81
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The Onion calls out ‘cowardice’ of US Congress in full-page New York Times ad
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- Title
- Congress, Now More Than Ever, Our Nation Needs Your Cowardice
- Published
- Jun 20 2025
- Word count
- 723 words
It can't be easy writing satire when the world has become dumber than any of them were able to imagine.
Let's hope more congress-people feel called out than vindicated by this piece!
I was contemplating this yesterday - WHY in 2025 is everyone else BUT Congress held so accountable? Your pizza driver wants to know what he's rated and he's gonna apologize if you give him a bad comment. Every $1 pen seller on Amazon wants to know if you're happy with your purchase. Your kid's school, the local barbershop, even town council wants to hear your thoughts and they WILL respond if you have a legitimate beef because they know how much hassle an honest, well written complaint can hurt them, especially if it goes viral and many others jump on with their own stories.
But Congress? Just crickets. Thousands marching in the streets for No Kings, millions around the world protesting the bombing of Iran, emails, phone calls... doesnt seem to phase them. WHY does your grocer have to care about your thoughts but the US Administration can just ignore them?
Because most of that stuff isn't actual improved accountability, it's terrible metrics to that need padded to avoid undue punishment and algorithmic boosting.
The pizza guy didn't need to grovel for 5-star only reviews to keep his job before. Dissatisfied customers would complain to a manager.
Part of the reasons schools are worse now is because of this constant groveling to unreasonable parents. If anything, it is the students who lost accountability because of this.
All that to say: People in power have never been held accountable except for the rarest of occasions. They will generally do whatever they want until the masses back them up against the wall.
Gonna be a lot of groveling in a year's time, then. Of we make it that far. If that vluw wave doesn't happen (or some other kind of administrative shakeup), I really don't know if the US will survive.
The only thing I can think of is - unfortunately - that the political establishment has carven itself out of consequences.
Which... does not sound inaccurate. And in fact would explain why they're not blasting Trump as much as they should: it'd mean they're more afraid of his power than over the people they're supposed to represent.
“Just crickets” isn’t accurate. For the reactions of members of Congress on Iran, for example, see this news story:
Democrats, and some Republicans, question Trump’s unilateral attack
As for accountability, members of Congress are accountable to voters and too many voters are electing Republicans. In some cases, they were “held accountable” for not supporting Trump enough, by getting primaried, and the Congress we have now is the result.
I would think that a president unilaterally bombing another nation should cause a heck of a lot more than "unease" Seems so ineffective.
And yes, there are elections, but he's barely into his mandate. Are Americans going to wait almost 4 years to say enough is enough? Also seems very ineffective, especially since he seems to ignore the courts or anyone else trying to reign him in.
You're certainly right that Congress is ineffective, but what would be effective? Maybe they could pass a law, except that many Republicans support Trump, and also, it would probably get vetoed. And there's little hope of impeachment, let alone a conviction.
Our dysfunctional Congress is a direct result of electing bad people and won't be fixed without new elections that go very well for Democrats.
As an outsider: Electing democrats isn’t going to help much because your system is fundamentally broken. The Democratic Party rather loses elections than give up power by eliminating FPTP voting. Your president can veto laws and pardon basically everyone they want. What democracy gives one person so much power?
You probably know all this, but still. Dems like power too and won’t fix these fundamental problems.
Each state makes its own rules and some states don’t have first-past-the-post elections. Maine and Alaska have ranked choice. In California and Washington, the top two from the primary go on to run in the general election.
Maybe you meant something else?
Because the people protesting are left leaning democrat-likely voters and Congress is in control of Republicans? If anything, seeing democrats be mad makes Republican voters happier.
“Own the libs” is one of the major mandates Republican lawmakers have from their voters so the more miserable people on the left look the better.
Headline from here - http://thehandbasket.co/p/exclusive-the-onion-nyt-ad-congress-cowardice - , link goes directly to Onion article instead of article about Onion article.
I just wanna point out the signature section at the bottom of the letter. Love it, however I was not aware of Ted's current editorial posthumous efforts.
When I see the things happening this year, I think a lot about the movie (and book) “The Dead Zone”. In that story, a guy can see the future and prevents a crazy person from becoming president. The future vision included the president launching missiles that would end the world. The scene shows a general who meekly authorizes the strike even though the president is clearly insane. When I saw that scene I thought it was unrealistic. But clearly the same thing is happening. All the checks and balances that we have are apparently just an illusion. All the people that could prevent the crazy evil incompetence are waiting for someone else to do it.