By Professor Marc Murphy of the Brandeis School of Law
2016 was worse for America than 9/11.
Yes. Trump’s failure during Covid was killing a 9/11’s worth of Americans weekly.
give 'em some time. it’s still early in the first quarter and he’s still getting warmed up
Republicans preventing the US from joining the first world probably kills more than that every week.
First, second, and third world country idealogy is outdated.
Well, the US has joined the second world now, but not in the way that the parent commenter means it.
Yep, we’re now aligned with Russia.
Trump was already responsible for one 9/11’s worth of American deaths when he refused to send aid after Hurricane Maria. Then COVID happened.
And yet somehow there are still far more people in the USA than there were before COVID struck. What gives?
Yes, it’s a real mystery why a country that has over 3 million births per year is increasing in population after 1 million more people than usual died over a few years.
Not to mention all the immigrants, legal or not, that keep pouring into the country
What gives? Your logic for sure.
Yeah this is 2025, you can’t just say something overtly dumb and expect people to understand it was a joke.
Far more? How about some support for that statement.
US Population in 2019 was approximately 334 million, it’s now approximately 343 million.
https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/usa/united-states/population
So the difference is basically a bit more than a rounding error, or from correctly counting people.
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Jr Bush/ Cheney laid an awful lot of the groundwork for Trunk One’s malevolence
Karl fucking Rove
Lee Atwater, Newt Gingrich etc etc etc
Andrew Johnson.
Donkey!
The Heritage Foundation, Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan
Edit. Added a link: You forgot Roy Cohn, the master snake.
As did Reagan and Bush I. And for that matter, a lot of their people cut their teeth under Nixon. Some cancers take a long time to grow.
Never ForgetWe Forgor2000 was worse for America than 9/11.
I’m sure this has been discussed to death but… would Gore have read the memos and stopped the attacks?
Retrospectively? Would give someone’s left nut for 2016 murca and not fucking bullshit 2025 fucking Russia (the one between Maine/Alaska/Hawaii/Florida under the orange thumb)
Hope your kids never wanted to ski outdoors Heritage Foundation!
The pathway to authoritarianism is lined with people telling you to stop overreacting
I hope as fuck that everyone who said that eventually realize they were warned, and take some humility into the future
Maybe, maybe, break Cassandra’s curse. At least for a little bit
Yea, and then they’ll say “never forget” and build a monument and a museum. And then everyone forgets 2 generations later. Just look at Israel, the families there still materially experience the lingering effects of genocide yet they continue to perpetrate another one.
That is the unfortunate reality of it. I wish I could say that I hope it will be different this time but…
About the one hope I have is that during the next iteration we overhaul society’s systems to so solidly work for the average person that it helps counteract this cycle, but it’s hard to stay optimistic for sure
The pathway to chronic fatigue leading to inaction is lined by people catastrophizing every day. Sometimes I wish the criticism of Trump was a bit more targeted. Some people claimed with a straight face that he would amend the constitution to take away women’s voting rights on his first day of office. While time and effort was spent talking about that, some of the “lesser activities” he performed, like greatly curtailing the EPA, or budget cuts to the IRS went unnoticed.
I don’t know if there is a name for this effect, but it seems like so many people are talking about how the world is burning in every way and that makes it difficult to conduct opposition to his efforts.
The only “good thing” for me is that almost by any way you measure his presidency, it’s been pretty bad. Wages haven’t gone up, productivity hasn’t gone up, GNP hasn’t gone up, etc. Every day it gets a little harder for his fans to defend him. I suspect instead of leaning on actual data that they will just confabulate some other data that makes things seem favorable.
I find it a little comforting to think that it wouldn’t have gone as bad as this if Kamala got in.
No matter how bad it gets during his Presidency it will be Biden and Obama’s fault and he will have spent so much tireless effort to fix it that it may still be bad but just think of how much worse it would have been without Trump daddy here?!? Then when whoever comes in after him fixes it up and it starts getting better it will be “Trumps tactics and work in his term finally coming to fruition” and “despite their best efforts in this new administration to destroy it, Pappa Trumps policies from the previous administration are finally turning things around!”
They are just sick in the head and short of the ICE Nazi’s dragging away the Trumpers own family to the concentration camps they will defend and excuse every bit of Trump’s bullshit.
They are just sick in the head and short of the ICE Nazi’s dragging away the Trumpers own family to the concentration camps they will defend and excuse every bit of Trump’s bullshit.
Totally… but the excuses are already pretty thin and they are getting thinner and thinner.
There are plenty of people overreacting, so stop overreacting about no overreaction /s
I’ve never seen anything in the US more complicit towards fascism and autocracy than the US media. They reported NOTHING negative about Trump for months? Why? Fairness? But Kamala got fucked every headline ''Job Numbers trending up, but are the numbers too soft because of Harris? " type of bullshit.
Why? Because right wingers own 98% of the mainstream media and push bullshit constantly while telling you and I that the left is controlling media and the government when they control neither in any substantial way.
Almost as if the rich and powerful have WAY too much control. Break out yer guillotines!
They want fascism. It’s an element of class war.
Always has been. Have you ever checked out how the imperial media covers genocide?
I’ve never seen anything in the US more complicit towards fascism and autocracy than the US media.
yes, including social media. People think adopting Donald Trump methods of dehumanizing those you disagree with, Donald Trump Twitter-think and Tweet-length mental attitudes is actually addressing the problem… in reality, it is joining in with the bonfires of goodness. Instead of a “we are under siege mentality” of posting a thread to the top of every social media platform every 6 hours since 2015 when it was clear Donald Trump and Putin wanted to fulfill their “Conservative International 2013” politician aims, people have just mocked and gone along with the total mockery media values of MAGA / Donald Trump Twitter-tweeting thinking.
I’ve never seen anything in the US more complicit towards fascism and autocracy than the US media.
People are entirely unable to defend and resist absurd comedy, surreal humor, surreal absurd "jokes’, they all end up joining in / jumping on the bandwagon with the mocking and mockery.
Neil Postman was correct in 1985: “When a population becomes distracted by trivia, when cultural life is redefined as a perpetual round of entertainments, when serious public conversation becomes a form of baby-talk, when, in short, a people become an audience, and their public business a vaudeville act, then a nation finds itself at risk; culture-death is a clear possibility.” ― Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business, 1985
Mr. President, a second presidency just hit the south tower.
They’re building a third tower now
Needs an update:
Now of course the “Rule of Law” is already destroyed and the plane should be headed for the 2nd one…
wait what
Cheetos can’t melt steel beams.
Cheetos shit themselves
Uhhhh get this human generated slop out of here!
Just need a 2nd plane labelled “republican traitor filth”.
I don’t know why you would write the same term 3 times.
They could be labeled trump 2024 and trump 2028
I do think that Trump’s first administration was fascist-lite. He had set precedence that future politicians will do. However, his second term has now gone full fascist and it is no longer “setting precedence”, but making breakthrough and ripping apart the very heart of democracy and what it means to be human.
Kick a narcissist out of your home and tell them you don’t want them anymore, and if they manage to get back in, you won’t ever forget you crossed them.
The media called his second run a “revenge tour”, and they weren’t fucking wrong. Trump’s only objective this time around is to stick it to the people who held him back the first time. First his old cabinet, then career civil servants, then judges, and eventually, the rest of us.
I mean… I’m from the US myself and this is extremely true
That’s what I was looking for! Thank you.
rejected by who?
He did not point the finger at any particular paper. At least not where I saw the cartoon.
I bet most any publication would have rejected it at the time.
It was rejected for being extremely distasteful.
It’s not wrong, but there’s no tie in to the administration that makes the image need to be the scene of thousands of people murdered by terrorists.
Trump’s terrible response to COVID19 resulted in a daily thousand people dead for nearly three years, 10,000 a week at it’s peak, almost a million in total.
His admin has also been accused many times of using terror tactics.
I think 20 years is long enough that political cartoonists can make 9/11 similes without worrying too much about pearl clutching.
It’s not pearl clutching, I’m saying it’s not a well designed comic. If he wanted it to be about Covid, he could have drawn it that way.
As seen by how you’re saying “no, people died of Covid” and other people are saying “no, people are being deported” and you both are at least notionally interpreting this political cartoon that has labels, none of which mention any of that proves you have to make one too many leaps in logic.
It’s just generic “Trump bad” which like I said, I agree with, I just don’t like the cartoon.
Americans aren’t very good at history, but most of them can at least keep this millennium straight…
Not really. “Conservative”/now far right media “entertainment” networks went wild for those 20+ years and managed to garner greater support for an ever further learning pro-fascist edge. It was overly effective for some and now it’s a runaway train.
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I took the analogy not as “Trump equals terrorism and death” but that Trump’s attack on the rule of law and the Constitution is at least as big of a threat and should be met with an equally vigorous response by a united United States. The cartoonist could have done it in the style of the Pearl Harbor attack and it would have achieved the same metaphor, though probably wouldn’t have had the same gut-punch effect.
Point is it should be a lightning rod for America to act. Sad that it is not.
Also, not condoning the wars that followed 9/11 and the Patriot act and all of the other bullshit we got because of it.
Thousands of people are on the verge of being murdered/deported by terrorists now, seems like a fair comparison to me.
How much blood will be on their hands before this is over. I totally get this image.
Trump and his cult are terrorists though
You certainly have a point that doesn’t deserve to be downvoted like that.
Are you New Yorkian, by any chance?
Not the person you replied to, but I’m a New Yorker. I lived near the city on 9/11. My friends lost family members. My dad was across the street from the towers and thankfully made it out alive.
I’ve downvoted every single 9/11 joke I’ve ever seen. I’ve personally shut down people who made 9/11 jokes in real life. It’s not really something to make jokes about.
But this comic is right. 9/11 was the defining moment of my generation. It changed America for the worse.
Comparing that to Trump’s fascist takeover is apropos.
It’s kinda tasteless and doesn’t really say anything.
I’d have rejected it 6 years ago for not being good
Doesn’t say anything? It clearly implies that Trump’s actions are deliberately trying to sabotage US stability and democracy.
If this guy could read he would be very upset with you
You guys have a really low bar to think this is a clever cartoon
I don’t think it’s that clever, I just think it is making a good point.
Sounds like you agree with me then! It not being clever is what makes it a bad cartoon. It doesn’t bring new perspective, it just says “Trump is bad like this other thing was bad”
Agreeing with the point (which I do) doesn’t make a cartoon or meme good.
I dunno man I just thought the cartoon was making a statement. Im not saying its a clever or original statement, but I liked the cartoon and I upvoted it.
🤷
It’s a pretty fucking simple concept, it doesn’t need to be “clever”.
It’s a political cartoon. The cartoon part is supposed to add something that words couldn’t.
You’re implying this cartoon is good enough to publish which tells me you either haven’t seen many political cartoons or you’re letting your opinion on the message define if it’s good or not.
I think the gold airplane really adds to it, and making it about the twin towers, an event that is solemn and almost untouchable adds to it.
The fact is, if someone has just said, “trump is an airplane, and the Rule of Law/Constitution are the twin towers”, we wouldn’t be here discussing it. The existence of this thread and anaylsis kinda undermines your point that the cartoon didn’t add anything.
trump is an airplane, and the Rule of Law/Constitution are the twin towers
If I was the artist’s friend and they just pitched that idea to you with that description… I’d suggest workshopping it a bit.
And we’re discussing if it’s a good cartoon, not the content of it.
You seem to have a fundamental misunderstanding of how political cartoons work. It’s a format for making a statement, there is no requirement for it to “add something that words couldn’t”. But even in this case, it does. It adds a direct and visceral comparison between what Trump and his Republican cronies are doing to America and what was felt on 9/11.
It’s a mediocre cartoon. It’s good enough to post on social media but if I’m paying someone to make a cartoon for my paper/website, I’d expect something better than this.
There are lots of interpretations. Maybe it says that… in the most offensive and irrelevant way possible.
Political cartoons are supposed to be clever and this is not. “9/11 was really bad. Trump is also really bad.” Wow… Never thought about it like that…
And it’s in bad taste, using 9/11 almost as a punchline. Replace the twin towers with any tragedy and it’s the same “joke.” How about a cartoon in Uvalde? The kids can be wearing that text on their shirts.
Agreeing with the message doesn’t blind me to how r/im14andthisisdeep this is. It’s just not a clever cartoon.
