Cartoon: Swing Voters

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This is another cartoon with a timelapse drawing video!

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I thought of this cartoon after listening to a news report interviewing swing voters. The swing voters they interviewed weren’t stupid, and they all seemed likable. But they were very, very ignorant. Ignorant of policies, ignorant of what a President’s actual job powers are, ignorant of what sources of information are credible.

I can’t even tell you what news report it was, since I didn’t realize until later that it was the inspiration for a cartoon, and therefore I didn’t jot down a note for myself so I could find it later. And frankly, there are a million news reports and articles and podcasts interviewing swing voters.

Which is no surprise, because the question the sports fan in panel three asks – “what are swing voters thinking?” – is a question that dominates so much political thought. There are legions of smart people at every level of our political culture – journalists, academics, politicians, pollsters (of course), political junkies, cartoonists and so on – who are understandably obsessed with swing voters.

Because swing voters decide close elections. And close elections decide everything else.

Which is kind of terrifying because swing voters are, as mentioned, very much on the ignorant side. In 2008 – but his general findings still apply today – conservative scholar Ilya Somin wrote:

…In my research using questions from the 2000 National Election Study, I found that self-identified “Independent-Independents” could on average correctly answer only 9.5 of 31 basic political knowledge questions, scoring much lower than self-described “strong Democrats” (15.4) and “strong Republicans” (18.7). Many other studies find similar results.

Thus, the voters who know the least are the ones who tend to determine electoral outcomes. Not exactly a comforting thought.

So that’s what this cartoon is attempting to capture – an entire nation thinking about what swing voters think, while swing voters themselves barely think at all.

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Drawing a high messy stack of papers is super fun. I don’t know why it’s fun, but it is. It’s one of these drawing tasks, like crosshatching, that logically should be tedious but actually makes me happy.

The rest of the drawing was fun, too. I’m very aware of my limitations as an artist – I draw better than most people, but I’m terrible compared to the cartoonists I admire most. But despite that, I get enormous enjoyment out of the act of drawing, and from looking at my own work once I’m done.

This is a common mindset among artists – you need to both love your work enough to want to keep on doing it, and hate it enough to be motivated to try and make it better.

On the whole, though, this is an awesome job and I’m so lucky to be able to do this. (So, thanks, patrons!)

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TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON

This cartoon has four panels, each of which shows a different scene with different characters. Each panel is marked with a caption at the top: Academic, Pundit, Regular Voters, and Swing Voters.

PANEL 1

CAPTION: ACADEMIC

A professorial type, in a vest and tie, is seating behind a desk. There’s a wooden bookcase in the background, and a couple of “in and out” style boxes on his desk piled with papers.

PROFESSOR: There are relatively few so-called “swing voters” – but they decide elections! In a sense, swing voters are the real rulers of the country!

PANEL 2

CAPTION: PUNDIT

We are looking at a flatscreen TV. On the TV, a well-dressed woman in a pale blue jacket over a red blouse is smiling and talking to us. The screen graphics (a channel 4 logo, a US flag design shaped like the US) make this look like some sort of news program.

PUNDIT: Winning elections is all about giving swing voters what they want! And by some coincidence, what swing voters want matches what I want! As my uber driver told me the other day…

PANEL 3

CAPTION: REGULAR VOTERS

We’re looking at two people standing in a park: There’s a woman wearing a floral pattern skirt, speaking to us and shrugging. And a man wearing a knit cap is standing, looking up from the newspaper he was reading to address us. Both of them look bewildered.

WOMAN: I don’t understand how anyone’s “undecided” at this point.

MAN: What are swing voters thinking?

PANEL 4

CAPTION: SWING VOTERS

Three people are standing in a row – perhaps waiting on line – on a city sidewalk. A sandwich sideboard sign – also known as an A-frame sign – stands in front of the sidewalk, with the word “VOTE” and a pointing arrow.

From left to right, the swing voters are: A blonde man with nice hair, grinning widely and pressing a hand to his chest in an “I’m so smart” gesture. A black-haired woman with glasses is talking back to the blonde man, with a critical expression on her face. And a balding man wearing a striped izod shirt is looking at a “voter’s guide” pamphlet with a worried expression.

BLONDE MAN: I’ve finally chosen! I’m voting for the one with shinier hair.

GLASSES WOMAN: That’s stupid! I vote based on the weather.

BALD MAN: Anyone know what country we live in?

CHICKEN FAT WATCH

“Chicken fat” is a long-dead cartoonists’ expression for unimportant but hopefully amusing details stuck in by the artist.

PANEL 1: There are four books on the bookcase with legible spines. They are entitled “Unread Vol. 1,” “Unread Vol. 46,” “Dull Stuff,” and “Even Duller.” There’s some sort of mouse-like creature with big ears also hanging out on the bookcase. The two boxes on the professor’s desk are labeled “Actual Research” – that one has a small stack of papers – and “Papers To Grade,” with a ridiculously high stick of papers.

PANEL 2: The Chiron text at the bottom of the screen says “Reading Chyron Text Causes Cancer,” and then in smaller print underneath, “Don’t stop reading, kit’s too late for you anyhow.”

PANEL 3: I’m not sure this even counts as a chicken fat, but when I was drawing the stones lying on the grass on the bottom center of the panel, I was consciously arranging them to look like the top of Homer Simpson’s head and big staring eyes.

The newspaper the man is reading says “SPORTS” in big letters across the top. The top headline says “Fit People Wearing Numbers Move a Ball Around YAY.” A lower headline says “TRAGIC: Juggling Still Not Real Sport.”

PANEL 4: The sandwich board says “VOTE” in big letters, then in smaller letters under that it says “if you don’t vote the fascists may win! Is that really how you spell ‘fascists’? That’s a lot of S’s.”

The man with the Voter’s Guide is holding it upside down.

A newspaper lying on the sidewalk says “The Daily Background” on top. The headline says in large letters “DOG BITES MAN.” Then there are two side-by-side photos, showing a pleased looking doggy and a frightened running man. Below the photos is the subheading, which says “Headline Writer Is Very Bored.”

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Swing Voters | Patreon