Pearls Before Swine by Stephan Pastis for July 12, 2019

Who needs democracy when the Dow is high and unemployment is low?

It’s hard to not fall asleep when that’s been the headline news for the last two years and 172 days.

It’s been several long years actually. Make the nightmare end.

Did another print newspaper close? Or did another giant media company buy your local news station?

Not to worry, Pig, Dear Leader is putting the best people on it…

Another newspaper taboo is shattered. (Note the pronunciation.)

The Fourth Estate, beseeching the Turd Estate.

Rachel Maddow seems a little cranky tonight….

Like Pig gives a $hit…

Democracy only works when the people are intelligent and matured, folks.

Too late, they’re already coming to take you away to one of the camps…. File under : “You had your chance and you blew it”. …..Sieg Heil everybody…..

We live in a Republic, not a democracy……

Too bad about that democracy thing – so, what are the Kardashians up to these days?

I think that some people would consider GoComics a social media site. Does anyone know it GoComics was invited to the Social Media Summit?

We aren’t a democracy. Never have been. We are a Republic, which is something entirely different. Public school education failing us yet again…

Long year? It’s been a long 4 years….and same to you , you POS!

Stephan, I do believe you mean a very long 2 years!

Politician loyalties: party, big donors, Wall Street, voters, the common good. You may consider yourself a member of one of the parties and dislike the other, but without 2 we would definitely lose our democracy!

How? I ask because about 80% of the time people claiming our democracy (which isn’t what we actually have, technically, but, whatever) is slipping away don’t explain how, exactly. As for the other 20% of the time, they usually bring up something that’s been around forever and a day, like gerrymandering, but I don’t think they intended to mean our “democracy” has been slipping away veeeeerrrrrrryyyy slooooowly.

I wish the press cared that much.

Finding this approach doesn’t work when trying to register voters. But it is tempting.

That the candidate you did not like won, is not the end of democracy. That our system of government was never meant to be a pure democracy as the Founders feared mob rule and so put many checks on electoral majorities. That the majority of the news media has been crying wolf for so long is a good reason to take what they say with a grain of salt.

For the record, we’ve never had a democracy. You won’t find the word in any of our founding documents. It is a constitutional republic. Hope we can keep it.

How many times do we have to cover this? The United States was not designed to be a democracy. It was designed as a federal republic with some elements of democracy included in the design. The Founding Fathers who composed the Constitution did not want America to be a pure democracy; they despised the concept of pure democracy and saw it as little more than mob rule. (And by the way, they were right!)

We’re democratic republic by the way, not a democracy. Big difference.

Anyone remember when this strip used to be funny instead of constantly grinding a political axe? #bringbackthecrocs

We have lost the First and Fourth Amendment, but by god, we still have the Second.

I expected Opus to walk into the frame. Or at least his schnozz

Alexis de Toqueville considered Liberty and Democracy to be mutually opposed. Something about “the tyranny of the majority.”

What exactly is slipping away???? You still have the right to draw a meaningless cartoon, publish it and have it read by vacuous minded people who agree with an empty fear mongering idea.

Nightly news from Moscow. It was here for a while but you missed it.

Translation, Care about what I care about.

And it’s NOT over yet……

I should decide who gets to vote.

And, how they vote.

I have to pace myself on the caring; with the many and frequent opportunities for outrage, I find myself in danger of burning out on a regular basis. I try to see these turbulent times as an opportunity to choose and focus on what is truly important, but I care about so many of these multiple violations of decency and human compassion that it’s impossible to pick only one or two (or three or four). I just hope my stamina lasts another (interminable!) two years.

We don’t live in a democracy… it is a Representative Republic. Democracy leads to socialism when the government gets too much power!

It has been the longest 3 years of my life. Except, I guess, the first three, most of which I don’t remember.

He drifted off during the lawyer ad. We all do.

I’m getting prudish in my old age, as I find panel 3 unnecessarily coarse. How about something more elegant and indirectly suggestive, like “POS”?

Yes, some people have to be shocked into realizing that their government is legislating away their priceless freedoms.

Nothing lasts forever, including the turd in the White House.

Your TV is watching you, Pig! The news presenter is merely its disguise….

It is too late for you!

I’m curious. Does anyone know if newspapers refused to print this one or edited it? Not taking sides, just curious.

Thank you, Mr. Pastis.

Just you wait for 2020