Republicans

Thursday July 18, 2019

July 18, 2019

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday July 18, 2019

‘Send Her Back’: The Bigoted Rallying Cry of Trump 2020

December 9, 2015

On Wednesday night in North Carolina, Donald Trump agitated rally-goers with inflammatory rhetoric about Representative Ilhan Omar, a naturalized American born in Somalia, until his supporters began chanting “send her back”––as if a legal immigrant who became a U.S. citizen can or should be denied equal treatment under the law and extra-constitutionally deported by the president.

Burning a copy of the U.S. Constitution would show no more contempt for it than the crowd’s bigoted, nativist reverie about tyrannically deposing an elected member of Congress. No opinion expressed by the congresswoman, no matter how wrongheaded, could excuse the un-American mob.

The crowd’s authoritarian outburst and the purposefully divisive, irresponsible presidential rhetoric that prompted it portends an ugly Trump campaign for reelection. Like “lock her up,” the chant that Trump rally-goers directed at Hillary Clinton in 2016, “send her back” is poised to travel the country with the president.

January 13, 2018

Already, the civic poison of the chant has been televised and celebrated on social media by Trump supporters. Naturalized immigrants must have heard it and felt anxious. Racists must have heard it and felt glad. Children must have heard it, too, and felt uncomfortable, knowing in their gut that the chant is wrong. Some kids are surely being malignly influenced by its repudiation of the American creed.

Republicans know that more of the same is coming. Wednesday’s rally put them on notice: Trump intends to run a reelection campaign that stokes the ugliest impulses of his base, no matter how much damage it does to the civic fabric of America and no matter how much hatred it stirs up against immigrant populations. The overwhelming majority of the GOP and its electorate are sticking by Trump anyway, even though they could be working for a contested primary election.

That is shameful.

How many times between now and Election Day 2020 will Trump whip up a crowd of his supporters into a new frenzy of bigoted, unconstitutional nativism? Four more years of this would be devastating for America. (The Atlantic) 

MacKay’s Sci-Fi Gallery

February 26, 2008
April 30, 2009
July 20, 2009
May 9, 2012
February 21, 2013
March 19, 2013
January 31, 2014
May 7, 2014
November 13, 2014
January 16, 2015
August 19, 2016
May 31, 2018
November 14, 2018
November 18, 2017
July 18, 2019
July 17, 2019
September 22, 2012

 

Thursday, October 3, 2013

Thursday, October 3, 2013By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday, October 3, 2013

U.S. shutdown: Republicans reject call for vote on reopening gov’t

U.S. President Barack Obama brought top lawmakers to the White House on Wednesday as Republicans rejected Democratic demands to vote on legislation ending a two-day partial government shutdown without changes to the nation’s three-year-old health care law.

Despite the meeting, White House press secretary Jay Carney said sharply that Obama “will not offer concessions to Republicans in exchange for not tanking the economy.”

With the nation’s ability to borrow money soon to lapse, Republicans and Democrats alike said the shutdown that has idled some 800,000 federal workers could last for two weeks or more, obliging a divided government to grapple with both issues at the same time.

From the MacKayCartoons BoutiqueHouse Republicans brought a handful of bills to the floor to reopen portions of the government, including veterans’ programs, parks and the National Institutes of Health. Democrats labeled that a piecemeal approach and rejected it, and the White House threatened to veto the measures in the unlikely event they made it to Obama’s desk.

“What we’re trying to do is to get the government open as quickly as possible,” said the House majority leader, Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia. “And all that it would take is us realizing we have a lot in agreement.”

Democrats were scathing.

An attempt by Democrats to force shutdown-ending legislation to the House floor failed on a 227-197 vote, with all Republicans in opposition. That left intact the tea party-driven strategy of demanding changes to the nation’s health care overhaul as the price for essential federal financing. Late in the afternoon, leading lawmakers filed into the meeting with Obama. (Source: CTV News)

FEEDBACK

The Hamilton Spectator reprinted a thoughtfully educational email sent by Ron Vince, of Flamborough regarding this cartoon, “Graeme MacKay’s cartoon featuring “Cro-Magnons” and “Modern Man’ — purporting to be a commentary on the current American political impasse — seems to err in contrasting the two groups. Cro-Magnons were, in fact, “modern men.” “Neanderthal” would have been a better, although still unfair (to the Neanderthals), choice to represent the Tea Party. Or is the cartoon in fact a particularly brilliant and subtle condemnation of both sides in the standoff?”

On social media this cartoon garnered less attention than expected, although it did raise the backs up of some conservative message makers at Yahoo News Canada who were quick to make use of their FOX news issued bullet points. More are found on Yahoo Canada’s Facebook Page. It’s also posted to the huge worldwide aggregator of editorial cartoons everywhere at www.cagle.com, joining hundreds of other cartoons with similar sentiment critical of the Tea Party movement. Check in to this link to monitor the right wingers to catch up with their bullet points.