CSotD: Confirmation and Confrontation
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Mark Anderson offers a good jumping off point today, because he's right that people want confirmation, not confrontation.
That should provoke more of a sad smile than a hearty laugh, but, in any case, it's a good illustration for a topic in which I will be discussing trends but not breaking the Prime Directive by pointing out individual cartoons that employ bad logic and insensitive hostility.
Here's the thing: I don't mean this guy or that guy is doing a lousy job.
I mean there are a whole bunch of cartoonists doing the same lousy jobs, so that singling out particular ones is a bit unfair. It also suggests that correcting one or two examples would make the problem go away.
I wish.
The central question for cartoonists is this: Are you confronting people in an attempt to change their opinions, or simply comforting your fellow club-members?
I'm going to assume, against a lot of evidence, that the purpose of a political cartoon is to persuade.
And since I'm a progressive, I'll start on the left: If you want to convert the followers of Roy Moore, stop portraying them as hillbillies and trailer trash.
Confederate flags, MAGA hats, that stuff's all fine. But gap-toothed barefoot morons?
People are rarely persuaded by insults.
Nor is it wise to dismiss your opponents as idiots.
As for the other side, I'd like to know what Central Bureau of Rightwing Bullshit sent out the Bill Clinton memo?
A half dozen or more rightwing cartoonists are simultaneously resurrecting the Clinton sex scandals to prove … something.
I'm as appalled by the synchronicity as I am by the illogic.
First of all, just because something happened in the past, that doesn't make it okay today. Are you really suggesting that Harvey Weinstein should be off the hook because directors were just as sleazy in the past?
Or that, because we didn't believe Paula Jones' and Juanita Broderick's stories, we should also dismiss Moore's accusers? If we were wrong then, shouldn't we try to correct the error, rather than repeating it in the name of consistency?
And do you truly believe consensual sex with a 24-year-old is the same as attempts to have sex with a frightened, reluctant 14-year-old?
Or is it simply that you reflexively draw whatever Rush or Briebart or some other rightwinger is talking about on the radio today, without stopping to do a little thinking or research of your own?
All of you at once, like synchronized swimmers?
Enough confronting.
You get it or you don't.
Here are some who get it:
David Fitzsimmons points out that we've always looked down on creeps, but now we're starting to stand up to them, and the more creeps get hung out to dry, the more little girls will come forward and tell their stories.
I particularly like this take because — to use an overused buzzword — it empowers little girls, changing the poem so that they don't have to wait for the boys to come out to play and make Georgie Porgie run away.
They can do it themselves!
And Steve Sack sums up Dear Leader's Asian tour perfectly.
An excellent depiction of what happens when you put a wheeler-dealer in the White House instead of a statesman.
Whether he's selling vacuum cleaners or Fords or timeshares or trying to get you to invest in a major hotel project, he's your buddy. It doesn't matter what he actually thinks of you — he's gonna be friendly and chummy and call you by your first name.
And, if you want the vacuum cleaner or Ford or timeshare or piece of the action, the fact that you think he's a two-faced smarmy douchebag won't change the outcome.
In the cartoon, Putin and Xi compare notes and laugh, but that's artistic license.
In real life, they quietly enjoy playing the rube for all they can get.
And so he comes home having freed a couple of shoplifters, so giddy over this diplomatic triumph that he doesn't notice that he's standing there in his jockey shorts, having left his pants and wallet in Da Nang.
And, as Matt Wuerker suggests, he also doesn't realize he's playing checkers while everyone else is playing chess.
Meanwhile, down in the Senate hearing chambers, Jeff Sessions has regained his memory, or part of it, or possibly none of it, as Jack Ohman says.
Sessions says he forgot some things but then he remembered them when he read about them in the media.
Am I too cynical in suspecting that the media report which best refreshed his memory was the one that said Mueller had flipped George Papadopoulos and turned him into a canary?
Should I have made this a Juxtaposition of the Day along with the Buz Sawyer Vintage strip where Commander Duck just spotted his wife's earring by the rifled safe?
Because I suspect she's about to start remembering things, too.
Either that or he's going to go from being an innocent sucker to being an accessory to the crime.
The juxtaposition works either way, really.
Civics 101
Jen Sorensen does a nice job of laying out the difference between patriotism and nationalism, and she's confrontational enough to make her point clear, but her point is rational and she's not overboard in condemning extremism.
I also admire her economy. Four panels is her normal format, of course, but in this case it keeps her from drifting off into subtopics that would weaken her message.
More to the point, while she saves her sharpest shot for last, she keeps the whole thing in a type of continuity that could make someone think, that could bring about a little bit of conversion.
To be blunt, there are too many altie cartoonists who would build their case for three panels and then use that fourth panel to say, "And that's why you're an asshole."
Sorensen is confident and disciplined enough to lay out her argument and let it speak for itself.
Now here's your moment of zen:
Mike Peterson has posted his "Comic Strip of the Day" column every day since 2010. His opinions are his own, but we welcome comments either agreeing or in opposition.
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