Civil War for Fun & Profit
Civil War for Fun & Profit
🎨Cartooning the state of the border & political opportunism...🗽
In this update: New animation . . . the story behind the cartoon . . . and is the convoy really sponsored by a pizza & sub shop?
Apparently I’m better at creating a concise cartoon than at writing a concise explanation of the current immigration morass.
There is a lot to unpack in this ever-unfolding story.
As thousands of migrants fleeing misery and violence continue to head for the US-Mexico border seeking asylum and a better life, Republicans are looking to score political points.
(To be fair, some Democrats are also trying to do their own share of point-scoring, but the two parties are definitely not equivalent.)
President Biden desperately wants the Party of Trump to lose its ability to use the border as a cudgel in the presidential campaign.
The best way to do that is to pass a bipartisan border bill, which includes some concessions that are much tougher than Democrats were previously willing to offer.
Trumpists don’t want to do anything that has the slightest possibility of making Joe Biden look good . . .
. . . which led to the situation where Republicans wanted to punt any deal on immigration as Biden was pledging to shut down the border.
Meanwhile, federal Border Patrol agents and the Texas National Guard have been engaged in a standoff over who has control of the border after Texas Governor Greg Abbott ordered razor wire strung along the Rio Grande river.
Enter the U.S. Supreme Court, Abbott defiance, Trump incitement, right-wing Christian nationalists and Republican talk of civil war . . . and you have a very volatile mixture.
The right-wing stew includes a gigantic caravan of thousands of semi-trucks out to save America led by brave Christian nationalists proclaiming themselves “God’s Army,” er, scratch that — it sounds like there were only 20 or so vehicles (no semi-trucks) driven by a bunch of grumpy nutballs.
(But don’t worry, God’s Army made a few bucks and got some more followers on social media for their troubles. And, yes, “Great American Pizza & Subs” really is one of the convoy’s sponsors.)
Give me your tired, your poor . . . and we’ll be at each other’s throats fighting about what to do with them.
Keep your eyes peeled for a drawing-and-commentary post coming soon that takes a deeper dive into the people who organized this ridiculous convoy.
Thanks so much for being here and following my work!
-Mark
A lady friend in the 1950s vintage apartment building where I live sent me a link to your hardened bunker buster.
It’s f-ing hilarious that the Republicans are miserable over Sleepy Joe trying to trump Trump on the southern border.
I told her the other night over dinner in a real Mediterranean restaurant in Birmingham, AlaMAGMA, that if I wuz president of the land of the free and the home of the brave, I would bring home my troops prior presidents had put in harm’s way in distant lands, and put them on the southern border to stop the invasion as peacefully as possible.
And, I would stop Americans from going to Mexico with their money.
And, I would stop people in America from sending money to people in Mexico.
And, I would stop any products coming from Mexico to America.
Until Mexico stops the invasion.
My friend, who once lived several years in France and is fluent in French, said, Merde, that would really screw up the American economy and grocery stores!
Maybe she’s right.
I majored in economics at Vanderbilt 60+ years ago.
America is so dependent on cheap south of the border immigrant labor and Mexican produce and street drugs, not to mention Dos Equis and Modelo beers and various brands of tequila, and NAFTA is a treaty, that perhaps there is no way to do anything about that now.
Although the Asian market where I buy beautiful Asian greens every week during the winter - I grow my own greens in a community garden during the warm months - gets its greens and other vegetables three times a week off trucks from California.
My friend said America did plenty in Central America to cause people there to want to leave and come to America. I said not all of that is America’s fault, and I know it’s rough down there, but it’s not America’s job to save the Centrai Americans. America has more than it can say grace over taking care of Americans properly.
But them, Florida, Texas and west and even north once were Spain, which White Americans swiped, while they were swiping America from the real Americans they were killing off and the buffaloes, too, so perhaps the southern invasion is a karma situation
As, thanks to Donald Trump, America faces its second Civil War, if he is not elected in 2004, or if he is convicted and put in prison.
I don’t know where you live, Mark, but here in Alabama, I talk with MAGAs continually, and, although I like some of them, when it comes to politics and religion, they just ain’t right in their heads. Nor are the Republicans who see the orange turd for what he is, but vote for him anyway.
The Democrats seem to be lost in space, and Sleepy Joe disgusts me, sticking with Israel after he saw what the IDF was doing in Gaza. But he don’t remind me of Adolph Hitler during his rise to power in 1930s Germany.
Look at videos and photos of the Charlotteville protest against removing Confederate monuments, and of MAGA rallies, and of the January 6, 2020 insurrection, and you see oceans of white people, Mark.
A picture is worth a thousand words.
Or, if you prefer legalese (I’m a retired lawyer), res ipsa loquitur, the thing speaks for itself.
The South is rising again!