Auchtoon!

So I was watching Animal House a few days ago, a movie near and dear to my heart. (My wife and I had our first date at a toga party. For you Flint Powers grads, yes, the infamous Mike Kushuba toga party.) It occurred to me that there was a metaphor there for the current presidential race, specifically the Republican flavor.

Consider Dean Wormer and the Omegas to be the Republican establishment. Consider the Deltas to be Trump supporters. Now I know what you’re thinking, “I like the Deltas! I don’t want them to be the Trump supporters.” Hang with me. I would submit that the Deltas by themselves are fairly loathsome: self-indulgent, somewhat racist, certainly misogynistic, willfully stupid, but they do speak their mind. (Does this sound familiar?) The only reasons we like these guys is (1) they are entertaining and (2) Dean Wormer, and the Omegas are even more loathsome. It’s fun to see somebody (anybody) stick it to the establishment.

Admittedly, it’s not a perfect metaphor. I would cast Karl Rove as Dean Wormer, Mitt Romney as Greg Marmalard (the Omega leader), and Ted Cruz as Neidermeyer (because nobody on the Omega side could stand Neidermeyer either). Beyond that, it kinda breaks down. Although I can imagine this scene:

Trump: [after the Republican establishment has conspired to take the nomination away from him] “What? Over? Did you say “over”? Nothing is over until I decide it is! Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell no!”

Supporter 1: “Germans?”

Supporter 2: “Forget it, he’s rolling.”

My cartoons are going to be posted Fridays on Andrew Heller’s website! Andrew is a hilarious and insightful Michigan-based columnist of many years. I couldn’t be more pleased to share a space with him again. (We are both formerly of MLive.) Stop by the site and click around. Feel free to share, post and generally cause a frenzy.

Yes, yes. I know Ben Carson dropped out and won’t be one of the participants in the Michigan Republican Presidential primary. I was literally inking his face when I found out. But you know what? I decided to keep him in the cartoon. First, as a hat tip to his Michigan roots. But mostly for enduring the Republican debate sideshows. Dr. Carson deserves to be voted against as much as any of the other candidates.

Of course Americans did have the sense not to elect Dan Quayle (who was the Marco Rubio of his time). But we let Senator Joe McCarthy run rampant for far too long (who was the Ted Cruz of his time). But I digress.

Here’s a cartoon I did back in 1998 of Geoffery Fieger after he gone off “speaking his mind” in a very Trumpian sort of way. It’s one of my favorites. Props to the Grand Rapids Business Journal for running it.

This is our wake-up call, Michigan — Florida is nothing any state should aspire to!

It’s more than a little pretentious to create a very wordy cartoon around a word I have a difficult time pronouncing, but obfuscate is the perfect fit here. It means to render obscure, unclear, or unintelligible, and it is a tactic used more and more at all levels of political discourse.

In the cases of Flint water and Detroit schools, it is our moral and fiscal responsibility to avoid letting side issues steal our attention away from the actual problem at hand: finding a long-term solution for real people suffering real harm. We need to stay focused!

And, yes, that is Senate Majority Leader Arlan Meekhof. I’m pretty sure his middle name is Obfuscate.

News came out this week that Governor Snyder has hired a Public Relations firm to help him navigate through this messy, messy Flint water crisis. Nobody should be surprised. It was a by-the-numbers, top-down, corporate CEO type of decision, and that has consistently been Governor Snyder’s jam. What is hard to take, however, is that the PR firm is now obviously coaching him to be an empathetic, I-feel-your-pain, point-fingers-of-blame-at-others, I’m-with-you-guys, man of the people. This abrupt shift has been nothing but awkward (and kinda nauseating). NOT your jam, Governor Snyder. Not your jam.

Which isn’t to say there has not been caustic rhetoric pouring out of other campaigns. And as the pressure builds up to and into Iowa and the primary season, expect it to get worse. But to this point, Donald Trump and Senator Cruz have distinguished themselves (if that’s the right term) with their ability to leach out the latent fears and prejudices of the American voter.

Originally published in the Ann Arbor News, Bay City Times, Flint Journal, Grand Rapids Press, Jackson Citizen Patriot, Kalamazoo Gazette, Muskegon Chronicle, Saginaw News
January 3, 2016

Also posted online at MLive.com, January 3, 2016

This week I received an email from the Vice President of Content at MLive Media Group notifying me that they would no longer contract for my services under our existing freelance agreement. It was not a surprise. This past May, MLive cut the number of cartoons they paid me for from weekly to monthly. During the summer, I continued provide a weekly cartoon along with commentary for posting on MLive.com. (Up to that point my cartoons were exclusive to the print editions.) I had hoped to demonstrate the value of Michigan-focused editorial cartoons in an online format. While it is clear now my efforts did not close the sale, I did very much enjoy sharing and engaging online, and I’m happy to have had the experience.

I would like to thank those at MLive I had the pleasure to work with, particularly my editors: Ed Golder, Paul Keep and Dan Hawkins — each consummate professionals. They challenged me by allowing me space to run while when necessary reminding me of the bounds of common sense and good grammar. The benefits of working with people you respect cannot be overstated.

Despite my disappointment with their decision, I would also like thank MLive and predecessor, the Grand Rapids Press. Editorial cartoons in newspapers — especially local editorial cartoons — are a truly American institution, and I’ve appreciated the opportunity to be a participant.

And I would like to thank you, the readers for taking the time to be readers. For a cartoonist, that’s really all that’s needed. But I also appreciated when you shared your reactions — from kind encouragements to the angry dissents. (Okay, sure, I found the occasional unibomber-like manifesto a bit unsettling, but otherwise the feedback was all good.)

I hope to find other venues because I think editorial cartoons are valuable. They somehow roll up a chaotic mix of satire, exaggeration and unfairness into tidy packages that (when done well) provoke thought and reveal truth. Anyway, that’s what I aim for.

All the best,
John