It is signature significance for a political cartoonist to issue such a cheap, dishonest, juvenile, partisan and unfunny cartoon even once: no cartoonist with wit or taste would create such garbage
It is signature significance for the editors of a newspaper that it would allow such junk to appear in the paper’s pages. Doing so proves that the newspaper has no journalism standards.
It is signature significance that any Washington Post reader would approve of such a cartoon. Such a reader must be either ignorant, biased into crippling stupidity, or corrupt.
Just to point out the obvious lies, distorions and hypocrisies in the cartoon:
- There have been no “book bannings” by conservatives, and the constant assault on free expression and free speech has come almost exclusively from Ann Telnaes’s favorite party and its allies, like social media.
- The Biden administration has engaged in direct abuses of Presidential power, notably a Hitlerian speech accusing political opponents of being dangerous, and efforts to use a contrived and extended health emergency to bypass Constitutional safeguards. Democrat-dominated law enforcement agencies abused their power in defiance of Due Process and the rule of law. No Democrat has standing to accuse conservatives of “authoritarianism.”
- “The anti-science” catcall has been thoroughly discredited by the failure of the public health establishment during the Wuhan virus pandemic, and the adoption of destructive and useless “climate change” measures that are based on speculation and unfounded assumptions,.
- “Sexism” is a particularly amusing accusation from a mouthpeice of a party that refuses to define what a woman is, and that held its national convention in what it dubbed “The Year of the Woman” with featured speaker Bill Clinton. Meanwhile, progressive movements (like Time’s Up and #MeToo) against sexual harassment in the workplace have proven to be so consistently hypocritical and partisan that they have withered away.
- “Bodily autonomy” is apparently a euphemism for “total freedom to exterminate unwanted human beings,” aka. abortion. I believe those who fought fascism abroad, like my father, were also opposed to individuals who presumed to have total freedom to exterminate unwanted human beings.
From the years of Herb Block, perhaps the most over-praised political cartoonist in U.S. history, through his various simple-minded and repetitive successors, I have seen more offensive, unenlightened, witless and juvenile cartoons in the Washington Post than I care to recall.
This one, however, is rock bottom.
Ethics Alarms 
Close. I’d say “bodily autonomy” means “total freedom to carry on like a cheap street corner whore on a busy weekend and have the taxpayers pay for you to avoid the consequences.”
The only image that is more rock bottom than this one is the one comparing the World War II soldiers to antifa. That’s like comparing Abraham Lincoln to Abby Hoffman.
I dunno. Maybe the cartoonist was, in fact, criticizing the DNC, Biden, and the Left, but doesn’t know it. The Left fully embraces authoritarian and totalitarian values.
jvb
Nah, the Left only knows what fits into its narrative: that Nazi Germany banned abortions in order to boost the population for the Nordic takeover.
They completely ignore or, perhaps, don’t bother to learn that abortions were not banned for mixed race pregnancies or other undesirable progeny, such as the mentally ill.
But, yes, it does seem like the Left only believes in one right: the right to sleep with whoever you want with no social consequences and any physical consequences to be paid by the taxpayers.
Small correction: they believe in the right for women to sleep with whoever they want without consequences. For a man to do the same would be predatory and icky. Never mind that the whole free love movement was primarily an attack on girls’ modesty and chastity.
And the boldily autonomy line is a handy catch all to combine free(ish) sex, abortions for all, drugs at will, and the right to mutilate childrens’ sex organs. It didn’t seem to have much traction towards resisting forced vaccines, though.
The cartoon is a good example of when the power of the state and the private corporation is blended together to advance a political agenda.
“Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power”
― Benito Mussolini
The cartoon is a good example of when main stream leftist media workers have no real competition because they’ve tenured themselves into security against the hordes of aspiring journalists and they stopped trying because in the echo chambers of their ‘profession’ they just assume everyone believes exactly the same premises and conclusions- so they come up with this subtlety lacking tripe devoid of artistry.
The short lived Cox and Forkum from the 2000s were an excellent editorial cartoon team.
Margolis and Cox have been doing a good job in recent years, to wit:
https://townhall.com/political-cartoons/margoliscox/2023/05/24/198392
https://townhall.com/political-cartoons/margoliscox/2023/05/23/198373
https://townhall.com/political-cartoons/margoliscox/2023/05/22/198343
https://townhall.com/political-cartoons/margoliscox/2023/05/17/198253
And, of course, there’s always Michael Ramirez:
https://townhall.com/political-cartoons/michaelramirez/2023/05/18/198275
https://townhall.com/political-cartoons/michaelramirez/2023/05/20/198322
As I mentioned in my commentary on Target, I did some deep diving into Target and some of the multitude of organizations and companies involved in the social justice movement. What I came away with is a disturbing realization of how insidious the propaganda being advanced by progressives has become. Two particularly appalling organizations are the UN and the World Benchmarking Alliance.
https://www.worldbenchmarkingalliance.org/corporate-human-rights-benchmark/
https://www.ohchr.org/en/universal-declaration-of-human-rights
On this Memorial Day weekend, I think it is ironic how progressives and their organization’s disdain for capitalism, and particularly the United States is so misplaced.
How is it that the United States suffers from rampant systemic racism and yet the world is breaking down the doors to come to the US?
How is it if capitalism and the US are so predatory and exploitive of people that in just a few hundred years it raised the standard of living of its people to be the envy of the world? Surpassing all countries that have existed for thousands of years.
How is it that if the US is so unjust, did it save the world from nations whose goals were the subjugation of others in the 20th century? All without receiving compensation for the blood and treasure expended to secure freedom for others.
How is it that the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights is so closely allied with the USA’s Bill of Rights and Constitution? Why doesn’t the UN’s declaration mimic Marx’s “from each according to his abilities to each according to his needs”?
The world owes a tremendous debt of gratitude to our service men and woman who fought and died so others, both home and abroad, could be free. It is the height of disrespect to not pay homage to our fallen and to tear down the institutions they died to protect.
Great comment Tom
As a veteran whose check was not cashed in full. A Fuck You to the cartoonist from the bottom if my heart. Sorry if that is inappropriate Jack.
Most appropriate. No apology necessary.
As a historical scholar who still understands what the wars against fascism were all about, you can deliver my own screw you and your family to the cartoonist.
I disagree that this is anything of signature significance.
This is run of the mill partisanship politics.
I find it annoying (offensive?) when anyone tries to tell me why and for what the soldiers died. They died in service of this country. Nothing more need be known in order to honor them. It really does not matter. What if they served for the adventure. For government benefits? Because they were drafted. Does it matter whether they died storming the beach or, in the instance Jack has often described, because you blew yourself up through your own incompetence. It really does not matter why you served and what you hoped to accomplish.
Hell, we have honored Confederate dead, even though we don’t celebrate what they fought for. We honor them for their sacrifice as fellow Americans. That sentiment is certainly old-fashioned these days.
Whether you are on the left or the right, I really don’t care to hear why you think they died and whether they fought and died to oppose legislation you don’t agree with. Any such discussion cheapens their sacrifice by reducing their death to a policy position.
(Tangent upon which I will not elaborate, because I am out of time: discussions like these tend to take on a quality of the “right side of history” argument. These people did not die so you can do X, as if their sacrifice serves some kind of grand teleological goal.)
-Jut
I find it ss because there is literally nothing to the cartoon but partisan venom. There’s no information, no argument, no humor. An editorial cartoon should at least have the bare requirements of an editorial. This woman won a Pulitzer Prize, yet she offers this crap to a mass audience. It would be like Picasso framing his used toilet paper, and an art gallery hanging it, with so-called art patrons ooing and ahing.
Don’t give the current art scene any ideas. 😁
“No Democrat has standing to accuse conservatives of ‘authoritarianism.'”
I beg to differ. After years as a registered independent, I became a Democrat for two reasons: the Texas Republican Party, and the opportunity to vote against Hillary Clinton in a primary. And I’ll call both of the leading candidates for the GOP nomination in 2024 authoritarian if I damned please. The fact that the label could also apply to most of the leading Democrats, including the current POTUS, is pure whataboutism. Indeed, I’m struggling to think of a major pol in either party to whom the term does not apply. “Partisan hack” applies pretty much across the board, as well. It’s not a happy combination.
Years ago, there was a popular online quiz that sought to locate the respondent into one of four quadrants based on two continua: left/right and authoritarian/libertarian. I was left of center, and well into libertarian territory. I remember that my ideological neighbors were Nelson Mandela and Mahatma Gandhi. I like that neighborhood. I have no interest in moving north to Joe Stalin Boulevard. And I resent being told there’s no difference between my neighborhood and his.
Please elaborate on what you consider authoritarian in the leading GOP candidates that you referenced.
As near as I can tell the desire to prevent children from being pawns in the adult culture wars is more in keeping with the sentiment that we don’t allow children to buy cigarettes and alcohol. Would you prefer if elementary and secondary schools maintained a sexuality section. In the library that included Hustler magazine or permitted students to access pornography sites?
Which GOP candidate wants to:
Ban hate speech,
Eliminate or restrict the 2nd amendment,
Permit fabrication of evidence to convict political opposition or indemnify those who do.
Selective prosecutions and enhanced criminal penalties for those engaged in politically motivated demonstrations,
Eliminate a state’s ability to restrict some behaviors in keeping with the people’s choices. (If a state bans abortion has democracy failed if the people don’t elect new people to overturn such legislation or does the majority rule only count when it protects one side?)
Use the judicial system to economically force citizen compliance to embrace progressive social changes?
I keep hearing that Trump and DeSantis are dictatorial but only by those who have no difficulty demanding that others bow to their desires.
I am willing to listen to reasoned arguments but I reject claims that are not supported at the time by evidence that can be validated.
For the record:
I don’t care what adults:
Read
Say
Believe
Do in the privacy of their own homes,
Love, or
Associate with
I do care if they choose to infringe on my rights to do the same or decide that the rules of society to which I must obey are not to respected by them.
Thanks for your questions, Chris. I wanted to ask similar questions in response to Curmie’s comment but did not have a chance.
jvb
Apologies for the late response. This took a while to write, and it’s close to 2000 words, so I won’t clutter Jack’s page with it. But here’s a link if you’re interested: https://manjushri924.blogspot.com/2023/05/authoritarianism-and-gop-one-example.html
Nothing you write is clutter, Curmie.
Using the graves of dead service members and one of our most patriotic symbols to make a completely contrived culture-war point is not only not funny, it is cringe-worthy. It would’ve been just as cringe-worthy if the message were from the political opposite.
She might as well have used the USS Arizona for her cartoon. Ugh.
Putting words of ANY kind in the mouths of the Honored Dead is disrespectful and craven, by definition. They served and paid that is enough and more than many alive today have contributed to this country. Funny thing is that is also their Right…you cannot force civic virtue only compliance or consequence.