Does this cartoon go too far?
That's a rhetorical question, but I imagine some of you will answer anyway...
Every once in a while I’ll draw a cartoon and wonder if it goes too far and the above cartoon, questioning the intelligence of Trump Voters, fell into that category.
Obviously, not every person who voted for Donald Trump — or if given the chance — plans to in the future is illiterate or stumped by equations like 2+2=?, although exaggeration is one of the tools political cartoonists use to make a point so I didn’t feel all that bad about using exaggeration to make this one.
And now let me take a moment to make the kind of distinction that the political cartoon art form doesn’t allow because when you look at a political cartoon I’ve got about three seconds of your attention to get my message across.
Here goes:
I have friends who voted for Donald Trump the first time he ran for president because they really, really didn’t like Hillary Clinton (I don’t either, but not to the point of voting for Donald Trump) and they thought why not give the non-politician a chance because the professional politicians haven’t done so hot, but came to regret those votes because Donald Trump proved to be, as one of those Trump Voting Friends described him:
“A fucking idiot.”
OK, so maybe you get a pass on voting for Trump once (and that’s a very weak “maybe” because Trump had made it clear he was a fucking idiot long before he first ran for president) but if you watched Donald Trump in the White House for four years and decided to vote for him again because you liked what he was doing, I’ve got a lot less sympathy.
Anyway…
While I was trying to decide whether I was going to draw the Possibly-Going-Too-Far Trump Voter Cartoon, I read an Associated Press story that said over 100 lawsuits have already been filed over the midterm elections that haven’t been held yet.
Here’s a quote from the story:
“The suits, largely by Republicans, target rules over mail-in voting, early voting, vote access, voting machines, voting registration, the counting of mismarked absentee ballots and access for partisan poll watchers.”
The story went on to say it’s the most litigation ever filed before an election and hinted that we hadn’t seen nuthin’ yet because things were bound to get a lot more contentious after the election because the Republicans are now using the Donald Trump Playbook:
“If I lost I must have been cheated.”
And as the AP story pointed out, the attempt to overturn the 2020 election was conducted by a bunch of knuckleheads like Rudy Giuliani (the Associated Press didn’t actually use the word “knuckleheads” but I got the feeling they really wanted to) and this time things are being run by the Republican National Committee with real lawyers who don’t use shoe polish for hair dye or hold press conferences in the parking lot of landscaping companies and Republican party officials say they’re preparing for recounts, contested elections and more litigation.
Also…
“There are thousands of volunteers in place primed to challenge ballots and hunt down evidence of malfeasance.”
According to yet another Associated Press story, election deniers are signing up to be poll workers, so if you thought the last election was a Shit Show, hang onto your hats.
And all this turmoil is based on a claim that the guy making it knows isn’t true.
According to a story about the January 6th committee that ran in the Kansas City Star, former White House and campaign advisors have given sworn testimony about conversations with Donald Trump in which he privately acknowledged that he had lost the election to Joe Biden.
But Trump’s ego is too fragile to admit that publicly; he’d rather destroy Democracy.
The part about “sworn testimony” is a big deal because as Donald has proven over and over, you can say pretty much anything you want when you’re not under oath, but lying under oath is perjury and you can get fined and/or go to jail which is why all those charges of the election being stolen fell apart once the cases made it into a courtroom.
Trump admitting he lost the election in private, but saying he didn’t in public, means the entire ordeal Trump put the country through was phony and we’re about to go through another election ordeal, so if after all that you’re still willing to vote for Donald Trump and still consider yourself a Trump Voter, I guess I don’t mind questioning your intelligence.
According to another recent story by the Associated Press, the decline of an endangered species of whale slowed last year, but the whale still faces extinction because it’s losing breeding females too fast, probably because the females like to go to bars and let the male whales buy them drinks and maybe dance with them if nobody else asks, but when the male whales want to breed the females whales say:
“As if.”
OK, I may have confused the whale situation with the human situation which is not a surprise because as they above cartoon indicates, we’re both in trouble.
The whale species in question is the “right whale” so I guess the female whales are reluctant to breed until they meet “Mr. Right.”
(OK, admittedly that’s a lame joke, but it was right there in front of me so I used it and the only people with a right to complain are the people who are paying to read this and after my Donald Trump Voter Rant that number might decline in the near future.)
So it turns out the guy so many right-wing politicians liked and wanted to emulate is kind of a dick and seems to be getting desperate because his invasion of Ukraine isn’t going all that hot and he’s been targeting civilians and in this case, I’m not sure I exaggerated enough when I drew this cartoon about him bombing playgrounds and nursery schools.
Here’s an article about the politicians who are now scrambling to explain the nice things they said about Putin in the past and it also says a Pew survey of 18 countries found positive views of Putin at 10% or less which seems kind of high until you think about how many batshit crazy people we have right here in America and then 10% seems pretty low.
https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/13/opinions/putin-far-right-fans-west-europe-ghitis
Former football star and current U.S. Senate candidate Herschel Walker has made some dubious claims if by “dubious claims” you actually mean “spouting bullshit that make you wonder just how many concussions Herschel Walker has suffered.”
Walker is anti-abortion, but two women have claimed Walker paid for their abortions after he got them pregnant, but Walker says they’re lying.
Walker has admitted to domestic violence and having mental health issues which he claims to have overcome, but he also claimed to be a police officer and then claimed he never claimed that, but according to the Forbes magazine website, Walker has not only claimed to be a police officer, he also claimed to be an FBI “agent” which is unlikely because to be an FBI agent you have to have at least a bachelor’s degree and Walker doesn’t have one.
Walker has also claimed to have a “military career” even though he’s never been in the military.
After reading the details it seems like Walker will exaggerate the slightest connection to law enforcement or the military and I have visited the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. so by Walker’s standards, apparently I’m now entitled to talk about my “time with the Air Force and NASA.”
If you want to read more about Walker’s scandals, here you go:
Walker’s latest claim is that the “people of China and Mexico” are making fentanyl look like Halloween candy and here’s another article about Herschel Walker’s less-than-accurate claims:
BTW:
University of Delaware Professor Joel Best, writing for the Scientific American – a description that applies to fewer of us than it used to – has investigated the tainted Halloween candy scare back to 1958 and says:
"I can't find any evidence that any child has ever been killed or seriously injured by a contaminated treat picked up in the course of trick-or-treating."
And then added:
"But in a time when many news outlets seem intent on maintaining their audiences by frightening them, and increased political polarization seems to stall efforts to devise workable social policies, calls for protecting our children from the threats of boogeyman drug dealers return us to the spirit of Halloween: offering up fresh ways to keep people scared."
So apparently, it would be a really good idea for me to scare the shit out of you to “maintain my audience” and I think I’ve done my best with that opening bit about the next election.
Be afraid…be very afraid.
Right now, on Bizarro World, there's a political cartoonist trying to rile up people by implying that stupid people voted for Biden.
I'm glad you don't write for Bizarro World, Lee.