Q Toon: Status Quo Anti

Well, folks, this is my gamble on Sunday on a cartoon idea that I thought would still be relevant after Tuesday.

I could have been delightfully wrong, I suppose. A blue wave could have swept all the transphobes out of office on Tuesday. But as our experience in Wisconsin has shown, they would still be able to wreak all sorts of mischief on their way out the door. Including refusing to leave.

Even a cartoon celebrating the end of instant fund-raising messages from the political parties and candidates could have gone awry.  All it would have taken would be for there to be some run-off election needed somewhere that would tip the balance of the House or Senate or governorship or state legislature, as Georgia foisted on us all the last two elections.

As I noted in Monday's sneak peek, we've had two presidential elections in the 2000's in which the outcome was still uncertain when Wednesday morning's newspapers went to press. We are now told to expect that to be the norm (and not just because Wednesday morning's newspapers are printed a couple hundred miles away these days).

One of my cartooning colleagues posted on Facebook the other day that the editor of one of his subscribing publications had asked him to supply them with some cartoons about something other than the election. It's a reasonable sounding request; nobody wants to go to print with this year's DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN.

Or Harry Murphy's cartoon congratulating President-elect Charles Evans Hughes.

But my colleague said no. He's not the type to draw cartoons about sports scores or how sad it is that there was flooding in Valencia — although fresh carnage in Gaza or Lebanon might have piqued his interest. The guy has managed to crank out a cartoon every day almost without fail for several years now.

The fact is that there is very little else to draw editorial cartoons about in this country this week. Even our foreign co-workers appear to be fixated on our presidential election.

Anyway, I've chosen to publish this post in the wee hours of Wednesday morning, regardless of whether we know for sure who the next President of the United States is or not.

And, of course, whether Donald The Terrible and all those Republican House and Senate candidates are able to carry out their campaign promises to criminalize and persecute transgender Americans and their families.