Fruity

I'm not normally one for political cartooning. Many cartoonists are openly partisan, and so the cartoons are little more than visual representations of partisan talking points, created for the consumption of like-minded partisans.

Accordingly, many of the political cartoons I've come across recently lack any sort of nuance or more than a superficial treatment of their subject matter. Now, to be sure, cartoonist Pat Byrnes isn't always above such things (personally, I would have liked to have both caricatures smiling), but I do think that this particular cartoon captures the fact that the classified documents incidents of President Biden and former President Trump are not the same.

Of course, this, like most political cartoons, is preaching to the choir. The "us good, them bad" mode of political thinking has solidified into the consistency of granite and very little, if anything, has the wherewithal to change that in the next decade or so. Mainly because the public would have to be invested enough in understanding what was happening to really pay attention and understand the nuances involved. And that's not really where the incentives lie at this point in time. "Gotchas," whether warranted or not, simply make people feel better, and that's that. But, more to the point, partisan identity has become a stand-in for all sorts of what might be termed "character issues."

And this complicates matters, because partisans are unable, or unwilling, to see those who disagree with them (whether they my opposing partisans or non partisans) as objective observers. At the same time, there's little incentive for such objectivity, since it carries no rewards; one's own side will cast one as a traitor, and while they other side might welcome the agreement with them, they're still likely to see the person as an enemy.