’s more-far-left-than-usual manifesto has alienated the centre-ground voters and will result in it losing any sort of General Election.

      Not picking a side is bad. But so is purity politics and a refusal to compromise. Would I prefer a more left-wing government get elected? Yes. But I’d take the centre-left in a heartbeat if it meant getting rid of our current ever more right-wing government.

    6. dethtoll

      Centrism is a milquetoast, incrementalist position that agitates for the status quo. And I don’t know about you, but the status quo has been very, very good to the capitalist class. At best, it’s bravely espousing an incoherent ideology. At worst, it’s being a useful idiot for the far right.

    7. JBento

      That depends on what you’re being centrist ABOUT.

    8. Yotomoe

      Honestly this. Centrism doesn’t mean “oh let’s always find a common ground on this issue.” It often means “I agree with the left on THESE issues while I agree with the right on THESE issues and am not wholly dedicated to one political group because…I don’t agree with them. Centrism basically just means you’re not gonna fully dedicate and adhere to one ideology in its completion. That’s why there’s left leaning centrists and right leaning centrists.

      1. facedepu

        pretty much yeah. But also, there’s centrists who believe that instead of just compromising between left and right (like what people think centrists are), or picking and mixing (which is a good part of what many centrists do), there is also the option of thinking of a third way of doing things. You can pick and mix, but you can also synthesize at times.

      2. thejeff

        It could also mean you actually like the middle position. Not that you’re compromising between whatever the extremes currently are, but that you’ve got reasons for a particular position in the middle.
        Now what counts as centrist in a given context generally depends on what the generally accepted extremes are. A centrist position between free market ideology and actual Marxism might wind up looking like Democratic Socialism, but in modern American politics, that’s not centrist, but far-left. In Norway, maybe that is centrist.

        Finding a Third Way is hard. Most things tend to get co-opted into one of the sides, at least in the US. And “Third Way” has been adopted as a name for basically the lousy compromise kind of centrism.

  17. Schpoonman

    Wow, Roz came really close to not being the asshole at the end of this conversation. Good on her, she’s improving.

    But also fuck off.

    1. Schpoonman

      Anyway, MacIntyre/Keener 2040 motherfuckers.

      1. MatthewTheLucky

        IT’S HAPPENING

        IN 500 YEARS

        Damn you preemptively, CyberWil1is!

      2. Sunny

        Roz is their campaign manager?

        1. Schpoonman

          The only part of the political process I want Roz anywhere near is the ballot box as a voter. I agree with Roz 99.9% of the time on her stances, and I swear I’m not trying to tone police, but her aggression and almost-complete unwillingness to compromise sets her up to cause more harm than good most of the time.

          Imagine how this entire exchange would have gone if she had at any point taken what Becky was saying at face value and tried to bridge the gap between them. Becky at least tried. Even if it fell apart quickly, she said “Hey, I get why you’re worried, but I’m on your side,” and Roz completely dismissed her and told her she wasn’t good enough. I’m still livid at the “fundie shut-in” comment. It took outside intervention for Becky to make a point and then Roz changed the subject to say “This will ALL be your fault if it goes wrong.”

          I get it. I do, really. Roz has a LOT of baggage and damage from being the diametrically-opposed sister of a giant asshole of a Congresswoman, but she lets it steer her instead of harnessing that energy more usefully.

    2. timemonkey

      Someday she’ll manage it. If we are patient and believe.

  18. Anders

    It’s gonna be fun re-reading these and watching a 9-year Overton window shift happen in a few weeks

  19. drs

    Hmm. Poll numbers aside, if both candidates are shifting left, what happens given this district?

    http://www.dumbingofage.com/2011/comic/book-1/06-yesterday-was-thursday/district/

    1. DailyBrad

      They probably default to Robin.

    2. Keulen

      Funny thing, that was what that district looked like from 2003-2013. Now it looks different, but it’s still a strongly Republican district.

    3. JBento

      If Robin still has an R next to her name, Republicans will still vote for her. It’s not like those people have PRINCIPLES.

      1. thejeff

        Not clear that’s true. Republican voters do have principles, they just tend to be evil ones.

        I mean the whole point of that linked strip was that Robin had to appease the peeps who think Roz is a hell-bound slut to stay in office. She hasn’t been doing that. She’ll lose a lot of those votes, even if they just stay home. Or vote for a write in or something. You can cheat and lie and keep them, as long as keep hating the right people.
        Robin hasn’t been doing that.

        1. Matticus

          Possibly, but when push comes to shove Republican voters are willing to look past just about anything to ensure that someone with an (R) next to their name wins.

          As the old adage goes: Democrats fall in love. Republicans fall in line.

        2. thejeff

          Are they?
          I mean it seems that way because it’s easy to find examples of Republicans betraying their stated principles and getting re-elected. Sexual scandals, corruption, support for even worse bigots than they pretend to be, etc. Or violations of their supposed small government ideology.
          But I suspect all that’s forgiven because those aren’t the real issues they care about and tribalism rules. And Robin’s violated the real tribal rules – not only is she on shaky ground already as a Latino woman, but being outed as a “lesbian” and even more then going on to advocate for the other tribe’s policies?
          I can’t think of anything even vaguely comparable in real life politics.

  20. Zero

    Dorothy, if he’s being pushed to the left and you think that’s a good thing, then “He’s a bit of a centrist” sounds like something you agree with.

    1. DailyBrad

      I don’t necessarily think she disagrees, I think she’s just sassing Roz. She and Roz have a lot of shared opinions, but also a bit of a rivalry and a little bit of acrimony sometimes. Certainly not a hate thing, but enough to where Dorothy can’t resist.

    2. Sam

      Just because Roz says he is a ‘bit of a centrist’ doesn’t mean he actually is as Dorothy literally points out in the last panel. That is likely Roz being biased and he is actually a lefty just moving further left.

  21. Romanticide

    If Robin’s ship sinks, Becky might be able to save some money first, or get physical things she could use or sell and be left better than she started when it does.
    If Robin’s ship does manage to float, it will be thanks to her and something besides her continual economic betterness might come out of it.

  22. Barf Ninjason

    Roz is a “regressive left” totalitarian humanist and the left/right paradigm is a mental barrier to actually thinking about the most important issues! So says I.

    1. wwwhhattt

      I thought “regressive left” was used for anyone who shows a shred of sympathy towards muslims?

      1. drs

        Used by whom?

        1. wwwhhattt

          New Atheist acquaintances on facebook. The label was originally aimed at the way “anyone who opposes imperialism must be ok” style thinking can lead to defending ISIS style terrorism, but often gets used by people who say things like “Islamophobic: a word created by fascists, and used by cowards, to manipulate morons”

        2. thejeff

          There’s a lot of weird creepy shit in the New Atheism and some prominent figures have been making common ground with the right. Hatred of Islam is a thing they share. There have also been some pretty blatant sexism and attacks on feminism. Some Gamergaters came out of the New Atheist skeptic community and many have moved pretty hard right while still kind of pretending to be liberal.

          Or more simply, as far as the Islamophobia goes: Athiests weren’t immune to losing their shit over 9/11.

        3. MatthewTheLucky

          I don’t know shit about this, but using a proper noun to define oneself as an atheist is the shadiest thing I’ve seen all month.

    2. dethtoll

      “Regressive left” isn’t a thing.

      1. thejeff

        Even to the extent it is a thing, it’s got nothing to do with Roz.

        I suppose she could look like the anti-SJW caricature of an SJW? Which might be regressive if it was more than a caricature.

        1. autogatos

          Roz is basically everything I hate about leftist twitter personified.
          More arguing over who is the most woke than actually trying to support marginalized groups/focus on the issues.

          It’s a thing you see a lot with teens/young-20s because we all tend to assume we are the Most Correct at that age and wear it like a badge.

          Ideally once you get older, you care less about political one-upmanship/how you’re perceived, and more about doing what you can to help the people who need help (whether anyone sees you do it or not), but ofc that’s sadly not always the case.

          Dorothy is a good example of someone who reached the next stage a bit early.

  23. Lacuna

    Actually, I just thought of something. Is there even a new conservative running in this race?

    Like the second they disavowed Robin the Republican Party turned on the GOP-Signal. And like twenty white guys who liked Hoosiers suddenly showed up on the rooftop of Republican headquarters.

    1. DailyBrad

      They were likely too close to an election to primary her. Keep in mind, her outside a lesbian’s house in her underwear holding a lamp was like, a week ago maybe? And the election’s coming up, so odds are, they didn’t want to risk losing her seat by dividing their party, and would rather just go cold on her, like they initially did with Roy Moore before flip-flopping on it.

      One might be running independent or something, but the nature of party politics is that they’d be unlikely to be officially endorsed by the GOP in any capacity.

      1. BBCC

        It’s the middle of October and elections are early in November. No time to get on the ballot.

    2. ESM

      I maintain that the single most absurd plot point in anything Willis has ever written is the idea that the Republican Party would give up on a Congress seat because the candidate was involved in a scandal. They stood by Roy Moore!

      1. drs

        Yeah, but Roy Moore was male.

        1. BBCC

          Male and (so far as I can tell) white and straight.

          Robin’s batting zero for three.

        2. thejeff

          I suspect even with all that, if she’d gone back to campaign headquarters, took her staff’s advice and started spinning she could have survived this. But she stayed out of contact at Leslie’s place, until they kicked her out.

  24. PoliVamp

    Roz is reminding me of 2016 and the PTSD is giving me the shakes.

  25. Siyajkak

    I mean, “centrist” isn’t even an actual position, just relative to where the Overton window happens to be. In the 1860s “Centrist” meant being white supremecist, but opposing slavery. In 1920s Soviet Union, Stalin’s camp was “centrist”, with Trotsky’s Left Opposition and Bukharin’s Right Opposition, though all we’re socialist. Today, when the majority of Americans support Medicare for all, right to abortion, higher taxes on the rich, and greater action on climate change, Democrats to the right of those positions are definitely centrist, if not center right. Kind of inevitable when opinions are moving left, but the people in office have mostly been there a decade or more.

    1. Matticus

      I would be very hesitant to say that a majority of Americans support M4A, because the numbers swing wildly depending on how you phrase the question and how many details you include. If you emphasize the guarantee of healthcare the numbers are high. If you mention getting rid of their current insurance (or just getting rid of insurance in general) support drops by ~20 points. Emphasize the lower overall costs, people like it. Mention higher taxes and they hate it.

      Broadly speaking, Americans are in favor of universal healthcare. Medicare For All is a good slogan, and a lot of people like it in theory. Would that support survive the pushback and propaganda from the Right in a protracted congressional battle? That’s the million-dollar question.

  26. abysswatcher1993

    I think centrists are cowards, but some leftists can be annoying as some right wingers. I am left leaning and I have seen some stupid stuff on the internet.

    Also, with the way Dotty and Becky progress as “frienemies” I wouldn’t be surprised if Becky appeared as Handsome Jack in Dotty’s imagination and taunted her with weird comments and jerky comebacks.

    1. Delicious Taffy

      Becky’s gonna blow up Dorothy’s giant bird and complain about the quality of some pretzels.

      1. Schpoonman

        I’m replaying BL2 right now and I was full of dread the entire time I was in the Preserve. Then I picked up the ECHO detailing Tiny Tina’s parents, and… Fuck. THEN I started Where Angels Fear To Tread. I was wiping tears away before I even made it to Angel’s room.

        Borderlands did it right. The rest of the game is so steeped in black comedy that whenever they drop the laughs and gut punch you, it’s like they’re actually driving an elbow into your solar plexus.

        1. Delicious Taffy

          I’m really psyched that the Handsome Collection is one of this month’s free games on the PS4. I picked a good time to take up that free trial.

          Yeah, behind the sorta try-hard humor is a lot of really bleak shit. For the longest time, I’d been dismissing the series in general because the brand of humor reminded me of how annoying everyone was in high school. Recently I’ve been thinking more about it, and now I feel like everyone in the game is so gratingly bonkers because they’re all just trying to cope with how absolutely horrible their lives really are.

        2. Roborat

          Don’t forget the new DLC that is coming, that will set up BL3.

    2. LiamKav

      I always thought the phrase was “frenemies”, but hey ho.

    3. facedepu

      yeah sure, you really gotta be a coward to knowingly expose yourself to hate from both sides, and to have no group to hide behind.

      1. Fart Captor

        ?

      2. MatthewTheLucky

        There’s a distinction between courage and stupidity.

  27. Arianod

    Marx really ought to step up his game.

  28. Lacuna

    Willis, I’m not sure if I’m glad or disappointed you didn’t go for the obvious pun.

    Dorothy: At best, her hiring is a Hail Mary.

    Mary: (pops in) Speaking.

    1. Leadsynth

      I bet Mary is a Robin DeSanto supporter. If only to spite Roz.

      1. Sam

        We know she was one before. But after the photos of her and Leslie came out (even though it didn’t really show anything), she said she was glad she was caught in a dejected way so I doubt she still is.

        1. thejeff

          Not really even before. Probably would have voted for her (if she’d been of voting age for the last election, but holding her nose.)
          She commented on it at one point: Her parents are divorced. She’s not married and at thirty that’s “conspicuous”. Plus she’s Catholic.
          Obviously a fraud.

          Strangely, Mary was right, but for the wrong reasons.

  29. Yotomoe

    I was once a leftist. Then they changed what left WAS and now what I think isn’t left. And what is left is weird and scary to me. And it’ll happen to YOU.

    1. Delicious Taffy

      What even IS “left”, anyway?

    2. Johnny

      We’ve joked for years down in South America that the US has no left because the dems are center-right to moderate right in our views. It seems now that there is some left blossoming in main stream politics however.

      1. Deadjolras

        Yep, we say pretty much the same thing over here! What Americans consider to be “the left”, we call it “center” or “center right” (or even “center left” for the more radical ones).

        1. ǝ snow ʍousɐ

          That’s it, I’m emigrating from the US in search of these farther-left nations! I can’t accept living in a country that could so readily elect DJT…

        2. Delicious Taffy

          Wanna come to New Zealand? We can start a whole movement.

      2. thejeff

        Hell, we say that in the US.

      3. Fuchs Sakemann

        Yeah, even as a Democratic Socialist in the US, what most people consider left here is like centrist-light. Bernie’s one of the few who actually is in the left side of the political spectrum, and there’s a lot of people who think his positions are insane (“Free college! Blasphemous! Even though they do that in many countries, /we/ can’t do that!” or “Healthcare for all! Socialism! We may be the only first world nation that can’t figure out even the simplest solution to give everyone healthcare that other major nations figured out decades ago, but to do that would be insane!”)
        Living in this insane machine called the US really sucks some days.

  30. Tenzhi

    Roz’s face looks odd in the last panel. I think it’s the way her eyes have traveled into her scalp, tilted off kilter to the right, and possibly gotten closer together though that’s hard to tell when they’re merged into her bangs.

  31. Keulen

    If everyone is centrist compared to Roz, does that mean Roz is a communist?

    1. Reltzik

      Nope, the commies are too centrist.

    2. Uly

      If we can take the titletext at face value, she’s somewhere left of Marx….

    3. Sunny

      I think it means she’s a hipster.

    4. FacelessDeviant

      I think it means she’s higher middle class with a bad conscience, overcompensating.

  32. Reltzik

    Well, I’ve said for a while that Dorothy’s aspirations are realistically limited to supreme court justice. But after this, I’m willing to upgrade her to Chief of Staff or Secretary of State.

    1. ShinyNeen

      Dorothy’s talented and driven enough that she could probably do a lot of things with her life. It’s just that she has one very specific goal, and settling for anything else would be too painful for her : (

  33. newllend(henryvolt)

    Centres to me is when you have guy like Joe Biden thinking “If we just get rid of Trump then all the republicans like Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham will immediately come to their senses and will want to work this us. Like back in the Obama days where we kept throwing them a bone and they still fought us on every issue…also I think Paul Ryan had the right idea to take a few cuts to Medicaid and/or Social Security.”

  34. ProfessorDetective

    Oh hell, she IS one of those.

  35. Delicious Taffy

    Sorry, Roz. You’re speaking English, traditionally known as the language of colonisers, so you don’t qualify for Ultimate Lefty status.

  36. ShinyNeen

    Aw yeah, go Dorothy! With how things have been going for her lately, I’m glad she could at least get this little win : )

  37. bleepbloop

    Look what you’ve done Willis. You’ve brought political debate into the comments. I’m actually surprised how anti-leftist the readership is?

    1. Jhon

      There are leftists and there are crypto-deviationists.

  38. Ashonai

    That moment when you roll your eyes so hard that they blend into your hairline

  39. Bagge

    I can’t believe the strip named Hail Mary isn’t about… Mary.

  40. Roborat

    I have to say I find the algorithm that picks the ads I see very amusing. The Slipshine ad featuring Sir Willis’s latest creation is expected, and almost inspires me to renew my subscription, I never did catch up on Moon over June (came for the porn, stayed for the lesbian soap opera). The local steakhouse ad is ok, I do go there occasionally, and scooter ad is humorous, I don’t know what triggered that. But the real head scratcher is the prominent brass fittings ad that showed up at the bottom (blocking some of the comments by the way). I have no idea what I did to trigger that one, I don’t think they even sell in my area.

    1. Jhon

      Cold enough to freeze the brass fittings off a monkey?

  41. Meagan

    I love the “you think everyone is a centrist line.” I’m glad to see Willis can poke fun at his own camp as much as his previous camp.

  42. Rocketboy1313

    Roz is the type of woman I would have bothered pathetically in Grad School.

  43. Hari

    Sadly, people like Roz kill movements. They probably don’t mean to, of course, but they tend to be so self unaware and want to prove they’re the BEST ACTIVIST EVARRRR that they don’t realize that they alienate people.

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