Do you like the current events that inspired the drawing of the two editorial cartoons in this posting?
In the likelihood that you do not. Do you know how these cartoons came to be drawn?
They came to be drawn because not all of us exercised our power to vote in November 2016. Either because some felt Secretary Clinton was a sure winner and their vote did not matter or because she was not Bernie and she was not worthy to vote for or because people who voted for President Obama thought the ultimate Birther would look out for them or because the Comey letter ten days before the election made others feel that she was a walking impeachment waiting to happen, lack of voter turnout or protest votes for Jill Stein led to the Electoral College Victory of the candidate endorsed by the Ku Klux Klan.
This popular vote loser, allied with the obstructionist in chief (and a traitor for not going along with revealing Russian Meddling in the election) of the United States Senate Mitch McConnell changed the rules regarding Supreme Court Justice confirmation and Neil Gorsuch, instead of Merrick Garland, became an Associate Justice on the Supreme Court. Because voters in 2016 snubbed their nose at Clinton or just did not bother to show up, unions, women, customers, small businesses, voters in gerrymandered districts, and immigrants all had their causes set back with recent 5 to 4 Supreme Court Decisions. With today’s retirement of Justice Anthony Kennedy, the KKK endorsed candidate/popular vote loser and the obstructionist in chief will have an opportunity to seat a more conservative advocate on the Supreme Court, jeopardizing precedents like Roe vs. Wade and the Clean Water Act.
This is the second time in 16 years voters did not feel both major parties were not different. The first time, popular vote loser George W. Bush, with an assist from the hanging chads in Florida, a conservative block of the Supreme Court, and voters who decided to do a protest vote for consumer rights advocate Ralph Nader became President. How did that work out for the country? Just ask the surviving families of 9/11 or the soldiers from the wars in Afghanistan or Iraq or the people ruined by Bush-Republican Economic Policies in the Great Recession.
Now our country has a Chief Executive who exhibits strong Fascist-Authoritarian-Nativist tendencies supported by a Congress and court system that has no compunction about hollowing out social justice measures or basic civil rights. This is all because certain groups of voters rewarded Republican obstruction during two progressive administrations and put the poorly behaved bullies in power by not voting or wanting to be “pure” and not vote for a “compromise” choice.
It is important to realize that this can be remedied. It is important to remember that there are more people in this country that support a forward progressive agenda than a reactionary conservative one. We have the power to correct the misjudgments of the past and the excesses of the movement disguised as the Republican Party. Many have already realized this and have joined the movement to correct the imbalance affecting our country by volunteering or running for office with already positive results in elections over the last year and a half with 43 offices switching to the Democratic side of the ledger.
Much more work needs to be done in the coming elections (national, state, and local) and while there may still be some likely unfortunate rules handed down, we must never give up and lose sight that we have the power to bring the country back from the brink and make the United States that beacon of hope again.
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