Cartoon: The Five Kinds of Republican


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A central fact of American political life today is that the Republican base will believe anything, anything at all, so long as all their trusted news sources (NewsMax, FoxNews, etc) are saying it in unison. Or maybe just if the people on their Facebook feed say it.

Although the lies in this comic strip are sometimes exaggerations, none of them were made up out of whole cloth. There really are millions of Republicans who believe these things. The Big Lie has become The Big Spreadsheet of Lies.

This is something I think about a lot lately. There must be some way to talk to Republicans about reality that they can hear. I hope.

(This cartoon isn’t such a way, obviously.)


As my longtime readers have probably noticed, over the years I’ve done many comic strips which are basically panel after panel of different, often wacky-looking people talking straight to the reader.

One reason is that I like doing cartoons about patterns – cartoons that try to look at problems as spread across society, rather than being just one problematic individual. This “survey” approach to a comic strip is one way of getting at that.

But another reason is, cartoons like are ridiculously fun to draw.


The throw-off gag in panel one is there because the word “Republican” is so long, which limited how big the font could be while still fitting the word more-or-less in the panel. That meant that – unless I made the “5” even bigger – I had a dead space at the bottom of panel one.

So I threw in a quick little gag with a little self-portrait of me. It was the last thing I wrote or drew, and it took much less time and effort than any of the other panels. Naturally, when I showed my housemate the cartoon-in-progress, that’s the bit he laughed the longest at. As Billy Pilgrim might say, “so it goes.”


Usually I gender-balance my cartoons much better than this one, which shows four men and one woman. (I think the man in panel 4 was a woman in my original conception, but while I was drawing it I thought a big mustache would be fun).

How bad a mistake do folks think this is? Should I redraw a panel? I’ll do better next time I do a cartoon in this format.


TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON

This cartoon has six panels. Each of the panels shows a white person speaking, usually to the reader. Every other panel has either a tan or a blue dominant background color, forming a sort of checkboard pattern.

All panels, except for panel 1, have a caption at the top of the panel.

PANEL 1

Most of this panel is taken up by large, friendly lettering for the title of this strip: “THE FIVE KINDS OF REPUBLICAN.”

At the bottom of the panel is a small self-portrait of me, Barry, with my arms crossed and looking at the reader with what I hope is sort of a “sheesh!” expression. Barry is fat, has dark hair in a ponytail, and is wearing a solid black tee.

BARRY: White, white, white, white and white.

PANEL 2

A blonde woman yells at her laptop screen, appalled and panicked. She’s wearing a dark red tee and has a coffee cup next to her on the table.

CAPTION: 1. Tools who believe ridiculous lies.

WOMAN: A million Americans have been killed by chips in vaccinations! The lamestream media’s covering it up!

PANEL 3

A man with his brown hair parted in the middle is walking a dog on a leash through a hilly area, with a tree in the background. He’s wearing a collared yellow button-up shirt and blue jeans. He’s smiling big and pointing to something on his smartphone. The dog is looking up at him with a “oh not this again” expression.

CAPTION: 2. Tools who believe ridiculous lies.

MAN:  It says here that Portland is a burned out shell of a city!

PANEL 4

A redheaded man, with a large mustache and large glasses, is leaning out of a window and holding up a smartphone. He has an elaborate sleeve tattoo covering his entire left arm, which was super fun for me to draw and which probably no one is able to see because the drawing is small. (Things on the tattoo include a smiling sun, a bird, a big eye, flowers, a compass, and woman’s face in profile, and a big diamond.) He looks angry.

CAPTION: 3. Tools who believe ridiculous lies.

MAN: The Dumbocrats are bussing in ten thousand Mexicans to illegally vote!

PANEL 5

An older man, wearing a thick vest over a yellow sweater, looks out at the reader with a concerned expression. He’s holding a tablet to his chest. He’s standing behind a fence; a bunch of tall, dark red flowers are in front of the fence.

CAPTION: 4. Tools who believe ridiculous lies.

MAN: Liberals made up “global warming” because George Soros secretly owns the solar panel companies!

PANEL 6

A hand (which looks like it belongs to someone Black) is holding a smartphone. On the smartphone, a slick-looking blonde man with carefully styled hair and a huge grin is staring out at his viewers. He’s wearing a suit and tie, and holding up a big orange bottle, like the kind some pharmacies put pills in.

CAPTION: 5. Liars.

MAN: …and that’s why Trump is secretly still president!

MAN: And have you tried my cancer-blasting vitamins? Only $34.99 a bottle for the next five minutes!


This cartoon on Patreon.

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27 Responses to Cartoon: The Five Kinds of Republican

  1. 1
    Em says:

    I think you mean:
    1. Liars who believe ridiculous lies.
    2. Liars who believe ridiculous lies.
    3. Liars who believe ridiculous lies.
    4. Liars who believe ridiculous lies.
    5. Liars who believe ridiculous lies.

  2. 2
    Eytan Zweig says:

    Where do the racists who are honest about being racists fit in?

  3. 3
    Görkem says:

    Thank you for making the whiteness of Republicans explicit both textually and visually

  4. 4
    Dreidel says:

    > “The 5 kinds of Republican” — “White, white, white, white, and white”…

    Do you mean white like:
    1. Winsome Sears
    2. Tim Scott
    3. Byron Donalds
    4. Burgen Owens
    5. Kevin Stitt

  5. 5
    Ampersand says:

    Oh my gosh, Dreidel! Are you telling me a joke that was obviously not meant to be taken literally, was not literally correct?

  6. 6
    Görkem says:

    I think Dreidel’s comment proves that your joke hit home.

  7. 7
    Dreidel says:

    > “Dreidel! Are you telling me a joke that was obviously not meant to be taken literally, was not literally correct?”

    Your joke would have met the criteria for being technically “literally correct” IF you’d simply titled it “5 kinds of Republicans” minus the definitive article “the” (because there are a few idiots in that party who believe the nonsense you quoted).

    But by adding the opening “the,” you falsely implied that those examples were the ONLY type of Republicans — an obvious pedantic error on your part.

    Don’t worry, Ampersand, I’ll continue to hang around to periodically correct your relentless hyperbole against half your fellow countrymen. :-)

  8. 8
    Polaris says:

    That is pretending that US is not a 2 party system.
    It’s not whether people consider either option to be good but which one is considered to be less shitty.
    Neither Trump or Biden would have made a president in a multiparty system.

  9. 9
    Jacqueline Onassis Squid says:

    Dreidel makes a fantastic and unimpeachable point and this should end all comedy, forever.

    Thank you, Dreidel, for exposing the sheer hypocrisy of making jokes. Let’s hope that you’ve fixed the world with this insightful critique. I, for one, am in awe.

  10. 10
    Görkem says:

    “I’ll continue to hang around to periodically correct your relentless hyperbole against half your fellow countrymen. :-)”

    Yes, god forbid that there should be somebody out there directing hyperbolic claims towards half of their countrymen.

  11. 11
    Ampersand says:

    Don’t worry, Ampersand, I’ll continue to hang around to periodically correct your relentless hyperbole against half your fellow countrymen. :-)

    Thanks! I’ll work on finding that comforting. :-p

  12. 12
    RonF says:

    Oh my gosh, Dreidel! Are you telling me a joke that was obviously not meant to be taken literally, was not literally correct?

    After listening to CNN’s coverage of the recent elections for a couple of hours I believe that there’s a lot of people who would think that this cartoon is literally correct.

  13. 13
    Görkem says:

    “After listening to CNN’s coverage of the recent elections for a couple of hours I believe that there’s a lot of people who would think that this cartoon is literally correct.”

    Then go argue with them.

  14. 14
    RonF says:

    I’m not arguing with anyone, Görkem. Amp says he’s joking and I believe him. I’m just saying that there’s people on the left as well as on the right that would not get the joke. I’m certainly not going to waste my time arguing with either of them.

  15. 15
    Jacqueline Onassis Squid says:

    I’m just saying that there’s people on the left as well as on the right that would not get the joke.

    To quote from my favorite Mike, “There are as yet undiscovered tribes in the Amazon that knew you were going to say that.”

  16. 16
    Ampersand says:

    I’m all for disagreements and arguing about politics, but it’s becoming a bit “let’s pick on Ron” here. Even if folks (plural, I’m definitely not meaning any one person) don’t care about that, please consider that I’m made uncomfortable by it.

  17. 17
    Kate says:

    A few more panels could make it accurate. Start with, a wealthy person wringing their hands and saying “All these lies are horrible, but Democrats might raise my taxes…”

  18. 18
    Görkem says:

    ” it’s becoming a bit “let’s pick on Ron” here”

    How would you like us to respond to Ron when he makes assertions of this nature?

  19. 19
    Ampersand says:

    Gorken, it’s hard for me to answer that. FWIW, the response of yours in this thread that I was uncomfortable with was “then go argue with them,” which to me felt curt and dismissive, almost as if you were telling Ron to go away. I didn’t have any issue with your other responses to Ron.

    Moderation is not a science, and I’m not going to be able to give you exact specifications. It’s all subjective. I’m sorry if that strikes you as unfair, but I honestly don’t see any workable alternative.

  20. 20
    Görkem says:

    It’s not so much that I want Ron to leave. It’s that I find it frustrating that Ron frequently brings up what other (frequently non-specified/vaguely-specified) non-conservatives have said as counters to arguments made here, and expects us to defend them. It doesn’t feel like good faith arguing. My point was not to make him feel unwelcome, it’s that it seems like he is less interested in the views of the people he is actually engaging with than with other, less defensible views (assuming the way he presents those views is free of editorialising, that is).

    So I suppose I could have represented all of the above more explicitly and less curtly.

  21. 21
    RonF says:

    Görkem:

    … non-conservatives have said as counters to arguments made here, and expects us to defend them.

    I by no means expect you to defend opinions you do not hold that extremists or ill-informed people on the left do hold anymore than I feel obligated to do so for people on the right. I was simply making the observation that Amp’s exaggeration for satiric effect here (but that, as generally in his cartoons and good satire in general contains some elements of truth) would not be seen as exaggeration by some people on the left.

    It is as absurd to say “All Republicans say/think/act ….” as it would be to say “All Democrats say/think/act ….” or “All gays ….” or “All women ….” or “All whites ….”. Technically this cartoon violates that, as Dreidel points out. But while I did have some of his initial reaction, I’ve been looking at Amp’s work for some time and I know that Amp knows that as well.

    Hell, it’s not like I haven’t read (or even met) some people that WOULD fit those categories. I actually once found myself trying to convince someone that no one is making functional chips that would fit down the gauge of needle used to inject the COVID vaccine (or any other one, for that matter).

  22. 22
    RonF says:

    But as I think about it a bit more, Amp, a thought occurs to me. People who have seen your work or who have been on this blog for a while WILL understand that this is satire. But if you took this cartoon and posted it where people who do not normally encounter your work would see it you would get a lot of people – in my opinion, both on the left and the right – who would not understand that and would think you meant it more literally. And praise or condemn you accordingly.

    Do you disagree?

  23. 23
    Görkem says:

    @RonF: I am not sure that Amp’s practice of making statements about group behaviour that do not apply to literally every single identifiable member of the group is as unique or unusual as you seem to think it is. Indeed I think most people, in viewing Amp’s cartoons, whether or not they are sympathetic to the point he is making, would understand that he is not actually making a factual statement about the personal behaviour of every single conservative.

  24. 24
    Ampersand says:

    Yes, and: I don’t think it would be possible to create political cartoons if my operating assumption was that I had to write them for folks who would assume that everything in a cartoon was meant literally.

  25. 25
    RonF says:

    Görkem: Meh. With the level of polarization I see today in American politics I figure that the percentage of people who would see this as a literal example of Amp’s beliefs would be more than you’d expect. Hopefully a minority, but who knows?

    Amp: Absolutely. Follow your muse and do as you will.

  26. 26
    Görkem says:

    @RonF: Polarisation may mean more people are likely to disagree with Amp’s ideas, I don’t think polarisation degrades people’s ability to know how political cartoons work.

  27. 27
    Mandolin says:

    Polarisation may mean that people are less willing to apply charitable readings, or more likely to apply hostile ones. There are always a range of ways to interpret something.