If you’ve wondered why I feature Clay Jones here so often, only part of it is that I tend to agree with his point of view. The major reason is that he produces a cartoon every day, including a fair number that don’t knock me out and don’t appear here.
I mention this because it’s time for editorial cartoonists to stop tee-heeing over Trump and Vance’s hateful lies about Haitians, and he gets it.
As Jones notes, Springfield has been inundated with bomb threats, threats of shootings and general harassment of its immigrant community, and he’s right to arrange his panels in that order because those threats have caused neither Trump nor Vance to halt in their program of lying, racist hatemongering.
Vance admitted to Dana Bash that he is willing to lie if it makes the media join in denouncing migrants, while Trump threatens to deport legal Haitian immigrants to Venezuela, which is a sign of his astonishing ignorance.
Does it matter? Is it “just politics”?
Here’s what people inspired by Trump and Vance are passing out in Springfield:
And if you had picked up a newspaper on this date in 1963, here’s what you’d have seen:
And here are the four little girls who paid the price for the hatemongers on that date:
Though, of course, they weren’t the only people murdered in that time of bigotry and lies, just the four who died on that day in that place.
As Herblock noted, George Wallace and his segregationist cohorts had been shouting about outside agitators, by which they meant civil rights demonstrators and voter registration volunteers from other states, like the four young men murdered in Mississippi a year later, or Viola Liuzzo, shot to death a few years later in his own state of Alabama, or the countless Black men and women lynched for not obeying Jim Crow rules of racial etiquette.
Wallace couldn’t blame the outsiders for the church bombing, because it was done by locals, but the best outcome that the system could manage was justice deferred, decades later.
Which didn’t bring those little girls back to life.
While, as Don Hesse suggested, the best the bereaved Black community could manage was to hope that a merciful God was more decent than the hateful people on this planet.
We’re not quite there yet, but neither are today’s bigots backing off from their deliberate attempts to stir up hatred. Instead, Trump and Vance are doubling down on their lies.
And it’s not just racial hatred. Trump is also continuing to lie about obstetricians killing newborn infants and about schools performing secret sex-change surgeries on children. Does he believe this nonsense, or is he just spreading hate?
What difference would it make?
Yesterday, some nutcase lay in wait with an assault rifle, apparently hoping to shoot Donald Trump. First of all, I don’t know what he’ll be charged with, since Florida is an open-carry state and he was stopped before he could even point his gun at the former president, much less squeeze off a few rounds. Trespassing?
But Trump celebrated the apparent attempt by declaring “No surrender!” whatever that means.
I’d point out that Arthur Bremer managed to change George Wallace into a more thoughtful person, having taught him that what goes around tends to come around.
I would not wish Trump to get the same lesson, but I do wish he’d stop playing the role of toxic clown and behave with a little more intelligent restraint, if not for the good of innocent people, for his own health and safety.
And I called the fellow a “nutcase,” but then again, who else goes around trying to shoot people? Even violent terrorists have to have a few loose screws to do what they do. Knowing they are out there is a very good reason not to stir them up.
The Birmingham bombing inspired a lot of people to start taking things seriously. I really hope we don’t have to sacrifice more innocent lives to make us stop giggling over lies about people eating pets.
But history is not kind in offering hope, and, as Christopher Weyant suggests, Trump is happy to spread hatred, lies and fury, and it seems a lot of people enjoy what he and JD Vance are doing to recreate the dark days the decent people of this nation thought we’d put behind us.
In other news
Nobody seems to be buying Trump’s claim that he knows nothing about Project 2025, given the number of his ex-staffers involved in writing it and the fact that his runningmate has endorsed it.
They are willing to believe he hasn’t read its 900 or so pages, given that he barely bothered to read briefings when he was president and his staff reportedly inserted his name in documents to hold his attention. But, then, few people have actually read it all.
However, a writer for the Guardian did plow through the whole thing and wrote about it, and here’s a spoof of Schoolhouse Rock that offers an explainer:
And Musk is encouraging people to even things up by going after Biden and Harris.
If nothing else, the debate certainly dispelled any notions of “white supremacy”. Harris engaged in a battle of wits with an unarmed man.
Tr*mp’s reckless, unrelenting and shameless disregard for the truth is, in and of itself, sufficient grounds to exclude him from any consideration for office. He represents America’s legions of aggrieved. He is the idol around which they dance. His egregious, wilful indifference to the degradation of institutions and the resulting threats to individuals as a consequence of his lies is staggering.
It’s quite something how he glowingly praises Loomer as the “free spirit” he doesn’t control – as opposed to every other woman in America over whom, if he wins, he intends to exert considerable control.
And should that win come to pass, bear in mind that along with a stellar supporting cast, your 47th Administration will consist of mini-MAGA Vance, Steven Cheung, Laura Loomer, RFK, Tulsi Gabbard, MTG, Matt Gaetz, Stephen Miller and Steve Bannon (pending release). That constitutes quite the “dream team” – even before the inevitable inclusion of mandatory nepo-babies etc.
I watched as PBS Weekend News polled “Undecided Voters” expressing a variety of views. My flabber was comprehensively gasted by the gent who proclaimed that he’d decided to bestow his precious vote upon the congenitally mendacious, amoral imbecile possessed of zero impulse control. The rationale? After much deep soul-searching and reflection, he’d assessed #45 as “the much lesser of two evils”.
Later in the bulletin, my faith in human nature was slightly restored as Lisa Desjardins delivered the breaking headlines while seated in front of a graphic bearing the words “Assassination Attempt?”
A more exquisitely pointed question mark is hard to imagine.
Excellent work today, pointing out the historical precedents through the lens of cartoons. Trump and Vance are going to get someone in Ohio killed and claim clean hands. What gasts my flabber (thanks, JB) is that Vance is one of Ohio’s two senators; if ANYTHING, he should be speaking up on behalf of his community and constituents, instead of trying to burn them down. By all reports, most of the fine folks of Springfield are repudiating their hate, spending their money at local Haitian-owned restaurants and businesses, and telling reporters what good neighbors they are.
Republicans really are saying the quiet part out loud lately, but not enough people seem to be listening. How discouraging. Good on ya, Mike.
I agree that people should stop joking about the eating cats and dogs. Even mocking it helps to spread the lie and isn’t helping the immigrant population in Springfield and elsewhere. Aim the critique at those who spread baseless lies and continue to spread them after being called out, as JD Vance has now said he’ll make up stories to make a point. It’s disgusting.
Nice song. However, the lyric “turning our melting pot into a Christian Nation” is somewhat strange, considering “melting pot” refers to the idea immigrants from all over come and assimilate into mainstream, American WASP culture.
I prefer the Canadian term “cultural mosaic” in which the pieces get to maintain their own shape and color but contribute to the whole.
Folks like Trump and Vance really make me wish I believed in Hell.
Me too. My first reaction to the so-called attempt was that it was a set-up to feed the Victim model that Trump/Vance are projecting. It’s right in line with what they have been doing all along.
So much for “an armed society is a polite society.”