Judicious Illustration

The op-ed I was asked to illustrate in the LATimes was about how the Supreme Court was being endangered by extreme partisanship.

The trick with art like this is to avoid false equivalencies. I happen to think it's not a good idea to put hardline political operatives on the high court. I don't think it's wise to elevate an alleged sexual predator to the Supreme Court. I also think Americans might distrust a justice who has difficulties with telling the truth and seems skilled at hiding it. Call me old-fashioned...

So...here is the finished art. It isn't as sharp as I'd wanted to make it. False equivalency standards require both sides be pilloried or neither, which often tends to undermine the point. This art ended up blaming neither party for this episode. In my opinion the old American principle of "majority rules" was exercised by the Republican majority (to take a hypothetical example) as two men might force their wishes upon a 15 year-old girl in a locked bedroom.

Or is that too hypothetical? Certainly no self-respecting elephant would act that way.

Political Ephemera

I am a close observer of events and politics and often go to bed with the latest outrage in my head. Sometimes I wake up in the night with an idea. Sometimes that idea doesn't take shape until I put pencil to paper the next day. But however quick my response is, the lifespan of a political metaphor can be very short. I send new drawings to my usual clients as soon as I draw them because the topic won't be relevant for long. Each outrage seems to be superseded by a new and greater outrage. I drew a lot of political art from 2000  to 2008, then No-Drama Obama calmed things for eight years, except as outrages were hurled at him by the Republicans. Now a strange outrage factory has moved into the White House and Congress. Here is a drawing I did as information emerged about Attorney General Jefferson Davis Beauregard Sessions and his flirtations with the Russians. New outrages have fallen like hard rain in the days since, making this drawing old news. The quote is adapted from an angry disavowal from the late 90s.