Stickybuffalo.com

No, this isn’t any kind of serious post, really. It’s actually a satirical post featuring some goofy ideas I had this morning about alternative logos for the Democrats.

This, I guess, is the party’s official logo:

I grabbed it from Wikipedia, at any rate; I dunno

Interestingly, this is rarely what media seem to use; I think the Democrats are far more often represented by some sort of donkey-shaped variant of the official GOP logo, as the BBC does here. I’m not exactly sure what the deal is with this; it may be that most Democrats aren’t either. America’s two leading political parties seem to be more like the Cleveland Browns, in terms of standardized graphic identity, than like major political parties in say, Canada, or Britain.

But in any event, the Democrats’ emblem is a donkey, in some form. I think that much, at least, is pretty well established. And admittedly, if I were setting out to indulge in a little embittered mockery of “my” party, suggesting that they be represented by a jackass would seemingly be quite sufficient, you’d think. (It continues to afford the GOP endless merriment, after all; thank you, Thomas Nast.) Sufficient, perhaps, but also boring. So in light of the Democrats’ latest in a string of craven climbdowns, I’ve decided to explore some other options just in case they might better represent the party of mush:

(This is a possom)

How about a possom? Rolling over and playing dead does seem to be a major part of what the Democrat “brand” offers. (Possom shape stolen from in tribute to “The Red Green Show’s” possum lodge emblem.)

Hopefully this looks like a jellyfish

Of course there’s also spinelessness, a quality nearly impossible to think of independently from the Democratic party. Democrats and spinelessness; they’re like peanut butter and jelly, or Mike & Ike. I think this is my favorite of the designs I came up with, really.

And yet, does “spinelessness” really capture the Democrats? They did, after much quivering and quaking, manage to push through health care reform, compromised-out-the-wazoo though it was. And they actually stood up and called shenanigans when the GOP tried, per their usual playground logic, to frame financial reform as a Democratic sellout to Wall Street. (Honestly, Republicans seem incapable of making any differentiation between legitimate criticism and petulant taunting; whenever they get busted for something their response always seems to be along the lines of “I know you are but what am I?”)

So maybe it’s inaccurate to say that the Democrats really have no spines, and are simply constitutionally incapable of confronting opposition. This gets into semantic tail-chasing, of course, nonetheless I do think they can pull it off… if they really apply themselves… except that they’re just chicken:

Sorry, but I calls 'em as I sees 'em

I think any or all of these would work, though, really. And I would almost be tempted to get a few T-shirts made and send them to Barack, Nancy, Harry, etc. Of course, in the post envelopes-filled-with-white-powder era, that’s just not really practical. (For security purposes our elected leaders can only accept gifts from familiar and trusted corporate lobbyists, nowadays.) Ah well, I expect that they wouldn’t appreciate the gesture anyway.