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The University of Chicago guide to free speech
The University of Chicago recently sent a letter to incoming students that bluntly laid out the school’s stance on freedom of expression. This NY Times article gives more background, but unfortunately suffers from a dopey headline that uses “political correctness” as though it were an unbiased term. This commentary on the issue is also well worth reading.
Students, like anyone else, can take things too far, but the whole concept of “trigger warnings” has now been picked up and blown out of proportion by conservatives. In the age of Trump and Black Lives Matter and campus protests by minority students, this letter is tone deaf and inappropriate. It’s largely name-calling and buzzwords with an attempt at plausible deniability.
Some will claim I’m arguing that students should be shielded from points of view they may disagree with. I have not said that at all. I do think that when a university brings in, say, a known internet harasser who uses his public profile to intimidate and abuse women online, students have the right to protest the legitimacy being granted by the university. If anything, the letter suggests that the leaders of U. Chicago are trying to make a “safe space” for themselves so they can frame criticism they don’t want to hear as anti-free speech.
Update: Some important background info for people who mistakenly think this whole issue is about “silencing offensive speech”: “What University Of Chicago Students Think Of Their School’s Campaign Against ‘Safe Spaces’“
Punditspew, Orlando shooting edition
One of my least favorite parts of being a political cartoonist is having to process these mind-boggling tragedies on a short deadline. It was absolutely clear from the beginning, however, that easy access to assault rifles did not help this situation.
The worst possible response to this attack is to demonize Muslims, as Trump is doing, which only fans the flames of hate and extremism. We know the shooter was virulently homophobic, a belief that may have preceded any affiliation with extremist groups. Whatever the findings in the coming days, it’s obvious that Trump deserves zero “congrats for being right.”
Radical Cleric vs. Trump
Given Trump’s penchant for threatening the press, encouraging violence among his followers, and directing hate towards minority groups, he sometimes seems like a mirror image of the very extremists he claims he’d protect us from. Actually, more than anyone, Trump reminds me of Turkey’s authoritarian president Erdogan, who has pursued a harsh crackdown against his critics in the media in recent years, while enjoying support from the nationalism-and-traditional-values crowd.
In case you were wondering, there was no new strip last week because I was in Memphis for the National Cartoonists Society convention.
Playing the Woman Card
My husband actually spotted a bumper sticker saying “Trump that bitch” the other day. Nice to see people keepin’ it classy.
As you’ve undoubtedly heard by now, Trump accused Hillary of playing the “woman card.” (He also suggested she lacked stamina, an odd — if phallically-loaded — criticism to level at someone who’s been campaigning tirelessly for eleven months.) Look, this is not that hard to understand: a woman running for president, who advocates for women as part of her platform, is not playing a “card” that gives her some kind of unfair advantage over her oh-so-meritocratic male opponents. See Jill Filipovic’s excellent NYT op-ed piece on how Donna Edwards was accused of playing the “race card” in her Senate campaign simply for talking about her life story, and how women and minority candidates are accused of playing a ”card” simply by virtue of who they are.
The 2016 elections and the Elvis Factor
In a 2003 column (“Who Can Beat President Doofus?”), Molly Ivins wrote about John Kerry’s lack of Elvis:
My early take on Kerry was that he has gravitas–sumbitch about bent over double with gravitas–but that he has no Elvis. Minus-zero on the Elvis Scale was my first read. No point in nominating some good and worthy candidate, like Fritz Mondale or Michael Dukakis, if they got no Elvis. The object is to get these people elected. Can’t get elected without a soupçon of Elvis.
Ivins noted that Kerry seemed to be working on his Elvis, which gave her some hope, though as we now know, her initial judgment was unfortunately correct.
I imagine some will dismiss this as a silly way of evaluating candidates, but I think the Elvis Factor is to be taken seriously. We can parse the candidates’ utterances until the cows come home, but the fact remains that elections are largely irrational. I’m assuming a certain level of wonkery among readers of this cartoon. (You’re welcome!) Imagine for a moment that everything you know about politics vanishes except for what you’ve heard on cable news. All the book learnin’ and well-reported articles, gone in a puff. This is the starting point for many voters. And they value certain personality traits, for better or worse. Mostly worse.
Honestly, I’m a little worried that both Hillary and Bernie are low on Elvis. Those who feel Sanders is a Hunka Hunka Bernin’ Love are free to disagree.
The Trump-supporting union member
Well, Ted Cruz has won Iowa, an outcome I find no less gooseflesh-inducing than a Trump victory. A few days ago, a disturbing report surfaced about Trump making inroads among union members. According to a study conducted by Working America, white working-class voters who support Trump cited his tendency to “speak his mind” as the quality they most admired. This attribute was more of a driving factor among his supporters than agreement with his policy positions.
Possibly the biggest blow to labor under a Trump or Cruz presidency would come in the form of extremist Supreme Court nominees. Trump has mentioned Clarence Thomas as his favorite justice. With unions already under assault at the state level, a Supreme Court tilted even more toward radical market fundamentalism and against worker rights would be absolutely devastating.
Obama apologizes for bombing of Mayo Clinic
Apologies to the Mayo Clinic for this one. They were on my mind because my aunt recently had heart surgery there (I hear she received excellent care).
While the U.S. may not blow up civilians in foreign lands every single day, many civilians do fear air strikes by the U.S. and our allies every day. These massacres keep happening over and over and over again. Would Americans tolerate drone strikes and other aerial bombings in their neighborhoods because someone thinks a terrorist might be hiding in a nearby house? Can you imagine living this way for years on end?
This case is particularly bad since it seems to be a deliberate strike on a Doctors Without Borders hospital. Glenn Greenwald does a good job summing up the shifting arguments coming out of the military.
“The Late-Night TV Circus”
In the past year, we’ve seen a changing of the guard (or planned change) on The Tonight Show, NBC’s Late Night, The Late Show with David Letterman, The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson, The Colbert Report, and The Daily Show. That’s six major nighttime TV shows, exactly zero of which have chosen a woman as replacement host. (Yes, I am aware of Samantha Bee getting a show on TBS. I’m talking about the heirs to longstanding franchises here.)
Most people seem to just nod their heads and accept this without realizing how utterly weird it is. Women comprise over half the population. There are lots of female comedians. Yet the entertainment industry clearly believes that America is not ready for a woman in such a role. Don’t get me started on the “not enough ladies in the pipeline” excuse — I’m reasonably certain that if a woman had Jimmy Fallon’s standup abilities, she’d still be doing open mics at the Crab Shack instead of pulling down $12 million a year like Fallon.
As a female-type person who deals in political humor, I can’t help but take this stuff personally. To me, it feels like these are impossible biases that we’ll never overcome. It makes me wonder whether this country is capable of electing a female president. My guess, I’m sorry to say, is that we’re not.
On a lighter note, this would be my first Family Circus parody, which was fun to draw. I don’t think “Jeffy,” who now draws the strip, will mind — he bought me beers once.
