Why Does Chris Muir Hate America?
Ezra Klein suggests that “It’s worth reading this crazy Chris Muir comic, if only to understand the narrative that hardcore conservatives have created for themselves.”
Two points here. One is that not only is the joke at the end here not funny, it has literally nothing to do with the political commentary that takes up the bulk of the comic. It’s just a ludicrous political rant followed by a lame pun.
But more to the point, “nationalisation of banking, insurance, auto, and healthcare?” “Unrecognisable?” This is not how we spell words in the United States of America. If Chris Muir wants to run around spelling words like thatmaybe needs to revisit the point of the original tea parties. Here in America we recognize that Barack Obama did not, in fact, nationalize the banking industry but probably should have.
85 Responses to “Why Does Chris Muir Hate America?”
Register
RSSLogin
Topic Cloud
ArchivesBlog RollAbout Matt YglesiasContact Me
Donate
October 16th, 2009 at 5:38 pm
Yes, Muir is a complete loon … but you’re correcting spelling now?
October 16th, 2009 at 5:40 pm
When I get clubbed over the head, I find Mallard Fillmore gives off better sound effects.
October 16th, 2009 at 5:43 pm
I was almost interested in his thesis, but the overuse of really bad gradient effects and bad line work really turned me off.
October 16th, 2009 at 5:44 pm
I wouldn’t say that hardcore conservatives have created this narrative for themselves. They’ve created it for the suckers. I imagine that somebody as (relatively) thoughtful as this Muir guy knows that most of what he’s saying is made up.
I wonder what it’s like to wake up one day and realize that the only way to espouse your chosen, beloved ideology is through vicious and unrelenting falsehood. It must harden a person.
October 16th, 2009 at 5:45 pm
Awesome, the list of enemies is so long, it’s like every American is in on a conspiracy to destroy America.
October 16th, 2009 at 5:48 pm
Are you sure this isn’t parody? The girl makes fun of the crazy guy’s rant at the end. And totally agree with #1.
October 16th, 2009 at 5:48 pm
Republicans are so desperate for a non-white, non-southern person who agrees with them that they made up a cartoon.
But enough about Michael Steele.
October 16th, 2009 at 5:51 pm
Wait, this is an actual cartoon? Not one of SadlyNo’s spoofs? In that case, the joke is on Muir.
Just look at the big balloons in frames two and three and try to imagine what it’s like to be so stupid that you think Sotomayor is a racist. That the stimulus is the thing that busted the economy. That the banking system has been “nationalized,” that the auto [industry] has been nationalized, and that anyone’s trying to nationalize healthcare. That there are unaccountable Czars ‘overriding’ government (what? even when they’re confirmed by it?). I’d like to see what dumbass thinks is an anti-semitic rant and embrace of Islamic terrorists, just so I can laugh at dumbass’ expense. Furthermore, dumbass equates Jennings with Hay with NAMBLA, which is a full-on brainfart, pretends Ayers wasn’t rehabilitated by staunch Republicans, propagates the old canard that a mixed-race congregation was somehow black separatist, and babbles about communists. No, really!
Then it gets worse. He shows he doesn’t know what was in EFCA, can’t tell the difference between volunteer voter-reg fraud and institutionalized voter fraud itself. He’s either paranoid enough or stupid enough to think Obama wants to reinstate the Fairness Doctrine and then babbles about some crap even I haven’t heard of yet. The media reference is a laugh on so many levels, as is the notion that everyone is out to bash an “America” that I doubt dumbass has ever visited.
And he tops it all off by being too ignorant to spell “Democratic” and too stupid to read the tax code. This guy thinks he’s one of the useful people? He’s a freak gibbering in a ditch. He’s almost certainly one of the 86% of Americans who pay more in payroll taxes than income tax, but being too stupid to grasp that, he’s mad at the people who pay only the most regressive tax in the federal arsenal which eats more and more into their disposable income while marginal and corporate tax rates declined. He’s a leper, screaming at the dead.
I admit, I’m torn. Torn between my pity for conservatives and the joy I take from watching them scream at shadows and unman themselves in pathetic displays of shrieking hysteria. On one hand, it’s sad for any human being to abase themselves the way this idiot has done. On the other hand, considering the damage they’ve done, I love to see what they’ve become. It’s like their pathetic lives are the punishment they deserve.
More of this, please. Please?
October 16th, 2009 at 5:58 pm
Right-wingers…cannot…do…comedy.
October 16th, 2009 at 5:58 pm
The interesting thing about the rant is that almost none of it is even arguably based in fact.
“Economy-busting ’stimulus’ bills” is almost certainly going to be false in practice, but at least it’s a hypothetical based upon a commonly-held ideological view. Nationalization of the auto industry is partially true. Jeremiah Rivers could at least be arguably described as a racist and he really was a mentor to Obama. “A news media so biased that half the nation refuses to buy from them” is a statement I consider to be fairly crazy, but one could at least plausibly defend it.
Every other factual claim is categorically false unless one twists the plain meaning of the words beyond recognition. And the rant about anti-American ideology must be considered in light of the following facts:
The Bush Administration really did launch an arguably unprovoked war that killed tens of thousands of people, and establish a network of secret prisons in which people were held without trial, coercively interrogated without legal representation, and in some cases tortured. All of which were enthusiastically supported by people like Chris Muir.
Ah, but ain’t that America.
October 16th, 2009 at 5:59 pm
More importantly, why do they feel the need to keep trying? I mean, just give the fuck up.
October 16th, 2009 at 6:01 pm
All that ranting and the low-low kwality of the graphics just makes me wonder why this guy is doing cartoons.
October 16th, 2009 at 6:02 pm
[...] about Obama being black. Bush, who was hosting Obama at a volunteerism forum here Friday, [...] Why Does Chris Muir Hate America? – yglesias.thinkprogress.org 10/16/2009 Ezra Klein suggests that “It’s worth reading this [...]
October 16th, 2009 at 6:03 pm
“This is not how we spell words in America”?
Matt Yglesias wins Least Self-Aware Internet Commenter of the Year Award.
October 16th, 2009 at 6:05 pm
As a very long-time Yglesias reader and fan, let me note the irony of Matt Yglesias offering spelling corrections. That said, I’ve noticed that Matt’s spelling is dramatically better than it was in the bad old days when he fist started blogging.
October 16th, 2009 at 6:07 pm
Joe from Lowell wins the thread.
Seriously, though, in fairness the ending doesn’t seem like it’s supposed to be funny.
October 16th, 2009 at 6:07 pm
I get the joke. The joke is that his violent rant is making her feel uncomfortable, and so she’s using lame humor to try to defuse the situation. Very awkward.
October 16th, 2009 at 6:09 pm
Um, who is the child rapist that is Obama’s mentor? Is it supposed to be a reference to Roman Polanski, or is there some other accusation out there which I am not aware of?
October 16th, 2009 at 6:14 pm
Which is really the relationship dynamic in many, many households in this country which contain a strident right-wing relative. She is tip-toeing around a guy who has clearly gone off the deep end and is trying to maintain as peaceable a household as possible under the circumstances.
October 16th, 2009 at 6:14 pm
Wow, even Al is unable to parse one of the nuttier accusations in the rant. I tip my hat to Muir.
October 16th, 2009 at 6:29 pm
Not to spoil the joke, but I think the point of Matt’s comment is that “nationalisation” and “unrecognisable” are British spellings. Hence the reference to “the original tea parties”. Maybe Muir is just a loyal Economist subscriber.
October 16th, 2009 at 6:29 pm
re 15:
That said, I’ve noticed that Matt’s spelling is dramatically better than it was in the bad old days when he fist started blogging.
Well played!
re Al at 18:
I can only assume he must be referring to this hilariously tortured attempt to create a link between Obama and Polanski. The fact Muir buys into it is just more proof he’s a moron.
October 16th, 2009 at 6:29 pm
Um, who is the child rapist that is Obama’s mentor?
Some priest that Obama knew when he was a kid. You might remember the “rape”/”relationship” confusion on the right on this point.
October 16th, 2009 at 6:31 pm
Great post, JM.
Al, I don’t know, and I swear I would tell you if I did. I thought it might be a reference to Ken Jennings; so far none of the made-up accusations against him have included child rape, but I can easily imagine someone as lazy and ignorant as Chris Muir thinking otherwise.
Oh, come on. “Nationalization” is what Fidel Castro did to the United Fruit Company.
October 16th, 2009 at 6:41 pm
Oh wow. I saw that there were 24 comments and assumed at least half of them would mention Matt’s proclivity toward misspellings and typos. But just two? Wow.
“If Chris Muir wants to run around spelling words like thatmaybe needs to revisit the point of the original tea parties. “
October 16th, 2009 at 6:47 pm
I was almost interested in his thesis, but the overuse of really bad gradient effects and bad line work really turned me off.
Yeah. Using the exact same drawing of the black guy for four of the five panels in which he appears has to set some kind of record for artistic laziness. At least with the woman, he bothered to change her head on two panels (although she’s got the the same body.)
(Side note: In comparison, when David Rees (”Get Your War On”) uses actual clip art in his comics, it’s very funny.)
October 16th, 2009 at 6:48 pm
Chris Muir probably doesn’t hate America, but I’m pretty sure that he hates comedy.
October 16th, 2009 at 6:53 pm
I recall reading something during the campaign about some black radical in the 60s being a pedophile, which led to the obvious questions, “Was Barack Obama molested by a communist when he was a boy?”
I can’t recall where I saw it or who the subject was, but it sort of ran alongside the “Who is Obama’s REAL father?” conspiracy.
October 16th, 2009 at 6:57 pm
Right-wingers treat comedy as a combination of building up and testing their “intellectual discipline” – that is, their ability to make themselves feel and think things that are politically useful for them to think and believe.
Bad comedy is actually better than good comedy for exercising this muscle, because the act of will necessary to read this comic strip (or watch the old “Half Hour News Hour”) and then grimly bark out “HA HA HA,” in unison with the other right-wingers makes them better able to accept the false beliefs they rely upon.
October 16th, 2009 at 7:07 pm
Um, who is the child rapist that is Obama’s mentor? Is it supposed to be a reference to Roman Polanski, or is there some other accusation out there which I am not aware of?
I think it’s a reference to Kevin Jennings Obama’s appointee to the Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools who the Fundies have launched a smear campaign against.
October 16th, 2009 at 7:09 pm
somebody as (relatively) thoughtful as this Muir guy
That’s a noun phrase you don’t see every day. I’m pretty sure Muir smokes his own product.
October 16th, 2009 at 7:16 pm
Chris Muir probably doesn’t hate America, but I’m pretty sure that he hates comedy.
He hates vertebrae.
Using the exact same drawing of the black guy for four of the five panels in which he appears has to set some kind of record for artistic laziness.
I believe that his “methods” are clipartish — lots of macros of Blackface and Titty Crookedspine that he copies and pastes into the panels.
October 16th, 2009 at 7:18 pm
BTW the mentor thing is something about Frank Marshall Davis. Most of the Google hits for him go to sites I don’t want to visit, so I don’t know whether the accusations against him are vile smears, though you’d have to say it’s a pretty high chance they are.
I will say this one thing for Muir: Unlike the creator of Mallard Fillmore, he’s actually given names to the straw figures who appear in his strip. Also, unlike the creator of Mallard Fillmore, he seems to have heard of “punch-lines” and be aware that comic strips ought to have them, even if he doesn’t know what these “punch-lines” actually look like. (Huh, apparently there are other characters in MF. Who knew.)
Mallard Fillmore is about as bad. So is Prickly City, which recently had a strip whose joke was “For a socialist, Obama sure likes czars,” and whose mouthpiece minority character is Latina. And those appear in newspapers, next to the Peanuts re-runs.
October 16th, 2009 at 7:42 pm
Kevin Jennings, not Ken Jennings. Ken Jennings is the Jeopardy champ, and a pretty nice guy, despite beating me on his 61st episode.
October 16th, 2009 at 7:48 pm
WHO ARE THE REAL HATERS???
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1rWaviRfDY&feature=fvsre1
<>
October 16th, 2009 at 7:58 pm
” I imagine that somebody as (relatively) thoughtful as this Muir guy knows that most of what he’s saying is made up.”
“Relatively thoughtful” relative to whom? I think that Muir really isn’t thoughtful compared to… John Derbyshire, let’s say, or any other of several garden variety wingnuts. He strikes me as about as thoughtful as Sarah Palin, if not less so. Check out his comments on Obsidian Wings from back in the heady days of his crusade against Kantian Nihilism if you want to see for yourself.
October 16th, 2009 at 8:15 pm
Not to tutor Al on wingnuttery, but Obama’s supposed pedophile mentor was a friend of his grandfather’s named Frank Marshall Davis.
October 16th, 2009 at 8:42 pm
In looking at the Wikipedia article, it seems that Davis once wrote a “scandalous memoir” under a pen name that was largely fictional. Am I correct in saying that the whole “Frank Marshall Davis is an admitted pedophile” smear is based solely on taking this work of fiction to be truth?
October 16th, 2009 at 8:59 pm
When I get clubbed over the head, I find Mallard Fillmore gives off better sound effects.
Have you seen Backbench? The Canadian comic? It’s in the Globe and Mail and makes Mallard Fillmore seem awesome.
Dameon Says:
October 16th, 2009 at 7:48 pm
WHO ARE THE REAL HATERS???
O that’s an easy one. You, bubbah.
October 16th, 2009 at 9:07 pm
I have never, ever, ever, ever, ever heard a black man talk like this. Plenty of white men, though. Some of them looked like Chris Muir. Can Mr. Muir point to his real-life muse?
If not, I think he should give in to his desires and have this character start dancing to “YYZ”.
October 16th, 2009 at 9:36 pm
To: Daemon (@ #35)
Good video.
Check out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZP2nuv-he1c
October 16th, 2009 at 9:46 pm
@Bridget:
Look, I know it’s hard holding beliefs that the vast majority of your country and the world regard as repugnant at best. I can even understand that disgusting people on the wrong side of history need some sort of outlet. But I really want to know: how do you unrepentant and really vicious racists keep finding your way to this progressive blog?
October 16th, 2009 at 9:52 pm
Nationalization of the auto industry is partially true.
Well, they were partly nationalized after they (quite literally) asked for it.
Real commies nationalize companies whether they want it or not.
October 16th, 2009 at 10:03 pm
You folks are starting to sound like CNN fact checking the SNL skit. You may quibble with wording or a factcheck if you like but it’s how a lot of people feel. Ignore that at your own risk.
How did it get that way? Well, yesterday a cartoonist from your side personified “Insurance Companies”, as overbearing Capitalists wielding a spiked club, menacing a small pigtailed little girl in a hospital gown.
Overblown? Hyperbolic? Of course, but as always IOKIYAD.
October 16th, 2009 at 10:07 pm
You may quibble with wording or a factcheck if you like but it’s how a lot of people feel.
O, that makes it true. Aren’t you the assholes on a crusade against relativism. Right-wing pomo: a sad state of affairs.
October 16th, 2009 at 10:14 pm
How can I ignore it if I’m fact-checking it?
A lot of people in the trailer park feel that way. Good. Use them to smear the whole sleazy party.
October 16th, 2009 at 10:18 pm
it’s how a lot of people feel. Ignore that at your own risk.
We’re not ignoring that. We’re mocking it.
Since when did “that’s just how I feel” become the republican mantra?
October 16th, 2009 at 10:25 pm
Once upon a time, I was a Republican. Once upon a time, I liked “Day by Day”. Once upon a time, I actually thought it was clever that Chris Muir had made his black character a conservative.
What on earth was wrong with me?
October 16th, 2009 at 10:54 pm
It’s not how a lot of people feel; it’s how a little, tiny, obnoxious electoral minority feels. Wingnuts are the Iraqi Sunni of American politics. You’ve been propagandized for years by your leaders that you are much more numerous than you actually are, that you are the sole true expression of your nation’s identity, that control of your nation’s politics is rightfully yours, and that most of the country supports having you in power.
And like the Iraqi Sunni, it’s going to take a pretty brutal series of ass-kickings before you catch on about your actual situation. I think we’re about half-way there.
October 16th, 2009 at 11:44 pm
You may quibble with wording or a factcheck if you like but it’s how a lot of people feel. Ignore that at your own risk.
In other words, even if it’s complete lunacy and not even remotely true, we should worry because “a lot of people feel that way”. Well, some people do. I can’t say I’m overly concerned that 10% of the country has no relation to truth or reality, because all they’re doing is pushing moderates and independents further and further away from the Republican party. A few million people ranting and screaming about socialism and fascism isn’t all that relevant if most of the country sees them for the lunatics they are and makes sure never to vote the same way as they do.
October 17th, 2009 at 1:58 am
@46 A lot of people in the trailer park feel that way.
trailer park – really? You apparently have no clue as to the demographics of your average birther, teabagger, or wingnut.
Obama did substantially better (+9 points) with whites earning under $50K/year than those earning more than $50K/year.
October 17th, 2009 at 2:54 am
“…Well, some people do. I can’t say I’m overly concerned that 10% of the country has no relation to truth or reality, ”
I think we learned in 2007-2008 that the number was about 26%. Hopefully, some of those had some sort of awakening when it became psychologically possible to abandon Bush.
October 17th, 2009 at 7:36 am
it’s how a lot of people feel.
Earth to serial troll (and Greenwald-stalker) pooter: pro-jec-tion.
October 17th, 2009 at 8:04 am
To hear republicans tell it, Kevin Jennings helped an old man rape a pubescent boy.
in reality, a kid of legal age told him about how he got hit on in a bathroom once.
Right wingers just lie. There’s really nothing more to it than that. They STILL lie about the kids age, what actually happened, AND Jennings’ actual involvement in it.
October 17th, 2009 at 8:06 am
Ura, a lot of right-wing dems like to pretend that poor whites don’t vote for Democrats. That way, they can use it as an excuse to abandon the lower classes. Given that these Dem’s are entirely driven by a free-market, anti-worker ideology; they don’t actually care about the electoral damage they have caused to our coalition over the last 30 years.
To them, the base is a group of 40-50 people of varying races that give them huge chunks of money. They will help minorities on social issues, but got help them if they ever want economic opportunities.
October 17th, 2009 at 8:28 am
How interesting it is that you people are totally ignoring the liberal cartoon. What hypocrites. It’s yet another reason conservatives see libs deny reality.
October 17th, 2009 at 9:19 am
How interesting it is that you people are totally ignoring the liberal cartoon.
OMG, someone has a liberal message in a cartoon. Stop the presses!
While that isn’t one of Toles’s best, Toles has been known to be funny from time to time. Chris Muir, never.
October 17th, 2009 at 9:58 am
The cartoon is funny. The guy makes total sense and the liberal woman could be Yglesias or one his commenters: Totally oblivious and leading us straight to hell.
October 17th, 2009 at 10:55 am
How interesting it is that you people are totally ignoring the liberal cartoon. What hypocrites. It’s yet another reason conservatives see libs deny reality.
Okay, I’ve looked at the liberal cartoon . . .
Pretty good! To the point, minimal hyperbola, funnier than some, less funny than others, tells the truth.
Thanks for pointing it out!
October 17th, 2009 at 11:15 am
“I have no party that represents me,” bewails token black character (who’s used as a stand-in for Muir’s utter lack of exposure to authentic viewpoints that are not his own).
And to that I say, “thank GOD.” I worry that the GOP is sliding in that direction, but Jesus H. Christ, what’s Muir’s problem?
October 17th, 2009 at 11:50 am
shooter242, I don’t think everyone’s “ignoring” it. I think they’re generally ignoring your characterization of it as being equivalent to Muir’s in its inaccuracy, offensiveness, etc. As others point out, it’s not one of Tom Toles’ funniest, but it’s a one-panel political cartoon, and that genre relies pretty heavily on metaphor. So, Toles’s cartoon does not convey the idea that the insurance industry is actually embodied by a no-necked thug, nor that “health reform” consist of a little girl in a hospital gown, and the cartoon is not intended to suggest that the insurance lobby is literally threatening a little girl with a club. Given the genre, a reasonable reader will not interpret the cartoon literally, but (hopefully) will catch the figurative representation of the power imbalance between the insurance industry and the advocates of health care reform. (You may think that health-care reform advocates are no helpless babes, but it’s hard to deny that the insurance lobby is rather powerful, no?)
The reason I spell all this out is not to be condescending here, shooter242. Rather, I’m wondering: do you think that Muir’s cartoon is similarly figurative? That is, when you (or some staunch conservatives you might know), do you think the character is off on some crazy rant which, although it might contain kernels of truth here and there, is basically unhinged? Because, if so, then I kinda, sorta get how you might think it was funny, and all this liberal whining is overblown. (I would also note that, in this reading, the woman is the sane one, not a liberal or no-nothing to be mocked and derided.)
On the other hand, I see the Muir comic as fairly literal, not at all like a one-panel political cartoon. It’s a guy going off on a tirade, sure, but he’s portrayed as entirely serious. I read the woman’s jokes about the knife as sort of a throw-away punchline at the end. But there’s not really any acknowledgment, express or implied, that the complaints the guy is making are either blatantly false, or else so exaggerated as to bear only the slightest resemblence to the real world. And that’s a pretty key difference between the Toles ‘toon you linked to, and this one.
October 17th, 2009 at 12:50 pm
You see what I mean? Not even the slightest idea how they come across to normal people. Hell, they think they are the normal people.
October 17th, 2009 at 12:52 pm
I can usually trace the thought process behind even the looniest wingnut argument, but I haven’t the foggiest idea what pooter is whining about.
A political cartoon engaged in the hoariest of metaphors, portraying a political dispute as a physical confrontation.
Is that it?
October 17th, 2009 at 1:19 pm
@Mr. Product
So let me see if I have this straight…
You think the Toles Cartoon is less offensive and more accurate?
I’ll say it again. This is why conservatives are up in arms and ranting. You and yours have no ability to empathize with the objects of your scorn. Consequently, the scorned will make objects of you.
Free speech works both ways.
October 17th, 2009 at 2:09 pm
I will give him this: Pooter242 is a perfect distillation of wingnuttia. The endless whining and victimization, the escape into a fantasy world, etc. The comparison of him to an outraged Iraqi Sunni is very apt.
October 17th, 2009 at 2:14 pm
Also, Pooter’s emotional identification with the insurance industry: hilarious! The CEOs of CIGNA, Wellpoint, etc. are very pleased that at least a few Americans are this incredibly stupid, just as Saddam was very pleased that at least a few Iraqi Sunnis were stupid enough to emotionally identify with him.
October 17th, 2009 at 2:55 pm
“So let me see if I have this straight…”
You don’t.
Paul Product’s point, as I understood it (and I hope he’ll correct me if I’m wrong) was that Toles is clearly using metaphor, where Muir is making claims of fact. The Toles cartoon, is, at least, arguable: I think of the insurance industry as a group of heartless bullies, you don’t, and so we’ll disagree on the accuracy of Toles’s cartoon, but he’s expressing an unfalsifiable opinion. Moreover, he’s not literally claiming that insurance execs want to beat girls’ heads in and no one thinks he is. Muir, on the other hand, is clearly claiming that this nonsense about one of Obama’s mentors being a child molester, about the FCC censoring right-wing voices, or about government czars dictating what we can eat or say, is factually true. That’s what makes the cartoons different in kind.
Whether either cartoon is “offensive” doesn’t enter into it (although I personally think that a white cartoonist inventing a black character to call Obama and Sotomayor “racist” is, at best, of dubious taste). Your statement that the cartoons are equivalent because the Toles one makes you mad like the Muir one makes us mad, or because the Muir cartoon feels true to you and a lot of people, is beside the point, and as others have pointed out is curiously pomo for a Republican.
October 17th, 2009 at 3:45 pm
Adding to what Tomemos said, it’s odd that Shooter says conservatives are ranting because of a perceived lack of “empathy” with their positions. Personally, I had no idea your widdle feelings were so easily hurt.
But really empathy has nothing to do with it. People like Muir are making wildly false, or at best wildly exaggerated, claims, and “we” are calling them on it, from a standpoint of basic empirical reasonableness. Evaluating such claims has nothing to do with empathy or lack thereof.
Trying to bring empathy into it, I guess it is true that, speaking for myself, I have no real ability to identify with the kind of spittle-flecked unhinged hatred that leads you believe things so unrelated to reality. But again, that’s got nothing to do with recognizing that the claims themselves are ludicrous.
October 17th, 2009 at 4:30 pm
I’m wondering how it is you folks think Muir is being literal. The first sentence is about living in a totalitarian state, do you really think Muir believes that, or is it hyperbole? Get over yourselves people. It’s a cartoon. Just like Toles encapsulates an opinion, so does Muir. Do you think Muir believes the press bows to Obama like Muslims to Mecca? Apparently you do.
As for empathy, the idea is, that you folks have been using invective for so long, that you have no idea what it feels like to be on the receiving end. So now that a cartoonist reflects the feeling of conservatives, you’re offended? Please. Who has the thin skin after all. Get used to it, this only the beginning.
October 17th, 2009 at 4:45 pm
re Shooter at 69:
re your first paragraph: tea partiers and Beck-heads across the land believe all those things very literally, and they have made such beliefs widely known. So the default assumption here has to be that, yes, Muir is being literal. If he wasn’t, he’s done a poor job of signaling it, and in any case it is not even clear what it would mean for his character to mean those things non-literally (metaphorically? what would that mean here?).
re: So now that a cartoonist reflects the feeling of conservatives, you’re offended?
(a) He’s not “reflecting feelings,” he’s representing factual claims.
(b) We’re not “offended,” we’re noticing and (somewhat wearily) again pointing out the absurdity of the claims. There’s probably also some laughing at the stupidity, though that has to be tempered by the thought that at some point some nut might very well take up a real-world knife, inspired by this kind of pot-stirring.
October 17th, 2009 at 5:41 pm
Yes, as tomemos said, I think it’s important that Toles is making a different sort of claim than Muir is. Toles is clearly constructing a metaphor for the insurance-vs-reformers relationship. shooter242 and many others may disagree with the characterization of the issue, but it’s hard to see how it’s offensive to anyone other than, perhaps, the insurance industry — and even there, it’s not exactly a slur against them.
Muir’s cartoon has its protagonist deliver a delusional diatribe, pitching one false claim after another. It’s not that I don’t or can’t empathize with someone who felt as Muir character does, *if those things were actually happening*. I can also have sympathy for someone who imagines that all of those things are true, when they aren’t. And I do indeed have empathy for people who worry that some Obama policy might bring about some of the horrible outcomes mentioned in the cartoon rant. I understand that. However, I also think that their blame is likely misplaced, and likely based.
But Muir is not pitching this as the lunatic raving of a madman, or even the hyperbolic ranting of some too-loud guy at a bar. He’s pitching these claims as actually being true. And they’re not.
It’s not that Muir’s cartoon(s) are “offensive” to liberals. Their offense, if anything is against the truth (and, I might add, to the idea of humor — but to each his own on the score, I guess).
October 17th, 2009 at 6:42 pm
“It’s a cartoon. Just like Toles encapsulates an opinion, so does Muir. Do you think Muir believes the press bows to Obama like Muslims to Mecca? Apparently you do.”
You’re conflating two types of argument that are easily separated. The press bowing to Obama is comic hyperbole: no one thinks that that is literally happening, but to those who think like Muir it is figuratively happening, and if I thought like Muir I’d probably find it a funny joke. (That’s not snide; that strip is miles and miles better than the one Matt is discussing.) Look at it this way: the punchline of the strip is the comic literalization of the figurative conceit one of the characters lays out (”It’s a religion. Obama is their Mecca”). Since the hyperbole happens at the end of the strip, we know it’s a joke.
In the strip Matt’s talking about, however, there’s nothing cartoonish about what the character is saying. Well, it’s cartoonish to me, but it’s meant in the strip as totally serious. No jokes are made, and the whole point of the character’s speech falls apart if we’re meant to think, “Well, what he’s saying isn’t true.” Not to mention that some people—as you yourself pointed out—really believe the things that character is saying, so “Wouldn’t it be wild if people believed this stuff?” just doesn’t make sense.
Look: hyperbole is not exaggeration. Hyperbole is not “Here’s what I think, plus a little more.” Hyperbole is ludicrous exaggeration, exaggeration beyond the realm of possibility. The press doesn’t bow to Obama; the health care industry doesn’t bludgeon little girls. When South Park depicts political correctness as a dictatorship, that’s a hyperbole; when Chris Muir has a character say that “the left is building a dictatorship, with real results,” and cite supposed evidence to support that claim, there’s no real way to read it except straight. If Chris Muir is being hyperbolic in that character’s speech, then the point of the comic could only be, “The right wing has lost its mind.” Which is what I believe, but I don’t believe that’s what he means.
October 17th, 2009 at 6:50 pm
“As for empathy, the idea is, that you folks have been using invective for so long, that you have no idea what it feels like to be on the receiving end.”
ARE YOU FOR REAL? Does Ann Coulter not exist? Did we not get four or five solid years of being called, literally, traitors?
“So now that a cartoonist reflects the feeling of conservatives, you’re offended? Please. Who has the thin skin after all. Get used to it, this only the beginning.”
“The beginning”? Day by Day has been around since 2002.
By the way, do you notice how today’s Day by Day, which you linked to above, features the male character just copied and pasted from the second panel of the strip on this page? Same expression, same head, same shirt, even cooking the exact same meal. That is shoddy, shoddy work.
October 17th, 2009 at 7:48 pm
that strip is miles and miles better than the one Matt is discussing.
Agreed; still, I dare anyone to pronounce “CNN’s Rick Sanchez’d” aloud.
October 17th, 2009 at 8:54 pm
Gentlemen, I fear for your peace of mind. If a cartoon comic strip can evoke this kind of response, there must truly be worry in the left.
* This is a cartoon, not a manifesto or political platform.
* If the content is absurd, surely it is self-evident and self extinguishing.
* If the content is incendiary, so is depicting insurance executives as ogres threatening vulnerable little girls.
Both are also protected speech.
In any event, you are relegating yourselves to the idiocy of factchecking a piece of fiction. Now that, is a joke.
October 17th, 2009 at 9:14 pm
It always stings when you patiently and thoroughly engage someone as if they’re worth engaging with, and then they go for the “Jeez, why do you care so much about this?” line. It’s like Lucy pulling the football away. Well-played, Shooter; you done got us again.
October 17th, 2009 at 9:20 pm
Oh, but why not keep engaging him anyway:
“This is a cartoon, not a manifesto or political platform.”
It certainly bears a much closer resemblance to a manifesto than it does a cartoon, when you consider both the verbiage and the art.
October 17th, 2009 at 10:07 pm
What I still find the funniest is Pooter’s identification with the insurance industry. It really is exactly like an Iraqi Sunni becoming furious at a cartoon making fun of Saddam.
How do people become so obsessively identified with others who would cut their throats in a second if useful? Who knows? But it’s certainly rewarding to make fun of Shooter et al.
October 17th, 2009 at 11:35 pm
In any event, you are relegating yourselves to the idiocy of factchecking a piece of fiction.
Pffft. Now you’re claiming that, because it’s in cartoon form, it’s immune to any demand that it be measured against reality, when it’s obviously intended to express Muir’s take on current events. That’s lame as fuck, not surprisingly.
October 18th, 2009 at 7:54 am
hum, if you’re that upset about a cartoon then I suggest a few courses of action…
* challenge the cartoon character to a debate,
* demand a retraction from the cartoon character,
* become a muslim and declare a jihad against cartoons,
* challenge Muir to a duel at sunrise,
* write your congressman and demand legislation that all cartoons be factchecked.
yui, if you weren’t so self absorbed you’d have realized that Toles picked the subject. I just picked the first noxious cartoon I came across.
tomemos, I’m not the one arguing with a cartoon character or it’s creator. If you have a real problem with this see my list above.
Oh, and get a life.
October 18th, 2009 at 11:23 am
shooter, you’re still here? I thought you didn’t care about this cartoon.
Criminy, why would any of us want to “challenge Muir to a debate”? As you yourself point out, Muir’s cartoon is fiction — as you noted earlier, his characters are, essentially, liars, but those lies represent the “feelings” of wingnuts out there in real America, so we effete coastal liberals must learn to understand and have empathy for them, no matter how venal or dishonest. Does that about sum it up? It doesn’t seem there’s much to debate, does there?
October 18th, 2009 at 11:27 am
“tomemos, I’m not the one arguing with a cartoon character or it’s creator.”
I’ll remember that the next time the Republicans take on Murphy Brown or Whoopi Goldberg.
October 18th, 2009 at 12:07 pm
Shooter, no one here is “upset” about the cartoon. We merely take it to be instructive regarding “the narrative that hardcore conservatives have created for themselves,” as Ezra Klein put it.
Nor does anyone want to argue with it or with Muir. We merely note the absurdity of the views expressed.
Nor does anyone think Muir should not have the right to put whatever damn fool crap he wants in his cartoons, so your helpful suggestions in 80 also miss the point.
Our argument here is with you and your perverse (probably trolling) insistence that the cartoon not be taken for what it obviously is. If we all (including you) need to “get a life,” I’d say you also need to learn to read.
October 18th, 2009 at 12:44 pm
On reflection, take out all the references to “we” and “anyone” and “our” in 83, and replace them with “I.” I’m speaking only for myself.
I guess I really do need to get a life!
October 19th, 2009 at 1:38 am
Yes, that’s it exactly! There is no evidence of pedophilia.