The Sorensen Monologues
Welcome to AI-merica
Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about the government employees losing their jobs, all these decent people having their lives totally upended. Musk says he wants to replace much of the federal workforce with AI. In the private sector, we’re also seeing layoffs and fewer job openings in industries where bosses are trying to use AI to cut labor costs. At the same time, the social safety net is being threatened with massive cuts. What are people supposed to do? What’s the point of an economy that no longer serves the interests of human beings?
To support this work and receive my weekly newsletter with background on each cartoon, please consider joining the Sorensen Subscription Service! Also on Patreon.
The Consumer Financial Destruction Bureau
Founded by Elizabeth Warren in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau addressed all sorts of sleazy practices in the financial services industry, from shady loans to exorbitant junk fees to insecure payment apps. They recovered some $21 billion on behalf of the American people. This was an example of good government fighting corporate abuses on behalf of the public. Yet how many voters even knew or heard about it? Many have been led to believe the oligarchs ransacking the country are fighting “corruption.”
To support this work and receive my weekly newsletter with background on each cartoon, please consider joining the Sorensen Subscription Service! Also on Patreon.
Pluto-brats
Like many news stories these days, this one is so outlandish it’s difficult to exaggerate. Musk’s lackeys have infiltrated the U.S. Treasury payment system and are, according to WIRED, editing the code as I write this. This is not only illegal, but a grave security breach that violates the privacy of most Americans.
For further thoughts on what’s happening to the country right now, you might check out this Guardian article on the far-right, deeply misogynist roots of technofascism.
To support this work and receive my weekly newsletter with background on each cartoon, please consider joining the Sorensen Subscription Service! Also on Patreon.
Beware of TLAs
The term “DEI” is being used as a cover to tear apart much of the federal government. And they’ve started invoking the scourge of “DEIA” too, which refers to accessibility.
It’s not that this language didn’t exist before, but it’s being weaponized now. Suddenly the cold, impersonal-sounding acronym DEI has replaced “diversity initiatives,” “civil rights,” “equal rights,” “fairness,” and “anti-discrimination” in everyday conversation. I would suggest that one small thing we can do is return to using those actual words.
To support this work and receive my weekly newsletter with background on each cartoon, please consider joining the Sorensen Subscription Service! Also on Patreon.
Recent Interviews
A few things I’ve been up to lately:
Fast Company magazine held a great roundtable discussion about political cartooning in a broken media landscape. I have to say, the sample art that they chose from my comic for the feature image is perfectly timed.
The Comics Journal also published a lengthy, well-researched article on political cartooning on the eve of the second Trump administration, interviewing several artists. I’m in the latter half of the piece, in the section about altweekly comics.
Finally, if you have some extra time on your hands, you might consider watching or listening to this Zoom recording of cartoonists reading from books and essays that speak to our political moment, organized by the great illustrator and humanitarian Steve Brodner. This was created as an alternative to watching the inauguration. It was a humbling group to be a part of, and I was truly impressed by the selections. My reading begins around the 1 hour and 31 minute mark. Note that this is very much an informal Zoom chat and I didn’t have any interesting visuals, though a few people managed!
Your New Order Has Arrived
I get the sense that many people had no clue about the revolutionary nature of this administration, or still don’t, and I’m not just talking about Trump voters. Though it may be moot at this point, we need to ask why this is so.
In case you haven’t heard about the meme coins, Trump has issued his own branded cryptocurrency, $TRUMP, which has attracted billions in investment over the last few days. Melania followed suit with a $MELANIA coin. As you might expect, government ethics officials view this as a gross conflict of interest with massive potential for corruption.
To support this work and receive my weekly newsletter with background on each cartoon, please consider joining the Sorensen Subscription Service! Also on Patreon.
Oligarchically Correct
Longtime readers know how much I despise the term “political correctness” for being a loaded insult that is only ever lobbed in one direction, ignoring the many orthodoxies and laughable euphemisms of the right. It’s a form of name-calling that’s often sloppily used to denigrate all positive social change. Now we’ve entered a era of repression worse than anything I imagined possible in my lifetime. Ideas unpalatable to the billionaire class and would-be dictators are being methodically purged from mainstream discourse. The most annoying scolds on the internet are the bros and broligarchs constantly screeching about diversity initiatives (they are actually blaming the LA wildfires on the fact that the fire chief is a woman, among other conspiracy theories). And yet a kind of conventional wisdom still holds that these are the freethinkers, not monstrous threats to the freedom of others. The lack of concern about Hungary-style crackdowns on academia also strikes me as bizarre.
To support this work and receive my weekly newsletter with background on each cartoon, please consider joining the Sorensen Subscription Service! Also on Patreon.
How to Get in the Holiday Spirit
To be clear, I do not actually recommend slipping into unconsciousness for the next twelve years. That’s probably not the way out of this mess. I have to say, though, the normal expressions of seasonal joy feel like an exercise in cognitive dissonance.
The Statue of Liberty in the ground is a reference to the ending of The Planet of the Apes.
To support this work and receive my weekly newsletter with background on each cartoon, please consider joining the Sorensen Subscription Service! Also on Patreon.
Looking for an easy, last-minute gift idea? Consider giving a subscription to this newsletter via Mailchimp/Campaignzee or Patreon!
Big Fryer is Watching
This cartoon was inspired by a post from the cybersecurity firm Malwarebytes, which refers to a study by a British consumer rights group called Which? (that’s their name), that examined unnecessary data harvesting by “smart” devices, including air fryers. Certain brands wanted permission to record audio on users’ phones and track precise location, and one brand connected its app to trackers from Facebook and Tiktok. None of this digital access is actually necessary for the fryer to function. While air fryers may not pose the greatest privacy risk in our everyday lives, they are part of a growing Internet of Things that I find extremely weird.
To support this work and receive my weekly newsletter with background on each cartoon, please consider joining the Sorensen Subscription Service! Also on Patreon.
Experts Explain Why America Voted for Plague
When you substitute “plague” for “Trump,” some oft-repeated post-election analyses become obviously absurd. At this point the whole conversation is starting to feel tedious, and I find myself getting annoyed by simplistic arguments.
The bird thing in the last panel is a plague doctor. When treating the plague in the 17th century, doctors wore a mask in the shape of a giant bird beak filled with aromatic herbs, on the theory that this would enable them to avoid scents that they thought caused the illness. The costume may have shielded them from bodily fluids and thus been useful, if in a slightly different way than they imagined.
For my weekly newsletter with background on each cartoon, please consider joining the Sorensen Subscription Service! Also on Patreon.
Cap-itulation
I’ve seen snippets of commentary from some Democratic officials and prominent opinion-havers suggesting, somewhat ominously, that the party needs to shift to the right culturally (sometimes expressed in the veiled language of “abandoning special interests”) in order to appeal to working class voters. But as I’ve noted before, nothing the Dems do is going to make a difference in this media environment.
All the rage that should have been directed at private equity, extreme inequality, the top-heavy billionaire class, union-busting CEOs, hedge funds buying up real estate and evicting renters, corporate consolidation and monopolies, and the lack of a national health insurance system for all, was redirected towards marginalized groups — women, people of color, immigrants, transgender people. Anyone who defends the old values of democracy, human rights, and evidence-based reality is going to be demonized no matter what they do or do not say. The GOP’s media juggernaut will always find something to hold up for mockery. The angertainment will never stop. We need to double down on decency or we have nothing left.
For my weekly newsletter with background on each cartoon, please consider joining the Sorensen Subscription Service! Also on Patreon.
From Dawn to Dusk
Post-election commentary has largely devolved into a circular firing squad aimed at various Democratic subgroups while ignoring the elephant in the room. I think the main question we should be asking is not “What did we do wrong?” so much as “How did something this depraved happen?” I found myself agreeing a lot with this New Republic article, which makes the case for the overwhelming dominance of right-wing media and how it sets the agenda for the national conversation. While Democrats have not always been great about messaging (though they made a pretty good effort this election cycle), it’s not like any improved messaging is going to be heard by a majority of Americans at this point.
For my weekly newsletter with background on each cartoon, please consider joining the Sorensen Subscription Service! Also on Patreon.
