The Sorensen Monologues

Take a trip back to Normal America-land

I know America of yesteryear (and by yesteryear, I mean before Trump, Nazis, Russian hackers, and the threat of nuclear war with North Korea became part of our nauseating daily news diet) had plenty of problems, and to some extent the country has never been “normal.” There’s a clear continuum, of course, between the KKK and the modern alt-right. But generally speaking, we’ve entered whole new levels of weirdness, such that the awful times that inspired me to become a political cartoonist in the first place now seem almost comforting to think about.

Fifteen years ago, Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott remarked at Strom Thurmond’s 100th birthday party, “When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We’re proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn’t have had all these problems over all these years, either.” Thurmond ran as a Dixiecrat opposed to “social intermingling of the races.” The comment cost Lott his leadership role.