Comic Strip of the Day Editorial cartooning

CSotD: Before It Reigns Anymore

Gary Varvel (Creators) reports that paratroopers are landing in North Carolina, apparently in search of undocumented migrants.

As you may know, Columbia University is basically a concrete campus in the middle of Manhattan, so, obviously, this is some other Columbia.

Now, somebody is going to point out that there are many places named “Columbia,” but you can tell it’s Columbia, North Carolina, because of the green grass, sandy beaches and blue waters of Albermarle Sound. The Columbia in South Carolina is a good 100 miles from the ocean and the others aren’t even close.

Speaking of not even being close, one good rule for journalists of any stripe, including editorial cartoonists, is to doublecheck your information so that you don’t accidentally repeat a misspelling by the partisan source whose dictation you are taking.

And who gives dictation but a dictator?

Checking the facts can louse up a good patriotic cartoon. Steve Kelley (Creators) combines dismay over negative coverage of Trump’s deportations with pleasure that CNN fired Jim Acosta, but in order to make the point he had to ignore the fact that Acosta was not fired but quit, publicly and proudly.

Though even relying on facts can trip you up in a time when facts change with the wind. The whole back-and-forth with Colombia was a farce and I do have some pity for cartoonists who spent time creating works based on the quickly withdrawn tariff threats, though not a lot for anyone celebrating the deliberate cruelty of mass deportations.

Though, as Ann Telnaes points out, the cruelty is what so delights Trump supporters. They hide behind a claim of supporting legal immigration, but Trump also cancelled appointments for refugees who were trying to obey the law.

Legality doesn’t seem to be the issue, as brown people are being made scapegoats, including those who were here before any Europeans arrived, as well as those whose ancestors lived in a part of Mexico that was taken by conquest in 1848. As well as brown people with the nerve to speak up.

Here’s something funny: When I was in second or third grade, we had an assembly where a nice couple from the John Birch Society warned us that, if we didn’t fight the commies, we’d end up in a society where you had to be prepared to show your papers to the authorities on the street.

Something funnier: My Social Security card says it’s not to be used as identification. You should point that out the next time you’re asked for your number. Just say, “I am not a number. I am a free man.”

Let us know how it works for you.

I hope people can continue to let us know how things are working for them, but, while Megan Herbert‘s comment on the gyrations within social media is funny, I worry a bit about how it’s going to work out in the long run.

The capitulation of the Washington Post and LA Times to obedience leaves us, as I’ve said before, depending on the samizdat of alternative media, which is fine, but it reminds me of Jefferson’s comment about preferring newspapers without government to government without newspapers, in which he specified “But I should mean that every man should receive those papers and be capable of reading them.”

We already know that Xitter has become a hell-hole of bigotry and hate, and people now are getting off the fact-checkless Facebook and Meta. Some of us stick around to counter the emerging toxicity, but suspect that algorithms are being set to keep our counter-arguments and protests from being seen.

However, if the broligarchy Rob Rogers illustrates should become even more cooperative with the Central Government, we’re going to have to find some sort of underground internet, which sounds like Robin Hood or Fahrenheit 451 or something, but flies in the face of Jefferson’s vision, because it wouldn’t reach everyone and they might not be capable of receiving it.

However, even the broligarchy doesn’t control everything, and the more we alienate the world, the more likely it is that alternative communication methods will emerge.

Which brings us to this

Juxtaposition of the Day

Chip Bok — Creators

Patrick Chappatte

Chris Riddell

Chip Bok is pleased that Trump is alienating the world’s economic advisors at Davos, seeing them as part of the rightwing’s “World Economic Order” boogeyman, which seems inconsistent with Trump’s announced plan, as seen in Chappatte’s piece, to bring the world under one roof, using economic extortion as in that brief dustup with Colombia.

Riddell takes a wider look, and conflates Trump’s combination of threats at Davos with his withdrawal of the US from both the Paris Climate Agreement and the World Health Organization, all of which adds up to either a completely incoherent and counterproductive foreign policy or a deliberate one, as explained by David Sipress:

Sipress is exaggerating, as cartoonists do. Not everyone hates us. For instance, Lichtenstein is not a member of WHO, and neither Iran, Libya nor Yemen are in the Paris Climate Agreement. Meanwhile, Dear Leader is still looking to build bonds with Russia, Hungary and North Korea, though he’s got kind of an Archie and Veronica off-again-on-again romance going with China.

Guy Venables points out why Volodya loves Donnie: Dear Leader is leading the way in convincing the world that “name it and claim it” is a valid method of expanding your horizons.

Though Denmark’s Prime Minister has been traveling around Europe making sure her EU and NATO allies aren’t going to let Trump absorb Sudetenland Greenland without opposition. She has said she sees no threat of invasion despite a reportedly “horrendous” phone call with Dear Leader, but then again, she’s no fool.

Juxtaposition of the Day #2

Gary Markstein — Creators

Michael Ramirez — Creators

It’s not surprising that Markstein criticizes the Republicans for their unwavering fealty to Dear Leader, but having Ramirez step forward with a similar accusation is interesting. Neither is a hardliner, but Markstein is generally just left of center while Ramirez is generally just to the right.

Seeing the overlap is an encouraging sign that not everybody wants to let the bootlickers and crazies set our agenda.

The best response for now might be to listen to Pedro X. Molina (Counterpoint), who fled a much more advanced dictatorship.

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Comments 8

  1. My partner did a test with an anti-Republican Facebook post, and confirmed that no one following them was able to see it.

  2. As Stephen Colbert famously said: “The cruelty is the point”

    Some people just enjoy watching others suffer, especially if it makes them feel better about their own miserable lives.

    Over the past few weeks I’ve also been wondering why there isn’t some sort of “alternate internet”

    Social media, algorithms, and now A.I. are on the verge of making the internet unusable. It’s just a constant flood of crap, and I’m seriously tempted to just cancel my internet service and be done with it.

  3. Mike: I think you missed the point in the Varvel cartoon.
    Varvel seems to be advocating just throwing people out of an airplane over their former country.
    It was “nice” he included helmets and (possibly) parachutes but neither does much good for someone who has a) never done skydiving or b) had shackles on their hands and ankles as those Colombian refugees did.
    And, of course, there is no sign of anyone doing any real checking to see if those refugees were actually “illegal” or were going through the process in a hopelessly screwed up system hamstrung by Trump.

    1. The leg kicking them out would seem to confirm that but then again, they all look like a bunch of white guys not in shackles. It’s a lazy double entendre!

    2. I work hard to come up with explanations as nonsensical as the cartoon, when nonsense is warranted, as it was this time.

  4. Mike – you were definitely WRONG. It’s the flight of deportations being kicked out of the US plane over Colombia South America. It’s so obvious. How do you not see???

  5. Maybe because the plane is over “Columbia”, not “Colombia”??

    1. You think it was “Colombia”? Nonsense! Read the memo from the White House. It was “Columbia.” Any other interpretation would mean that the President of the United States is illiterate and that Varvel copies anything he says, even if it’s wrong. Aren’t you patriotic and loyal?

      Obviously, it’s Columbia, North Carolina. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life in a concentration camp at Guantanamo.

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