Q Toon: A Christmas Scare-ol

Because of the lead time for my cartoons, syndicated to weekly, biweekly and monthly publications, this week's cartoon was my last chance to draw something with a Christmas theme. My focus was on the three Republican presidential candidates speaking out so harshly against transgender people in this month's Noise Nation hardly presidential debate.

Ron DeSantis: "I did a bill in Florida to stop the gender mutilation of minors, it’s child abuse and it’s wrong. [Nikki Haley] opposes that bill. She thinks it’s fine and the law shouldn’t get involved with it. If you’re not willing to stand up for the kids, if you’re not willing to stand up and say that it is wrong to mutilate these kids, then you’re not going to fight for the people back home.”

Vivek Ramaswamy: "[T]ransgenderism is a mental health disorder. We don’t let you smoke a cigarette by the age of 18. We don’t let you have an addictive drink of alcohol by the age of 21. I just challenged Ron DeSantis to go one step further and support what I think is clearly within the authority to do using federal funds just like Reagan did in ’84 for the Highway Act that said the minimum drinking age needs to be 21. We can do the same thing when it comes to banning genital mutilation or chemical castration. I know Ron’s been unclear about on the federal level. I’m crystal clear. That’s where I stand. That’s a mental health disorder."

Nikki Haley, after DeSantis accused her of being soft on transgender people who poop: "What I have always said is boys go into a boys’ bathroom, girls go into a girls bathroom. But hold on one second. I also say that biological boys shouldn’t be playing in girls’ sports and I will do everything I can to stop that because it’s the women’s issue of our time."

I had to include Chris Christie in the cartoon, since he participated in the debate; but, following the example of Mike Johnson's January 6 videos, I obscured Christie's face. He was the one person there who stood up for transgender persons and their families in opposition to the other three candidates and one of the debate moderators.

Megyn Kelly: "Governor Christie, you do not favor a ban on trans medical treatments for minors, saying it’s a parental rights issue. The surgeries done on minors involve cutting off body parts at a time when these kids cannot even legally smoke a cigarette. Kids who go from puberty blockers to cross-sex hormones are at a much greater likelihood of winding up sterile. How is it that you think a parent should be able to okay these surgeries, never mind the sterilization of a child and aren’t you way too out of step on this issue to be the Republican nominee?"

Chris Christie: "No, I’m not because Republicans believe in less government, not more, in less involvement with government, not more in government involvement in people’s lives. You know what, Megan? I trust parents and we are out there saying that we should empower parents in education, we should empower parents to make more decisions about where their kids go to school. I agree. We should empower parents to be teaching the values that they believe in in their homes without the government telling them what those values should be. Yet we want to take other parental rights away. I’m sorry. As a father of four, I believe there is no one who loves my children more than me. There’s no one who loves my children more than my wife. There’s no one who cares more about their success and health in life than we do."

Over the years, I have disagreed with Christie on a wide range of issues, but bravo to him on this one. It's all rather academic, however; he has no chance of becoming President of the United States.

Well, neither do any of the other three. Unless they suck up to that guy looming over them in the cartoon so much that they're his Vice President when a lifetime embodying the Seven Deadly Sins finally catches up with him.

Q Toon: Stumped Speechless

Here at last is my cartoon response to Fox Noise's cattle call in Milwaukee last week of eight of the Republican candidates hoping against hope that something, anything, will force Corrupt Donald Trump to drop out of the presidential race.

At the moment, even though Trump is facing four separate felony trials going into the election, for everything from paying off a porn star to trying to subvert an election to sending a lynch mob into the halls of Congress, that seems like a long shot. Trump does not know the meaning of defeat.

Or truth, or integrity, or perfect, or democracy, or Constitution, or Corinthians.

My cartoon, of course, is riffing on Bret Baier's asking the candidates to raise their hands if they would support Trump as the nominee of their party even if he were convicted in one of those trials. Depending on whom you ask, former Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson was the only candidate who kept his hands down. 

Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie has been most vocal of any of the eight in proclaiming that Trump is unqualified to be President again; but he sort of halfway raised a hand. Perhaps he was asking recognition to speak.

The other six definitely raised their hands: Tech Bro Vivek Ramaswami right away; Florida Governor Ron DesAntis after checking what the candidates to his right and left were doing.

It was a trick question anyway. Each candidate, in order for permission to be on stage at all, had to first sign a promise to support the Republican presidential nominee, whoever that trumps out to be.

Meanwhile, the only thing more universal among Republicans than slavish loyalty to Donald P0115809 Trump is their fear and loathing of transgender Americans. The candidates pledged to continue their party's assault on transgender student athletes especially:

"If you’re able-bodied in America, you work. If you take out a loan, you pay it back. If you commit a violent crime, you got to jail. And if God made you a man, you play sports against men." — Sen. Tim Scott, closing statement.

“[T]here’s a lot of crazy woke things happening in schools ... biological boys don’t belong in the locker rooms of any of our girls.”— former Gov. Nikki Haley, in response to a question

“I’m saying in North Dakota, we made a priority of protecting women’s sports and we’ve done that in our state." —Gov. Doug Borgum (who vetoed one anti-trans athlete bill in North Dakota but signed two others)

"There are only two genders." — Vivek Ramaswamy

I think we have finally found here one thing that might just possibly shake Republicans' unquestioning devotion to Trump — as absurdly incredible as his declaring himself a transgender student athlete would be.

But then, he does seem to think that he's 6'3" and 215 pounds.

And he does have the vocabulary of a third grader.