2024: Demokratiedämmerung

Lest auld republic be forgot, let's bring it back to mind: 

For lack of a slide-show feature in this here blog, I present here a column of some of my cartoons from 2024. I might have added the cartoon I drew Sunday, I suppose, even though it's not being published until 2025. Perhaps if I remember it a year from now, it will be part of my 2025 retrospective.

So here, at least to jog my own memory, is what the hell we have been drawing about this year:

Toon: Who Laughs Last

I left this cartoon as somewhat of a rough sketch because the idea reminded me too much of a cartoon Pat Oliphant once did of House Speaker Tip O'Neil in the 1980's. In the last month, I've posted extra cartoons aping the great cartoonists David Low and Thomas Nast. Did I really need to add another update of someone else's work?

Well, as I commented when I thanked Mike Peterson for citing yesterday's Matt Gaetz cartoon, Gaetz might be a thoroughly reprehensible excuse for a human being, but he is kind of fun to draw — so here's the cartoon anyway.

With apologies to Pat Oliphant, and to any of my colleagues who had the same idea this morning.

Q Toon: Barbarians Matt the Gaetz

Our pussy-grabbing President-reelect has, to Republicans' great surprise, named Matt Gaetz, the newly resigned Congresssleazeball from Florida, to be the highest law enforcement official in the land in his even-more-corrupt-than-the-first second administration.

Gaetz has been under investigation by the House Ethics Committee for the past three years over allegations of his drug-fueled sex parties with under-age girls. Republicans in Congress have reported that he showed them photographs of the girls he'd had sex with; but he went from boasting of his exploits to throwing roadblocks in front of the Ethics Committee's inquiry, including taking down Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy when McCarthy wouldn't quash the investigation for him.

His one remaining friend in the caucus, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Chastity Beltway), has proved more amenable, vowing to bury the committee's findings on the grounds that Gaetz resigned just as the committee was finally ready to go public. Johnson says it's because Gaetz is now just a private citizen.

Like Hunter Biden.

Even some of Trump's most slavish defenders are trying to convince themselves that Gaetz's nomination is somehow "not serious," or intended as a feint to get someone slightly less outrageous into the job. If so, Gary’s is one of many not-serious nominees. 

The primary experience Trump is looking for as he assembles his Cabinet of Dr. Tarr & Professor Fether is TV screen time: a Saturday morning Fox Noise host for Defense (the sexual assault allegations against him are apparently a bonus); a syndicated snake oil salesman to run Medicare and Medicaid; a pro wrestling personality for Education; and a 1997 contestant on Real World Boston for Transportation. Trump is still trying to choose between the My Pillow Guy and the Oxy Clean Guy which one gets Commerce which one gets Labor.

The more plum position goes to the Guy with the more sexual misconduct accusations.

Q Toon: There's Always Room for One More

The House Ethics Committee has found that Long Island Republican Representative George Santos, a.k.a. Anthony DeVolder, a.k.a Kitara Rivache, a.k.a. Baron Munchausen,  

knowingly caused his campaign committee to file false or incomplete reports with the Federal Election Commission; used campaign funds for personal purposes; engaged in fraudulent conduct in connection with RedStone Strategies LLC; and engaged in knowing and willful violations of the Ethics in Government Act as it relates to his Financial Disclosure (FD) Statements filed with the House.

According to their investigation, Santos used campaign funds on hotel stays in Atlantic City and Las Vegas, on Botox treatments, and subscribing to the mostly-porn site OnlyFans. Committee Chair Michael Guest (R-MS) and Ranking Member Susan Wild (D-PA) have called for Santos to be expelled from the House, something that has been done to 20 Congressmen in U.S. history — 17 of them for supporting the Confederate States of America during the Civil War.

Comedians are saddened at the prospect of losing such a handy generator of punch lines, but never fear. The House is still swarming with poltroons from Marjorie Taylor Greene to Lauren Boebert to Derrick Van Orden to Gym Jordan.

And now the QAnon Shaman, Jacob Chansley, fresh out of prison for his roll in the January 6 Insurrection, has announced a run for Congress from Arizona.

Well, maybe I shouldn't have said "never fear."

Just before sending this cartoon off to Q Syndicate Monday morning, I came across this cautionary note from John Stewart, discussing Santos on The Problem with Jon Stewart back in January:

“The thing we have to be careful of — and I always caution myself on this, and I ran into this trouble with Trump — is we cannot mistake absurdity for lack of danger. Because it takes people with no shame to do shameful things.”

Okay, then. Be afraid.

Be very afraid.

Faces in the Crowd

The cartoon I posted on Sunday employed caricatures of a number of House Republicans, when I could more easily have drawn a single GOP elephant at a microphone. So why didn't I do that and knock off an hour earlier?

June, 1996 for the UWM Post.

Pardon me if I step back a few years in order to answer that. In 1996, I drew a crowd of (hopefully) recognizable Republicans, grinning smugly, because that made more sense than drawing a single elephant, and was more effective than a bunch of smugly grinning elephants. Behind Bob Dole in this cartoon, mocking GOP claims of having a "big tent" on the abortion issue in spite of the hardline plank in the party platform, stand, from left to right: Dick Armey, Newt Gingrich, Trent Lott, Phil Gramm, Jesse Helms, Gary Bauer, Pat Robertson, and Ralph Reed.

(Since the UWM Post didn't put out any editions that summer, the above cartoon was never published, but I ended up drawing another one a lot like it for them in September.)

in UW-M Post, March 5, 1991

My cartoon of sheepish Democrats at the peak of George H.W. Bush's popularity would have been less pointed if I had drawn a donkey or donkeys among the sheep. (From left to right: Sam Nunn, Bill Bradley, Dick Gephardt, Tom Foley, Al Gore, Mario Cuomo, Lloyd Bentsen, and George Mitchell.)

in UWM Post, September 28, 1989

Which is not to say that every editorial cartoon has to include caricatures of actual politicians. I liked the idea for my cartoon about multiple ethics investigations going on in the nation's capital in 1989, but there weren't enough politicians actually leading one investigation while being the target of another for me to have drawn a bunch of real people.

This idea is not far removed from Thomas Nast's "Who Stole the People's Money? Do Tell. 'Twas Him" cartoon showing easily recognizable members of the Tammany Ring standing in a circle, each pointing fingers at the man to his right. It's a great cartoon that had great impact when it was published and has stood the test of time, even though the real Richard Connolly was not accusing Peter Sweeney, who was not accusing Boss Tweed, who was not accusing James Ingersoll, etc.

for Q Syndicate, June 21, 2004

Here again, I could have drawn specific Republican senators pulling a prank in 2004, but I think this particular cartoon works better this way artistically.

Still, I believe it is useful for cartoonists to hold actual politicians accountable for their stands on issues. Thomas Nast's cartoons would have had little impact if he had tamely drawn generic "City Hall" characters — or comical Tammany Tigers — every week. Likewise, it's all well and good to draw a cartoon highlighting Lindsey Graham's or Matt Gaetz's craptasm du jour; but if one doesn't hold their feet to the fire, the effect is likely to be ephemeral.


We can't all be Thomas Nast, but we can still try.

Toon: GOPsplaining

Republicans in the House have spent a lot of time and energy protesting against the process of the impeachment proceedings against Donald Berzilius Trump.

And none, much to Trump's consternation, protesting his innocence.

In Trump's eyes, he has done nothing wrong. This is just the way he has always been able to do business: surrounded by yes-men who will carry out his least little wish, and he'll fire the first one who asks whether something might be illegal, unethical, or unfair.

Republicans, many of whom come from the business world, understand this kind of thinking. Why worry about the law when you can just buy enough legislators to get yourself a loophole? Why not cut corners on your new jet airplane or bribe doctors to push your highly addictive pain-killer when you've got to get those profits up over last year, year after year; and your pockets are deep enough for your fleet of lawyers to wait out anybody who might sue.

That is, if those lawyers haven't already come up with 70,000-word Terms Of Service agreements requiring consumers to hold you harmless no matter what negligence or malfeasance you figure you have every right to get away with.

Never mind those pesky pension plans! Retirees are not profitable, so screw 'em. Just like any contractor who has finished work on a Trump project. Or any city that has hosted a Trump rally. Or the Kurds.

As long as the guy at the top appears to be making a profit, everybody ought to be happy. And doesn't the economy appear to be doing just fine?