CSotD: Strange Days Have Tracked Us Down
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Peter Brookes leads us off today with a commentary on the bizarre mashup of celebration and disaster surrounding the Republican National Convention, which, as several people have noted, is unusual because an incumbent president is basing his appeal on the horrific condition of the nation he has been leading.
We sure aren’t hearing Republicans ask, “Are you better off today than you were four years ago?”
And while timing is always an issue in political cartooning, Michael Ramirez might be wishing he had this one back in light of more recent events from Kenosha.
It’s not that everyone who says “All Lives Matter” is an overt, conscious racist.
But this cartoon still sends a message of “Do what the police say or they may kill you.”
It’s one thing to say “If you drive drunk, you may cause an accident” and another to warn that resisting arrest is apt to get you killed, even if both cautions are true.
Of course, black parents have had this conversation with their sons for many decades, which is why protesters emphasize that Black Lives Matter.
You can’t sound the warning and simultaneously downplay the imbalance in how it plays out, which explains the little black girl in the cartoon.
And as has been noted many, many, too many times, All Houses Matter, certainly, but the fire department focuses its attention on the one that is currently engulfed in flames.
You have to try really hard in order not to understand that.
But, again, timing is everything, and, if the shooting of Jacob Blake is one more in too long a line of tragic encounters, the murder of BLM protesters opened a new chapter in the decline and fall of our nation.
Clay Jones is harsh in declaring that Donald Trump actually, specifically approved the killings, but, then again, Donald Trump invited a pair of armed vigilantes who drew down on peaceful protesters to address the nation at his convention.
The fact that they didn’t pull the trigger is a distinction no intelligent person would begin to defend.
There will be more commentary on this in the coming days, I’m sure, but Steve Brodner offers a sketch that sums it up, noting Dr. Cooper’s words on Ari Melber’s show (starting at about 3.30).
Making heroes of armed vigilantes does not allow you to add “Don’t Try This At Home” disclaimers because you are specifically endorsing trying this at home, particularly when the vigilantes being praised are total amateurs, as many gun owners noted in seeing how carelessly they handled their weapons.
Moreover, Kenosha’s Chief of Police does not cool things down by observing that, if you don’t protest during off-hours, armed vigilantes won’t feel compelled to murder you “to resolve whatever conflict was in place.”
And his officers won’t have to spend taxpayer money handing out free water bottles to the aforementioned armed white-supremacist vigilantes in gratitude for their support.
Drew Litton notes that the NBA has stepped up, with the players cancelling games, with a cartoon that mirrors the iconic photo of 14-year-old Mary Ann Vecchio kneeling over the corpse of slaughtered Kent State student Jeff Miller.
Though Tom Stiglich points out that nobody cares what they think, or, at least, that he doesn’t.
He’s right that ratings for the NBA are down from the past, though it’s not clear how much that’s influenced by the pandemic interruption of their season.
It’s also not clear where “popular” and “morally right” intersect on the scale of values.
And, building on Litton’s cartoon, let me add a plug for Derf Backderf’s superb graphic history of the Kent State shootings which is about to be released.
I’ve read it, but I didn’t need to in order to remember that, shocked as decent people were at the killings, there was, at the time, plenty of pushback and plenty of false rumors and plenty of people who said those damn kids got what they deserved.
Or that, in both criminal and civil trials, the Guardsmen were exonerated.
So pardon me for being cynical, but, whatever you think of Donald Trump’s morals or honesty or concern for the nation, he surely does know how to promote, and the decision to feature armed vigilantes at his convention was no blunder.
He may well be right that he could have two innocent protesters shot to death in the streets of Kenosha and not lose a single vote.
Which makes Ruben Bolling’s otherwise excellent bit of political satire yet another example of how hard it is to invent anything more absurdly chilling than reality:
To which I would add this: You need to stop using the expression “dog whistle” to describe Trump’s appeal to a violent racist subculture.
Dog whistles are pitched to be heard only by the dogs they summon.
These are not “dog whistles.” Anyone, everyone, can hear them, and don’t pretend otherwise, because, in the words of Michael Corleone, “It insults my intelligence and makes me very angry.”
No, the only issue now is whether we’ll bother to respond at all, and, if we do, will we do it not as rabid dogs, but as decent human beings?
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