A Kansas newspaper whose publisher is a county Republican chairman posted a cartoon on its Facebook page likening an order from the state’s [Democratic] governor requiring people to wear masks in public to the round-up and murder of millions of Jews during the Holocaust.
From the Anderson County Review Facebook page:
The Guardian carries the story.
The [weekly] newspaper posted the cartoon on Friday [on its Facebook page], the day Kelly’s mask order took effect. It drew several hundred comments, many strongly critical.
Publisher Dane Hicks, who is also Anderson county’s Republican party chairman, said he would answer questions once he could reach a computer. His newspaper is based in the county seat of Garnett, about 65 miles south-west of Kansas City. It has a circulation of about 2,100, according to the Kansas Press Association.
At this writing the paper’s Facebook page is showing 1,500 comments and 400 shares, far outdistancing any of its other posts; no doubt due to the incident going international with The New York Times and The Times of Israel also carrying the Associated Press story where the publisher has replied:
Publisher Dane Hicks, who is also Anderson County’s GOP chairman, said in an email that political cartoons are “gross over-caricatures designed to provoke debate” and “fodder for the marketplace of ideas.”
“The topic here is the governmental overreach which has been the hallmark of Governor Kelly’s administration,” he said.
Kansas Republicans are quickly denouncing the cartoon.
The cartoonist/graphic artist who created the cartoon has not been identified.
update
On Saturday, July 4, Publisher Dan Hicks had posted his full reply to the AP reporter,
Among the questions and answers was this:
Did you post the cartoon yourself, or did a staffer do it?
I photoshopped the cartoon. I’m no artist.
On Sunday, July 5, Hicks took down the cartoon and apologized:
It doesn’t even make sense within its own stupid conceit. Why would the supposed Nazi be wearing that star? These idiots can’t even get their own idiocy straight.
I should be thankful, I guess, that they’re not intelligent, but I also know how much damage the combination of ‘stupid’ and ‘evil’ can do. Rather than being less harmful, it generally succeeds in harming everyone concerned, including the stupid evil ones. The combination leaves wreckage in its wake.