CSotD: The Monster At The Center Of This Cartoon
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There have been a number of cartoons about the Republicans — or at least some Republicans — repositioning themselves in response to the election debacle, and, in recent days, some specifically about rejecting Grover Norquist and the raise-no-taxes pledge, but they have mostly seemed listless and formulaic.
Now comes Rob Rogers with a fairly obvious but devastatingly effective connection between that topic and the sudden crash-and-fall of the puppeteer who voiced Elmo on Sesame Street.
This is a really good cartoon:
1. It plays upon two highly publicized items in the news, and, if anything, the more important of them, the GOP retrenchment, is the one that requires a little news literacy. Everybody has heard about the Elmo scandal.
2. It contains a twist. There have been any number of cartoons about Big Bird since the election, but Romney himself brought up Big Bird and made the threat. It's not a "satiric twist" to mock one of his talking points in order to gloat over his failure, nor is it apt to persuade anyone to change their opinions, except the weak-kneed success-groupies who don't need much persuasion to leap from a broken-down bandwagon to that of a declared winner.
3. The twist itself is funny. The Muppets do a good job of coming up with iconic names, and hearing "Kermit," "Oscar," "Grover" or "Elmo" summons up the Muppet first. Solid branding there.
They also come up with unique personnas, and none of the Muppets, not even cloying, insipid little Elmo, is as loveable, cute and furry as cute, loveable, furry little Grover.
Even the non-Muppet associations with his name are cute and loveable: Grover Cleveland was noted for his political virtue and nicknamed "Grover the Good," while the baseball player, probably less loveable in real life, was played by the cute, loveable Gipper himself in a movie that not only glossed over but celebrated his rise from personal failure, and largely credited that glorious rebirth to his wife, Doris Day, than whom nobody in the universe is cuter or more loveable.
If the guy's name were Oscar Norquist, this cartoon would barely work. A large part of the humor is this other Grover's sharply contrasting lack of cute lovability, though he is, admittedly, somewhat furry.
3. The setting and context even allow Rogers to very specifically label the dolls without it being jarring. Bonus!
4. And a stylistic footnote: It's well within Rob Rogers' normal style to draw the elephant with blank glasses — everyone in the panel is wearing them — but it helps focus on the elephant's decision, while passing over whether that decision has made the elephant angry, doubtful, repentent or saddened.
By doing that, he avoids turning the discussion away from the (apparently) growing rejection of Norquist's tax pledge itself and opening up charges of betrayal, backpedaling, cynical response to the market, etc.
It's the whole elephant, not specifically Eric Cantor or Saxby Chambliss, and we're not here to talk about why, just to note that it is happening.
There is, of course, an element of "from your pen to God's ear" in this.
There hasn't, after all, been a vote of Republican lawmakers on the topic, and charges of RINO are already flying from the Peanut Gallery at those who have openly questioned, much less rejected, this precious element of rightwing libertarian dogma.
But political cartoons are supposed to advocate, not simply report, and, if Rogers isn't as consistently conservative as some other cartoonists, neither is he consistently liberal; far from it. He has standing to advocate on this topic.
There is a bit of wisdom satirists particularly like, a notion that, if someone had snuck up behind Adolph Hitler and yanked his pants down at the height of one of his early rallies, he would have become a figure of ridicule and thus World War II and the Holocaust would have been averted.
It's a pleasant notion, but it assumes that Hitler was an anomaly rather than a choice made by the German people. Had Schicklgruber failed, they would have simply found themselves another Nazi.
This cartoon is not about Grover Norquist himself. Rather, Grover Norquist's pledge here symbolizes an attitude and a strategy. The literal focus in the cartoon is on the dolls, but the conceptual focus is on the concept and attitude. That's what the elephant has decided to take back.
If cartoonists — liberal, conservative or neither — want to advocate a return to the center on the part of the GOP, they won't get it by making fun of Mitt Romney or by dancing on the grave of his candidacy. You don't advance a strategic point by jerking down someone's pants.
But anyone who wants the Republicans to reject extremism and return to a more coherent mainstream form of conservativism should print this cartoon out and pin it to the wall over their desks.
And hope some other cartoonists adopt a similarly aspirational, rather than confrontational, approach.
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