The Sorensen Monologues
On the ‘Unlikability’ of Female Candidates
There was a debate last week over the suggestion that Elizabeth Warren may face the same “likability” issues as Hillary Clinton. I would argue that the idea of “likability” for a female candidate is problematic, as it fails to address the very real social context in which female authority figures are seen as less likable than their male peers. This piece on NBC does a pretty good job of explaining the issue.
Regarding Warren, I’d suggest that the fair question to ask is not “Is she likable?” but rather, “Can America overcome its sexism and anti-intellectualism enough to vote for her?” I wish I could confidently say yes, but I’m not so sure, despite the success of female candidates in the midterms. The authoritarian wave sweeping the world is very much a reassertion of traditional ideas about masculinity. I say all of this as a big fan of Elizabeth Warren, who has always felt like an alter ego if I’d gone to law school. I even dressed up as her for Halloween once.
Cartoon Flashback: Starve the Beast
This week’s comic is one final holiday classic before I head back into the trenches, although it has been updated to reflect 2018 data about the CEO-to-average worker pay ratio. The original strip from 2011 cited a statistic of 343 to 1. According to this Forbes article citing an AFL-CIO report, the pay gap has widened to 361 to 1. In the 1950s, the ratio was more like 20:1. Thank goodness no economic policies have been enacted to exacerbate this trend!
Cartoon Flashback: The Aristocratic Old Grandpa State
Continuing with our “classics for the holidays,” here’s a personal fave from 2012. As I wrote at the time:
I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of hearing smug Republicans toot their success horns while nagging the rest of us to work harder.
It takes a lot of chutzpah to oppose anything that might help American workers get ahead — unions, a robust safety net, minimum wage hikes — and then blame those workers for not earning enough money to pay federal income taxes (never mind all the other taxes they do pay). You can’t have it both ways! You can’t upend people’s lives through corporate takeovers and then call the downsized “irresponsible.” You can’t sow market chaos through deregulation and scoff at the small business owner who can’t survive the downturn. The disconnect is astounding. But such is the power of ideology.
Unfortunately, Big Plutocracy has only gotten bigger since then.
A couple of housekeeping notes: A few people have mentioned that the Facebook share button isn’t working anymore. I clearly need to do some site maintenance, which has become less of a priority since Google ads started paying crap and I decided to direct traffic to paying clients instead. Hopefully I will get a chance to make some updates over the holidays.
Secondly, sincere thanks to those of you who have joined my subscriber service. As time goes on, reader subscriptions will play an increasingly important role in sustaining the cartoon. So if the thought of getting each cartoon hot off the press, delivered to your inbox along with a smattering of commentary each Tuesday morning appeals to you, please consider joining.
Cartoon Flashback: Mr. and Mrs. P Go Gift Shopping
A classic for the holidays, as is my wont. This installment of Mr. and Mrs. P’s shopping adventures was written after a trip to an upscale kitchenware store. As I wrote in 2011, “Even though I’m not a 1% chef, I do enjoy ogling things like 15-pound cast-iron skillets and knives bearing vaguely-Teutonic insignias.”
The presents I would like to send to people this year are, unfortunately, not available in stores. I would like to send an assurance that the Affordable Care Act will still be around in a few years, or a Medicare for All coupon. I would like to wrap up democracy itself with a nice red white and blue ribbon, to give to everyone who has had their voting rights compromised. Alas, the best I can do is fancy soaps.
Tips for Holiday Cheer
Okay, I suppose things got a little dark this week. I’ve been wanting to comment on the weirdness of experiencing all the usual holiday frivolity during these very abnormal times. Just the other day, there was news of greenhouse gas emissions accelerating like a “speeding freight train” on the same day Trump announced a plan to open up nine million acres of land reserved for sage grouse protection to oil exploration. And in a chilling display of authoritarianism, the Republican legislature in Wisconsin voted in the dead of night to strip away power from the newly-elected Democratic governor. While these stories made newspaper headlines, I don’t entirely get the sense that Americans, as a whole, are deeply rattled. Bells continue to jingle and car antlers continue to sprout. Not that I begrudge people their reindeer fun. Indeed, it is possible to affix a plush red Rudolph nose to the grill of one’s automobile and be concerned about the demise of democracy at the same time.
The Refugee Cycle
To be clear, my intention here is not to say that refugees necessarily lead to fascism. Rather, it’s hyperbolic, inflammatory rhetoric about migrants that leads there. Without irresponsible right-wing media demonizing entire groups of people round the clock, I suspect the national conversation would look a bit different.
U.S. foreign policy has unfortunately played into the creation of some of these very refugees. With the Iraq War, we destabilized a whole region and opened up a power vacuum filled by terrorist movements. Then there’s been decades of US involvement in Central America, also not unrelated to current migrants fleeing violence.
Things you don’t hear after a Democratic wave
While I’ve seen some news stories about women voters, there’s been nowhere near the same adulation and obsessive fawning as there was over male Trump voters in 2016. The very notion of “authenticity” is gendered male, and Dem-voting women are not seen as “real” Americans by many in the media.
Notification Bloatification
Finally taking a break from politics this week. In the early days of social media, it seemed a notification was a notification. Someone mentioned you or tagged you in a photo, you got pinged, and that was that. Over the past couple years or so, I’ve noticed both Facebook and Twitter desperately throwing random notifications into the mix about various friends’ activities. I’m getting Facebook alerts about people I don’t know commenting on posts written by people I don’t know. Once in a while, Twitter burps up some obnoxious little nudge informing me that someone has tweeted, or liked a tweet. Now, before people write me with advice about changing my settings, let me assure you I have tried everything humanly possible. At least in some cases, YOU CAN’T TURN THEM OFF. (I realize this is hardly the biggest problem in the world right now, but it’s fun to complain about.)
America Then and Now
My short take on the election is that the results were not bad, but we have a long, long way to go to restore sanity. Just thinking about the Supreme Court gives me the willies.
Get Off My Precinct!
A bit late posting here as I’m traveling abroad. I had to draw this one before the election results, but given what happened in Georgia, it’s still unfortunately relevant. Gerrymandering and other voter suppression efforts have gotten so extreme now that Democrats must win by huge margins to actually, you know, win. Things have gotten so bad that elections have become about whether to keep what little democracy we have left. We are in an emergency situation for our country, yet many media outlets spent the week before the election obsessing over the non-story of the “caravan.” If anything, voter suppression efforts should be receiving that kind of breathless coverage.
The specific issue with Native American voting rights I’m referring to in panel four is described here.
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Tips for Stopping Extremist Violence
Sometimes I can’t believe the things I have to draw cartoons about these days. When I began the weekly strip some eighteen years ago or so, I never imagined I’d be making the case against fascism in America. It felt like the dam broke this past week, that whatever was holding back an explosion of violent nutballery that’s been waiting in the wings is now gone. All I can do is try to point out the obvious, that these acts are the culmination of decades of over-the-top conspiracy theorizing and incitement on the American right. And no amount of being “nicer” or more “open-minded” is going to change things.
Debate to Nowhere
In previous cartoons, I have dealt with the folly of giving fascists and roundly-discredited racial theorists prestigious speaking platforms — such as Steve Bannon headlining the New Yorker ideas festival — and made the case that it is not “closed-minded” to object to such norm-violating appointments. Here I take on the same basic topic from another angle: if fascists and racists must be treated as part of serious contemporary intellectual debate, as some insist, surely there must be some point when the debate is over? If not, then it follows that there’s no way to ever condemn a set of ideas or come to any conclusions. An analog would be people who want endless “debate” over climate change, long after scientific consensus has been established. The Bannons and climate deniers of the world are free to speak their nonsense, but rehashing it endlessly leads absolutely nowhere.
