CSotD: Snap Shots
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I cried when they shot Medgar Evers
Tears ran down my spine
And I cried when they shot Mr. Kennedy
Like I’d lost a brother of mine
But Malcom X got what was coming
He got what he asked for this time
So love me, love me, love me
I’m a liberal!
— Phil Ochs
Charlie Kirk was shot yesterday shortly after noon and his death was announced about two hours later, but a look through this morning’s cartoons shows very little response to the event.
By comparison, the attacks on the World Trade Center on this date in 2001 were in the midmorning and by the next day newspapers were flooded with cartoons on the topic.
Two factors come immediately to mind:
One is that, while the first plane on 9/11 could have been an accident, when the second struck, it was clearly an attack and, even before reports came of the third plane, the enormity of the action was immediately apparent.
By comparison, it may have required some reaction around the country for everyone to recognize that Kirk’s murder was more significant to more people than the murders of Minnesota legislators, the attack on Paul Pelosi and other violent actions.
Not only was Kirk a shadow figure whose influence may have been unclear, but we’re becoming numb to violence. My local paper ran the shootings at Annunciation Catholic Church on Page Four, and yesterday’s shootings at Evergreen High School were all but buried in the coverage of Kirk’s murder.
The other factor is that most of the cartoons that ran on 9/12 were of the Statue of Liberty weeping. There were a few excellent responses, but we were presented with a great deal more quantity than quality.
Deering gets credit for having reacted, though Sad Uncle Sam doesn’t seem like a huge improvement over a Weeping Statue of Liberty. But Woody Allen’s dictum applies: Eighty percent of success is showing up, and Deering did while others did not.
I’d also note that he scores because Uncle Sam may not be weeping so much as he is angry and depressed at finding himself once more in the barrel of a gun.
That’s a statement worth making, not because Kirk mattered more than the Minnesota legislators but because all those murders mount up.
Boris is more specific in his response, and whether he was already hearing the usual empty thoughts and prayers or just anticipating them, he scores. It’s a good cartoon, but it wasn’t much of a gamble, which is why Uncle Sam is justified in his anger and despair.
And what we’ve seen beyond thoughts and prayers has been more partisan than caring. The Phil Ochs quote above is a solid summary of our national response, adapted for whoever is speaking.
In his address to the nation last night, President Trump mentioned the attempt on his own life, the shooting of Steve Scalise and the murder of the CEO of UnitedHealthcare. Even mourning has become partisan as liberals and conservatives both mark the attacks on their political allies while ignoring those outside their circle.
In his introduction to “Love Me, I’m a Liberal,” Ochs defined liberals as being “ten degrees to the left of center in good times, ten degrees to the right of center if it effects them personally.”
Adjust the political status and multiply the number of degrees to fit whoever is speaking.
It’s not surprising that Jones responded to the event; one of the reasons his work is featured here so often is that he puts out a cartoon every day while other cartoonists are wedded to a firm schedule that makes them miss the bus a time or two.
His response seems harsh, though he explains his thinking in his essay, and he isn’t making anything up: Two years ago, Kirk really did downplay murders to praise the Second Amendment:
It’s worth it to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment.
Jones is only seconding Boris’s cartoon with more specificity and less diplomacy.
And if you want to discuss sensitivity, start with the president’s assumption that the killer was a leftist. At this point, we have no idea who shot Charlie Kirk. It could have been someone who objected to his long record of bigotry or it could be a disaffected fellow hatemonger who felt he had not gone far enough.
Trump may prove to have been a prophet, or someone who missed a good chance to keep his mouth shut. We’ll see, and I doubt, in the current atmosphere, that it will make any difference in his popularity one way or the other.
Though I’d note that, while Trump blames left-wing statements for creating an atmosphere in which such things can happen, MSNBC fired Matthew Dowd for saying much the same thing, though Dowd didn’t brand it as right or left.
Sheneman dug up a year-old cartoon to express his response to the murder, and, like Dowd, he doesn’t attribute the deadly combination to one side or the other.
The only question raised by Ruben Bolling’s regular Thursday rerun at GoComics is whether this is an accident of excellent timing or whether he stepped in at the last minute to make the choice. Either way, it’s certainly relevant.
One advantage in his commentary is that he makes no partisan judgment but rather focuses on the fear driving the irrational compulsion for weaponry.
This view from abroad echoes Bolling’s atmosphere of fear and America’s nearly unique fascination with firearms, but Rowe cites the Dark Days and draws a foreboding portrait of the country. Rowe often has the advantage of the time difference between here and Australia, but he still had this up and available within 12 hours of Kirk’s death.
That’s not entirely a matter of longitude.
There will certainly be more cartoons about the shooting in the coming days, and I’m not foolish enough to say “You snooze, you lose” and that I will refuse to acknowledge them, but, again, eighty percent of success is showing up, and that advantage is already gone.
Whatever comes tomorrow had better be damn brilliant.
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