Political Cartoonists Far Left of Mainstream

If you are a reasonable person who is concerned about the downward spiral of our nation, then you are not going to like this political cartoon:

Author: Brian Duffy; Source:

If this is not enough to get your blood boiling, check out the Tweet from MSNBC.com’s editorial cartoonist, Daryl Cagle who happily pointed this cartoon out to his 75,000 followers:

“GREAT cartoon that comments on the racial bigotry that seems to be part of the Tea Party movement https://bit.ly/9WRs2L #p2.”

Editorial cartooning has been major part of our nation’s history.  In fact, cartoons played an important role in shaping public opinion about the American Revolution.  Often cartoonists can help us contextualize political issues and their complexities.  Cartoonists bring out important nuances and capture emotion more effectively than print journalism.  Most importantly, like any other kind of journalist, they are independent, not beholden to any interest group, party, or ideology and able to critique all sides of an issue with objectivity; that is the theory anyway.

In practice, however, today’s political cartoonists often fail to meet the standards of independence and objectivity.  Whether this is due to rapidly declining traditional media mediums and pressure from editors with political and ideological expectations, or whether today’s cartoonists see themselves as activists, or worse yet, partisan players instead of reporters, or some other reason, it is difficult to ascertain.

What is clear is that today’s cartoonists are more partisan and ideologically driven than ever.  If the cartoon above and its promotion by Daryl Cagle does not illustrate this point, I do not know what does.  Rather than focusing on the outpouring of opposition from average Americans (including, likely, many from Duffy and Cagle’s own neighborhood), Duffy seems more interested to participate in the racism whisper campaign that is perpetuated, not by acts of racism, but by liberal elite like Keith Olberman, who as the Dallas Tea Party pointed out, has never actually attended a Tea Party rally.  I suspect Duffy and Cagle fall into the same category.

You see, charges of racism, if they stick, are a silver bullet in this country.  If Tea Party activists are indeed racists, then anything they say can easily be discredited.  But if Tea Party activists are not racists, which clearly the vast majority of them and the average Americans they represent are not, then actual ideas and policies have to be discussed.  Both Duffy and Cagle have completely missed the boat on this as they have become blinded in their own ivory tower personal politics (pun intended).

Perhaps you think I am exaggerating.  Perhaps you are somehow living in the delusion that political cartoonists are objective?  (You probably think that print journalists are, as well). I did a quick case study on the cartoons done for Politico.com, a project of the Washington Post, by Matt Wuerker.  My target range was cartoons published between January 1, 2010 and today, March 24, 2010.

I went through each cartoon and marked whether the issue, person, or group was presented positively, neutrally or negatively.  Obviously such labels are as subjective, so you can judge for yourself.  Each positive portrayals were given a +1, neutral portrayals a 0, and negative portrayals a -1.  Then the net score was totaled from all of the portrayals.

Matt Wuerker – Politico.com – Cartoon Subject Portrayals (1/1/2010-3/24/2010)

Subject	# of Positive Portrayals	# of Neutral Portrayals	# of Negative Portrayals	Net Score
Healthcare Reform	3	0	0	3
Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA)	2	0	0	2
Democratic Party/DNC	1	1	0	1
Former President Abraham Lincoln	1	0	0	1
Former President Franklin D. Roosevelt	1	0	0	1
Former President John F. Kennedy	1	0	0	1
Former President Bill Clinton	0	1	0	0
Birthers	0	0	0	-1
Conservative Wing of Supreme Court	0	0	1	-1
Federal Government	0	0	1	-1
Former Gov. Mike Huckabee (R-AR)	0	0	1	-1
Former Gov. Sarah Palin (R-AK)	0	1	1	-1
Former Rep. Dick Armey (R-TX)	0	0	1	-1
Fox News	0	0	1	-1
Grover Norquist	0	0	1	-1
House Speaker Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA)	1	0	2	-1
Mainstream Media	0	0	1	-1
Majority Leader Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV)	2	0	3	-1
Minority Leader Rep. John Boehner (R-OH)	0	0	1	-1
Pork Spending	0	0	1	-1
Rep. John Kasich (R-OH)	0	0	1	-1
Sen. Jim Bunning (R-KY)	0	0	1	-1
Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL)	0	0	1	-1
Terrorists	0	0	1	-1
Blue Dog Democrats	0	0	2	-2
Credit Card Companies	0	0	2	-2
Former Rep. Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel (D-IL)	0	0	2	-2
Former VP Dick Cheney (R-WY)	0	0	2	-2
Glenn Beck	0	0	2	-2
Lobbyists	0	0	2	-2
Capitalism/Big Business	0	0	3	-3
Deficit Spending	0	1	2	-3
Minority Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY)	0	0	3	-3
Conservative Activists/Tea Party	0	0	4	-4
Former President George W. Bush	0	0	4	-4
President Barack Obama	3	1	7	-4
GOP/RNC/Michael Steele	0	1	8	-8

The data here is quite interesting.  Compare for, instance, the net score of Healthcare Reform to portrayals of Conservative or Tea Party activists.  Healthcare Reform received three positive portrayals and no negative portrayals, while all four of the Tea Party activist portrayals were negative.

If you look at the partisan characterizations and you did not know what year it was, you would think this was 2004 when Republicans had nearly complete control of government, not 2010 where Republicans are in a substantial minority.

Yet, what is not in this chart is just as revealing as what is.  There is no mention of the climate-gate scandal, no characterizations of disgraced Reps. Eric Massa and Charlie Rangel.  There is nothing about rising unemployment rates, the souring of our long-standing relationship with Israel, and the imminent rise of nuclear Iran.

I have spoken with Matt Wuerker a couple times over e-mail about balance in his work and while he claims to try to be objective and not a “partisan hack,” it is difficult to make that case with the data above.

In short, as demonstrated by Duffy, Cagle and Wuerker, today’s political cartoonists lack the courage to be objective and independent in their work.  Rather than being a public service for the majority of Americans, they have succumb to becoming puppets of an ideology far left of the mainstream.  By doing do so, they have not only irreparably damaged their industry, but damaged our nation by furthering our country’s political divide.