The Sorensen Monologues

Actual Moms for Liberty

Most of you have probably heard of Moms for Liberty, the extremist pro-Trump group that has been pushing for book bans and anti-LGBTQ legislation for a while now. Last year, an Indiana chapter of the group infamously quoted Hitler in their newsletter (ominously named THE PARENT BRIGADE), featuring the line “He alone, who OWNS the youth, GAINS the future” right at the top of the front page with an attribution to The Führer. The group apologized and condemned Hitler, for whatever that’s worth. This little faux pas came up recently on social media, which got me thinking about a cartoon idea I’ve had for a while, envisioning what actual moms for liberty might say. Because let’s face it, Hitler was the opposite of freedom for a lot of people. 

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Don’t Take the Bait

Vance admitted on CNN that manipulating news coverage was the whole point of the fake stories they were telling (while of course arguing it was “disgusting” to suggest that the ensuing bomb threats that closed schools and hospitals had anything to do with their rhetoric).

I recommend this excellent Jamison Foser post about how the press should cover the lies about Springfield. To quote Foser:

When Donald Trump lies that Haitian immigrants are stealing and eating pets, that should be the hook for an article about Donald Trump’s long history of lying; about the fundamental lack of honesty, character, and integrity that this demonstrates. The result of Trump’s lies shouldn’t be articles about immigration, it should be articles about Donald Trump’s lifelong dishonesty and the consequences it poses, and articles about Trump’s lengthy history of directing hatred at racial minorities, and about his lengthy history of intentionally inciting threats of violence as well as actual violence.

It is possible to have a good-faith discussion of immigration policy, but this isn’t it.

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AI Gone MAD

This was inspired by an article about the Rice University study comparing self-consuming AI to mad cow disease, a topic practically begging for a cartoon. To quote one researcher:

“The problems arise when this synthetic data training is, inevitably, repeated, forming a kind of a feedback loop — what we call an autophagous or ‘self-consuming’ loop,” said Richard Baraniuk, Rice’s C. Sidney Burrus Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering. “Our group has worked extensively on such feedback loops, and the bad news is that even after a few generations of such training, the new models can become irreparably corrupted. This has been termed ‘model collapse’ by some — most recently by colleagues in the field in the context of large language models (LLMs). We, however, find the term ‘Model Autophagy Disorder’ (MAD) more apt, by analogy to mad cow disease.”

He added that “one doomsday scenario is that if left uncontrolled for many generations, MAD could poison the data quality and diversity of the entire internet.” 

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Prairie Progressives

I find it extremely refreshing to see Tim Walz upsetting the lazy narrative that middle America and rural places are a monolithic bloc of Trump supporters. It is true that these areas tend to vote Republican, but the reality is far more complicated. Having lived in so-called red states, I am consistently amazed by the courage and expertise of public servants, progressive activists, and conservationists. Yet you might not know his from political analysis in national newspapers.

Moreover, some tired pundits are still childing progressives for criticism of these ideas under the guise of not insulting Trump voters. I do not think calling Trump or Vance “weird” is the same thing as insulting rural people. I grew up in rural Lancaster County and worked as a server in a Pennsylvania Dutch family restaurant and grocery store cashier. My co-workers at these jobs had a good sense of humor and were amazingly quick with a snappy insult. If anything, it’s an elite perspective to say you can’t dunk on MAGA nonsense.

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