Understanding Political Satire and Decoding a Political Cartoon
Political cartoons is a format of political opinion from an artist who writes and draws to question society ills or authority in a satirical way.
Though the drawings are meant to be visualize humorously, it is to display and address current events that affect the public. The importance to have political cartoons is to appeal readers in a different structure; facetious particularly. I chose two images to analyze and decode what it was trying to transport; what the cartoons are resonates in the realm of politics.
Image number one, is former president Donald Trump sitting in the oval office. In the back left corner is a military general terrified as he sees on Trumps desk is two buttons. One button says “tweet” and the other “nuke.” It has symbols as well. Tweet has a bird logo referring to the social media company Twitter and the other a mushroom cloud, referencing to nuclear weapons.
The comic strip is referring how Donald Trump, through his presidential term he has been all over multiple news outlets. Trump has been known for using twitter constantly and saying controversial tweets whether is misinforming or moronic. The captivation about Trump’s twitter account, he had around 80 million followers, showing the public figure of influence. He had a lot of attention from Republicans and establish a lot of Republicans in a position of idol-ism. With Trump’s influence and his public speaking where it comes out to be foolish, this man is also the Commander and Chief and has the highest rank for the country’s military.
On January 8, 2021, Twitter suspended Trump’s account after the insurrection of the Capitol two days before. Citing Trump was a an influence of “severe violations of our Civic Integrity policy,” (NBC news) Trump was also a discussion on news outlets, social media through his election campaign and his term as president. He was outlandish and reality he was president.
The artist wanted to address satirically as Trump has been criticize from his twitter account to public speaking, he was an elected President for the Republican Party and is in an important position as a representative to the United States. The cartoon is to there to show the irony of Trump; two sides of the coin. With the responsibilities as a political leader, it was in a seat of power and it was uncertain what would Trump due with access to nuclear weapons and the use of it.
Image number two has an over size man sitting on a gigantic ball and chain connected to a slimmer, smaller person. The person is dragging on the way the road with a sign pointing “Herd Immunity”. The man on the ground is “Everyone else,” while the big man on the ball-chain is an “Anti Vaxxers.”
As it simple to analyze, it is set on the current events about vaccinations and the against in the midst of a pandemic battle with the coronavirus. It has spark controversy and division as millions have died from this virus. Treatment for this virus has been played in the political spectrum from lock-downs and to mask mandates. Skepticism has been playing through out it has people not want to wear masks. Science labs and pharmaceutical companies have rapidly work to produce a vaccine to help reduce the spread and cases.
The artist placing herd immunity, it’s something where anti-vaxxers don’t understand. Herd immunity is resistance to the spread of an infectious disease within a population that is based on per-existing immunity of a high proportion of individuals as a result of previous infection or vaccination. To anti-vaxxers, it indicates that they need to get the virus, be asymptomatic (no critical health conditions) so it does not need the vaccine.
There is also the anti-vaxxers who are conspiracy theorist, believing getting a vaccine, they will be microchip by the government or get the coronavirus. There has been data that the vaccines have been effective and reduces the spread. Therefore, to get herd immunity, if everyone complied to health guidelines and getting vaccination our odds will be better to going to herd immunity.
The artist did a great job on how the country is dealing with this pandemic. It the overweight anti-vaxxer is symbolizing that they are putting everyone else as a burden, due to not trying to move on together to fight this virus. The problem about anti-vaxxers in the United States, there is options to prevent positive cases but don’t want to the measures to do so. There has so much political controversy over a virus and how to handle it, that misinformation keeps going and news outlets stirring the bias instead of working as one and help informing, properly how vaccines work.
The artist use all the symbolic gestures with the ball and chain and the person (everyone else) is even wearing a mask indicating what measures “everyone else” has been doing to push away from this pandemic and in order to get economy back on its feet.
