Note: If you wish to receive, via e-mail, (1) my weekly newsletter or (2) daily copies of these posts, write to me at rrbates1951@gmail.com. Comments may also be sent to this address. I promise not to share your e-mail with anyone. To unsubscribe, write here as well.
Tuesday
The donkey is the Democratic icon, but some are worrying that the donkey Democrats most resemble these days is Eeyore. At least, that’s the comparison made by political commentator Matt Labash in a recent essay posted on his Substack blog Slack Tide.
Challenging those he calls “Eeyore Democrats,” he writes, “Yes, we know you’re a sad donkey–fight harder anyway.”
Is it useful to characterize Democrats as such? First, here’s Labash explaining how he arrived at the comparison:
But there’s one thing that’s fatiguing me even more than the physical weather, and that’s the political climate. For it’s hard to go five minutes these days without some defeated sad sack reminding you that no matter how awful Donald Trump’s first six months have been — no matter how much his ever-shifting tariffs are jacking prices to hell, no matter how many academic and media institutions he shakes down for extortion booty, no matter how many bribes he takes in plain sight from memecoin dinners/private-jet-donating-foreign governments, no matter how many idiot offspring strike lucrative deals abroad trading off his name, no matter how much he coddes the pedophiles he was supposed to wreak havoc against, no matter how many billionaire sociopaths he appoints to destroy basic government functionality, no matter how out-of-touch he is with common-man concerns while pretending to be their champion, no matter how hard he sodomizes the republic on a near-daily basis — well, Democrats have the real credibility problem.
To which Labash responds that for Democrats to blame fellow Dems for the current dysfunction “is like blaming my overtaxed AC condenser for the swamp-ass DMV temperatures. It’s a misappropriation of ire.”
I went rummaging through Winnie-the-Pooh and House at Pooh Corner to determine whether the Eeyore comparison is apt. I think people become Eeyores when they feel unappreciated. But knowing that they’re supposed to be stoic and not complain, they vent through passive-aggressive outbursts, pretending to shrug off their hurt. They’re like Eeyore informing Christopher Robin that maybe it’s actually no big deal that someone has stolen his house in the middle of the winter. After observing that he thought he had shelter, he continues on, “But I suppose I don’t. After all, we can’t all have houses.”
And then:
And I said to myself: The others will be sorry if I’m getting myself all cold. They haven’t got Brains, any of them, only grey fluff that’s blown into their heads by mistake, and they don’t Think, but if it goes on snowing for another six weeks or so, one of them will begin to say to himself: ‘Eeyore can’t be so very much too Hot about three o’clock in the morning.’ And then it will Get About. And they’ll be Sorry.
In another story, Eeyore is similarly upset that everyone has forgotten his birthday. Rather than express his complaint directly, however, he says what really bothers him is that everyone else will be miserable:
“It’s bad enough,” said Eeyore, almost breaking down, “being miserable myself, what with no presents and no cake and no candles, and no proper notice taken of me at all, but if everybody else is going to be miserable too—-”
Eeyore is fortunate that he has friends who come to his aid—who build him a house and find his tail and bring him birthday gifts and get him out of the water. Most of the Democrats I know spend much of their lives helping others, which is why so many go into teaching and government and non-profits.
So how about this? You’re allowed to wallow for a few moments in Eeyore-style self-pity when those whose lives you’re seeking to improve demonize you while voting for Trump. Take a few moments to feel sorry for yourself.
But knowing that such wallowing quickly becomes tiresome, quickly shake it off and join the crew of Pooh and Piglet and Christopher Robin and even Rabbit, who are determined to help other people. And who do so without worrying about being thanked
After all, selfless actions bring about a more fulfilling life. Pooh and Piglet feel the happiness of Habitat for Humanity volunteers as they work on Eeyore’s house:
“We’ve finished our house!” sang the gruff voice.
“Tiddely pom!” sang the squeak one.
“It’s a beautiful HOUSE…”
“Tiddely pom . . .”
J.D. Vance complained that Ukraine never properly thanked the U.S. for weapons and Trump complained that starving Gazans never thanked him for food donations. But for Pooh and Piglet, the fact that Eeyore never knows what they have done for him and never thanks them is irrelevant.
People will not necessarily thank you for working to save democracy. Do it anyway.
Tiddely pom.
