Toon: Circle Joke

If you spend a lot of time watching cable TV news, first of all, do yourself a favor and stop; and second of all, you will have heard a variety of pundits, academics, and people of the mistaken belief that they should run for president someday, who are weighing in on Why Kamala Harris Lost The Election.

One of the leading theories is that President Joe Biden and those closest to him handicapped her by running for reelection in spite of mounting evidence that his mental acuity had begun to decline. Many of us, myself included, had voted for him in 2020 on the presumption that at 87, he planned to serve one term to repair the damage left behind by The Corrupt Trump administration, then hand leadership of the party over to someone younger.

Instead, he decided to run for reelection, as he put it, "to finish the job."

Which is ridiculous.

The presidency is not a job you're supposed to "finish." Each president does what he or (someday) she can, and turns it over to the next person. The job is never finished until the Republic is.

Donald Berzelius Trump, I fear, may "finish the job."

Anyway, my worry back when Biden announced his 2024 candidacy was that he didn't have confidence that Vice President Kamala Harris was up to taking over the job from him. Or that a Democratic Party primary battle would leave its victor hobbled by constituencies feeling that they were denied their due, or ignored, or unwelcome. Or, in the absence of a primary battle, ditto.

As things have turned out, plenty of Democratic constituencies are complaining about being denied their due, ignored, or unwelcome anyway. The Left complains that Harris tacked to the center instead of wholeheartedly campaigning on their agenda. The Centrists complain that Harris embraced "wokism" and transgender rights and people who say "Latinx."

I saw a scholar on The Daily Show this week promoting his election post-mortem book, arguing to Jon Stewart that Democrats were doomed by their embrace of DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion). He wasn't saying that Democrats should join Republicans in promoting Uniformity, Inequity, and Exclusion; just that they should call DEI something else — as if the right-wing propaganda machine wouldn't devote itself to turning the new name into a dirty word.

Now, I suppose that had Harris listened to the Palestinian rights crowd and condemned Netanyahu's genocidal war in Gaza, it might have been enough to get her over the finish line in Michigan. But it wouldn't have made the difference in any of the other "blue wall" swing states. Vowing to send undocumented alien drug dealers to Guantanamo might have gained her Arizona.

On the other hand, those moves might have helped about as much as affecting a southern drawl helped her in Georgia and North Carolina.

No Thanks, I've Had Enough

 

This Week's Sneak Peek

I should have been thinking of Thanksgiving cartoons (Hey! How 'bout drawing someone in the news as a turkey?), or even something for World AIDS Day.

But this guy is everywhere. A festering cancer that has spread itself throughout the entire lymphatic system of the body politic. A ringing tinnitus that robs you of sleep at night and obsesses your thoughts all day. 

A malevolent poltergeist destined to haunt us long after that blessed day when we mistakenly think he's finally gone.

What Kind of Nation Elects a Fascist?

The answer may depress you.

I'll give you a hint: not a great one.

for Q Syndicate, Oct. 2004

Today's Graphical History Tour kicks off with a cartoon I drew 20 years ago when George W. Bush was sailing on a swiftboat to reelection. It expressed my feelings about his GOProud supporters then, and seems a propos to the several demographics who, having witnessed the shitshow that was Donald Berzelius Trump's first term, decided to ask for another.

Rather than the usual recap of my cartoons from 40, 30, 20, and 10 years ago, I feel that I just can't ignore the foreboding of what's in store during the next four.

When the outcome of last week's election could no longer be denied, I changed my personal Facebook photo, which had been of my "I Voted Today" sticker and buttons for three of the people I voted for, to this cartoon that I had drawn the first time our Electoral College handed the nation over to Donald Trump:

for Q Syndicate, November, 2016

I soon learned that my esteemed colleague, Jack Ohman, had just published an extremely similar cartoon, based on the same Bill Mauldin classic that had inspired mine.

That is what we in the editorial cartoon biz call a "Yahtzee." Jack and I independently came up with the same idea, based on the same subject matter familiar to both of us, to express the same reaction to (more or less) the same news event. Or, in this case, the recrudescence of the same news event eight years later.

To be quite honest, however, neither of our Lincoln Memorial Barfing cartoons quite capture my reaction this time around. The election of Trump for a second reich, this time with the support of an actual majority of my fellow Americans, feels more like seeing a dog eating its own vomit.

I’m not drawing that cartoon. 

Pat Bagley drew a slightly more sanitized version of that sort of idea anyway, and it was still too risqué for his editors at the Salt Lake Tribune. I don't like to swipe my colleagues' work here, but I think you need to see what I’m talking about.

"Lap Lap Lap..." by Pat Bagley for Salt Lake Tribune, Nov. 9, 2024

At this point, we’ve moved on from the initial shock and horror of Trump’s election, to the ever-accumulating nausea and dread of one outrageous cabinet appointment after another to the impending cabinet of Dr. Tarr and Professor Fether.

I tried warning everyone about it with last week’s Graphical History Tour, but obviously, I wasn’t forceful enough. 

I didn't include this next cartoon last week lest it prove prophetic:

January, 2021

Perhaps I should have.

It has been noted that if you've ever wondered what you would have done when the Nazis took over Germany, congratulations, you're doing it now.

Having seen the cartoons of Ben Garrison, Chip Bok, Gary Varvel, Henry Payne, and others gloating over the November 5 results, I'd suggest my colleagues substitute the word "drawing" for "doing."

Since this post is supposed to be about history, here's a little taste of what Germany's cartoonists were drawing when Hitler came to power on January 30, 1933.

"Die Meistersinger (Dritter Aufzug) by Werner Hahmann in Kladderadatsch, Berlin, Feb. 12, 1933

The Garrison types were in charge at the Berlin satirical weekly Kladderadatsch, where Hitler's rise to power was greeted with the above paraphrase of the poet Hans Sachs, a leading character in Richard Wagner's Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg. (February, 1933 happened to be the 50th anniversary of Wagner's death, so there were a number of cartoons referencing the composer at the time.)

"Immer Sein Kampf..." by Karl Arnold in Simplicissimus, Munich, Feb. 5, 1933

Simplicissimus, published in Munich since 1896, was a center-left counterpart to Berlin's Kladderadatsch. Its satire became less pointed during The Great War, under pressure to be patriotic; it was no friend of the Nazis during the Weimar period, however.

I don't know whether the date on their February 5, 1933 issue is when it hit the newsstands, or the date until which it was intended to remain on the newsstands, but the cover cartoon's intention was clearly to mock the prospect of a Hitler chancellorship on the strength of a bunch of hayseeds from the Teutoburg forest area.

"Zur Verfassung des Deutschen Reiches" by Karl Arnold in Simplicissimus, Stuttgart, March 12, 1933

Shortly after Hitler's rise to power, Simplicissimus had found it necessary to decamp from Munich to Stuttgart.

"Wagner in Walhall" by Thomas Th. Heine in Simplicissimus, Munich, February 12, 1933

Having already spent time in prison for publishing a cartoon critical of Kaiser Wilhelm in 1898, editor Thomas Theodor Heine appears to have shied away from satire targeting individual politicians. I don't detect a political subtext in his tribute to Wagner; yet Heine still had commentary to offer about the new government's plans to fix the German economy.

"Vierjahresplan" by Th. Th. Heine in Simplicissimus, Munich, Feb. 26, 1933

Within months, Heine, a Jew, was ousted from the magazine and would flee to Czechoslovakia. When that, too, proved unsafe, he moved to Norway, and finally to Sweden, where he died in 1948. His last cartoon in Simplicissimus was in the April 1, 1933 edition, under the appropriate title, "Epilogue." 

"Epilog" by Th. Th. Heine in Simplicissimus, Stuttgart, April 1, 1933

Q Toon: It's Only a Day Away

It’s gonna be a rough four years — more than four, from what plans were already seeing of Republican plans to circumvent and stifle democratic norms and safeguards.

Let me just say here that I'm aware that some people are tired of politics, politics, politics. I get it. The 2024 election in this country went on too loud and too long, and only partly thanks to all those Trumpsters who have been flying their Trump flags in front of their house and from the back of their pick-up trucks non-stop for the past eight or nine years.

But there is a guy in my age cohort whose TikTok video explained succinctly what those of us who care about democracy are going through right now. America has spoken loudly and clearly that all the values we were taught to live by since we were kids belong in the garbage. The role model they want to hold up for their children is a lying, cheating, grifting, self-centered, infantile, spiteful, hateful, racist, sexist, fascist, financial ignoramus without one single redeeming social trait.

Who, in the words of the guy he wants for his next Secretary of State, had he not inherited a fortune from his old man, would be selling counterfeit gold watches on the street.

By the way, if you're in the market for those gold watches and tennis shoes he's been hawking on Trump Social, better get 'em now before the tariffs kick in.

Meanwhile, if America has decided to trade all those virtuous values I grew up with for a cheaper carton of eggs, I'm sorry, folks.

No deal.

This Week's Sneak Peek

This guy gave me a host of problems this week.

Leo the Lib and MAGA Max make a return this week, and the first problem I ran into was that I haven't drawn Leo from this angle before. Trying to make him recognizable, I cluttered my drawing board with an awful lot of eraser dust. Eventually, I had a face that was acceptable.

But I wasn't getting having him slumped in his chair right. I'm still not satisfied with this.

Then, when I had the cartoon scanned and transferred to my computer screen, I realized that he was way, way out of perspective. I clipped the image above and moved it to a better location in the cartoon, then erased the portions that would be covered by the people in the foreground.

So far, so good.

But the setting required lots of people in the background, too, and now there was a big gap in the space where Leo used to be. The rest of a table needed to be filled in, as well.

Photoshop does a lot of things really well, from filling in colors, shading, and centering text. But it's not designed for drawing lines, especially straight ones. It's like performing surgery with a bowling ball and oven mitts.

So I'm not happy with what went out for syndication today, but deadlines are deadlines. I'm going to try fixing what I can the old-fashioned way this week, though.

When the Nation Kept Its Cool

The American people spoke loudly and clearly on Election Day, November 4, 1924.

"The Avalanche" by Nelson Harding in Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Nov. 5, 1924

The outcome wasn't even close. Incumbent President Calvin Coolidge garnered 54% of the popular vote to John W. Davis's 29% and Robert LaFollette's 17%. The Electoral College map was just as lop-sided; Davis won only Oklahoma and the states of the Confederacy minus Kentucky; Coolidge won 382 Electoral College votes from almost everywhere else.

"Touchdown, Game's All Over" by J.N. "Ding" Darling in Des Moines Register, Nov. 5, 1924

Darling, or whoever wrote the headline for his morning after cartoon, didn't understand football very well if he thought that it only takes one touchdown to win a football game.

Or perhaps he was predicting the current overtime rules.

"They Still Have the Wagon" by J.N. "Ding" Darling for Register and Tribune Syndicate, Nov. 5, 1924

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch editorial attempted to explain the Coolidge landslide, placing some of the blame on the ridiculously long nomination fight at that summer's Democratic Party convention:

"The selection of [Charles] Bryan [as vice presidential nominee] aroused all the opposition to William J. Bryan and gave the Republicans the opportunity to make Bryan, instead of Davis, the target of attack. The Bryan nomination started the drive of the business element into the Coolidge camp.

"The La Follette movement completed the drive. It turned out to be a futile thing, but it served as a red menace to turn the drift of business towards Coolidge and Dawes into a panic.

"The La Follette ticket, which drove the business element to Coolidge, drew large elements of the labor vote from the support of Davis. The labor vote that it did not draw it confused and disorganized. ...

"The Ku Klux Klan helped the Republican ticket effectively. Democratic klansmen in every state knifed Mr. Davis. The McAdoo followers, who were opposed to the naming of the klan [in the party platform] and bitterly disappointed by the defeat of McAdoo, were resentful, if not bitterly hostile, to the Democratic candidate."

"I've Just Begun to Fight" by Clifford Berryman in Washington (DC) Evening Star, Nov. 6, 1924

In his syndicated cartoon, Darling agreed with the Post-Dispatch editorialists as far as attributing some of Davis's loss to Sen. Robert LaFollette; Berryman pointed out, however, that LaFollette came out of the election with only the Electoral College votes of his home state.

"Hardly So Much as a Grease Spot Left" by William Hanny in Philadelphia Inquirer, Nov. 6, 1924

Nevertheless, LaFollette led the vote in several counties in midwestern, plains, and west coast states. In statewide results, he came in second, ahead of Davis, in California, Idaho, Iowa, Minnesota, Montana, Nevada, North and South Dakota, Oregon, Wyoming, and Washington state. 

"I Thought It Was a Whale" by James "Hal" Donahey in Cleveland Plain Dealer, Nov. 5, 1924

Had their 74 electoral college votes gone to Davis (in no state in which LaFollette came in third was his total more than the difference between the Republican and Democratic totals), it still wouldn't have been enough to tip the election away from Coolidge.

Incidentally, Cleveland Plain Dealer front-page cartoonist Hal Donahey's brother Alvin won reelection as Governor of Ohio. Hal had drawn several cartoons boosting Alvin's campaign and lambasting his Democratic opponent, but restrained himself from drawing a cartoon to crow about Alvin's victory.

As for Democratic- and Progressive-leaning cartoonists, most turned in "Ain't We Glad It's Over" cartoons for the day after the election and quickly moved on to other topics. One exception was Thomas E. Powers.

"I See by the Papers" by T.E. Powers for Star Co., ca. Nov. 7, 1924

"I See by the Papers" was one of Powers's regular features for William Randolph Hearst's Star Company, in which he typically whipped off three to six mini-cartoons on topics of the day. Powers chose not to dismiss the election results as quickly as some other critics of the Republican Party, and he here took note that the stock market reacted enthusiastically to Coolidge's election.

"Out of the Workers' Reach" by O.P. Williams for Star Co., Nov., 1924

Others in Hearst's stable took a more sour grapes view of the stock market delirium. 

20-20 hindsight affords us the knowledge that before long, the stock market balloon would burst. By then, however, Coolidge would have retired to Northampton to write his memoirs.

"The Republicans Win" by J.P. Alley in Memphis Commercial Appeal, Nov. 5, 1924

Down in Dixieland, James Alley was another disappointed Democrat.

Up north of the border, Montreal Star cartoonist Arthur Racey offered his own explanation of Coolidge's victory, and the only one of these cartoons that got a chuckle from me during this bleakest of weeks:

"The Sphinx" by Arthur G. Racey in Montreal Star, Nov. 5

Before we leave the 1924 election behind, there is one more third-party candidate to consider.

Loyal visitors to this blog will recall that two years earlier, Sydney Smith's cartoon character Andy Gump was elected to Congress (at least in the comic strip) but lost to his rival in a recount. In 1924, Gump set his sights on the highest office in the land.

"The Gumps" by Sydney Smith for Chicago Tribune Syndicate, Nov. 5, 1924

This time around, he should have kept a closer watch on his campaign manager.