9/22/2020, 7:21 am
Democrats Gather En Masse to Take Part in the Democratic Party Tradition Known as The Shooting of the Foot Festival
PHILADELPIA, PA – Protesters gathered here in Philadelphia as well as in other major cities over the weekend to take part in a Democratic Party tradition known as “The Shooting of the Foot.”Unlike many other holidays and traditions, The Shooting of the Foot festival doesn't occur on a certain day of the year. Rather, it occurs whenever Democrats absolutely cannot afford to self-sabotage. Right now, for instance, Joe Biden has a lead in most polls even while recent riots give ground to Trump's claim that his re-election is essential for maintaining law and order. This would seem to be an opportune moment for Democratic Party voters to stay at home and behave normally. Actually, such a precarious advantage just means that it's auspicious timing for The Shooting of the Foot.
Ron Hamm, the chairman of the Philadelphia Chapter of the Shooting of the Foot Committee shared his thoughts. “If we Democrats could avoid crowds without hypocrisy and market ourselves as prioritizing public health measures, it might really help our appeal with independents and other undecided voters. On the other hand, if we went out en masse to protest despite the fact that we were just on our high horses about public health measures, we'd really be shooting ourselves in the foot. And that's exactly what this tradition is all about.”
Leonard Mosely, a Philadelphian and a perennial shooting-of-the-foot participant, cleared up some misconceptions about the tradition. “Many people believe that we shoot our own foot just once. Really, one shot to the foot tends to concur along with several others. For instance, many leading virologists wouldn't criticize the left-wing protests directly despite having criticized right-wing rallies, thus damaging their own credibility and showing how fearful many scientists are of the relentless smears that might erupt from left-wing twitter mobs and from their own left-aligned colleagues.
"There you had some serious exposure of vulnerability to left-wing politics in the sciences," Mosely continued, "and there you had the exposure of the relentlessness of demands for unquestioning compliance to orthodoxy from the militant sub-sections of the left despite all of their rampant hypocrisy on immediate display. This sort of exposure was not at all the sort of thing we wanted for ourselves. It was a hell of a shot to the foot. Then the mainstream media criticized Trump for allegedly ignoring public safety measures with his rallies while rendering large gatherings that served their own causes permissible, thus further compromising public trust. As tradition goes, it's shot after shot to the foot.”
And it's been shot after shot for quite some time. Some recent “shooting of the foot” instances involved the mainstream media smearing a teenager, the nomination of the chronically unlikable Hillary Clinton, Hillary Clinton's “deplorables” comment, Obama claiming that entrepreneurs owe their success to the government, and democrats pushing for an untimely withdrawal from Iraq.
Despite this rich history of foot shooting, some Democrats believe that their party and the people associated with it should stop shooting themselves in the foot and start winning elections. Blaine Stevens, a twenty year old registered Democrat, believes otherwise. “If we didn't shoot our own foot all the time and then go ‘There's a bullet in our foot. What went wrong?' we wouldn't be Democrats.”
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