The Art Of Politics… September
by Richard Bruton
The Art of Politics, where each month I set out to prove the old adage of a picture paints a thousand words using the skills of some of the world’s best political cartoonists…
Here we go again, the US is more concerned with an election still more than a year out than a devastating shutdown, the UK is literally falling apart, and the world gets hotter and hotter. And Oh, isn’t it a fine time to be alive…
Let’s open with two from Peter Kuper, always a strong environmental cartoonist… on the threat of Antarctic extinctions and the gas-guzzling culture that grips the USA and the world…
USA, USA, USA…
So, as I keep saying, as an outsider looking in on US politics, even living here, it’s still a very strange thing. The polarisation of America between an ever more right-wing Republican party and the Democrats is punishing the country, driving division and disenfranchisement everywhere. And who suffers? Well, that would be the people.
Anyway, here’s a little of what I picked up on this month through the fine lens of the political cartoonists…
The Presidential race heats up…
Looking in from the outside, you’d be forgiven for thinking the Presidential election was 2023 instead of late 2024, as both Biden and Trump are busy, busy, busy, campaigning, getting out there, being seen and heard.
Of course, both main candidates have a few things weighing them down… whether it’s impending court dates or age catching up with them…
Just another shutdown…
Of course, whilst all that campaigning goes on, basic politics in America continues… which means trying to get a new budget for the actual business of government. But with the left and the right further away than ever, it looks very much like we’ll get no deal and we’ll have a government shutdown.
That means thousands of federal employees placed on unpaid leave, thousands of normal Americans forced into poverty, and billions of billions of dollars wiped out. But that seems not to matter – after all, it’s not the politicians that take the hit, they have more than enough already, so they just play their party games and consider those people missing paychecks as just part of the game.
Impeachments to the left, impeachments to the right…
And in the midst of all this shutdown worry, the Republicans had their first Biden impeachment hearing. Obviously they were concerned that it was only ex-Pres Trumpy who was getting more than his fair share of them and wanted to spread the indictment love around.
Albeit that, at the first impeachment inquiry hearing where they laid out the allegations they would pursue, their expert witnesses did acknowledge the small matter of them not actually having any evidence to prove any of those accusations. But hey, that’s okay, it’s not like there’s anything important going on like a gov shutdown.
And anyway, Kevin McCarthy, Republican Speaker of the House, has his own problems with the far-right whack-jobs who are beginning to sense his blood in the water and considering a move to push him out.
More corruption? Second time round on the bribery charges for Senator Menendez
Of course, it would be easy to think it was always the Republicans doing the bad things. Absolutely not true. Just as with the rest of the world, the political class in America is venal, corrupt, greedy, and has the interests of the people they’re meant to represent a far third below themselves and anyone who pays them money to shill for them.
Case in point, Democratic Senator Bob Menendez. Bob was charged (for the second time in 10 years) with corruption-related offences this month – for accepting ‘hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes’ in exchange for the Senator’s influence, secretly aiding the Egyptian government. That includes bribes of cash, gold, mortgage payments, and more.
And completely unrelated, back in 2020, it was Gold Bar Bob who single-handedly blocked a bipartisan legislation to strengthen laws regulating foreign influence and lobbying in Washington. Now, I’m no politician or law maker or legal person but… shouldn’t that have been a HUGE red flag?
But at least the Senate know what the important things are…
Yes, we have corruption, indictments, and the looming shutdown that will harm millions. Yet the US Senate decided that the important thing, or at least one of them, was to formally impose a dress code, rejecting a plan to allow Senators and lawmakers to wear casual clothes in the chamber.
BACK IN NOT SO GREAT AT ALL BRITAIN…
Summing up the mood of things perfectly, Stephen Collins with Britain is Broken: The Musical…
Meanwhile, Rishi Sunak’s boyish looks are looking increasingly aged as the government faced more and more crises with crumbling schools, water companies spilling sewage into rivers, a failing asylum system, the scraping of the HS2 train line to Manchester, and a climate policy in ruins…
Suella de Vil’s latest bit of vileness…
Suella Braverman, Home Secretary, continues to prove that there really is no depth that she won’t sink to and also continues to do the unthinkable, making previous Home Secretary, Priti Patel, seem positively liberal.
Towards the end of the month, after completely failing to accomplish the whole stop the boats thing, after failing with the hideous prison refugee barge which was so meticulously checked that it was closed down with Legionella in the water pipes the same week it was meant to open, and generally failing with anything she promised, Suella headed to the USA to speak in front of a far-right think tank.
Once there, she said that multiculturalism has failed, called for a new international approach to granting asylum and changes to the 1951 Refugee Convention, and said that fearing discrimination for being gay or a woman should not be enough to qualify for refugee protection. (BBC).
Climate Crisis? What Climate Crisis? – Rishi’s green rollback…
Rishi Sunak spent a lot of September rolling back many of the key targets that had been pledged previously to help tackle the climate emergency. But we’re coming towards election season and the money for all the tax cuts and perks for the middle-aged, right-leaning voters has to come from somewhere.
Ella Baron on the government’s decision to extract fossil fuels from the new Rosebank oil field in the North Sea… because now is just the right time for that, right?
And Dave Brown on the same…
RAAC off – not the back to school you’d expect…
September and the kids are back to school – or not. Turns out that a load of schools and many public buildings are under threat because of the wrong type of concrete – and it was a problem made so much worse by decades of Conservative government neglect and underfunding…
And whilst all this is going on, surely the Opposition are getting ready to take power…
Yeah, you’d think that wouldn’t you?
Morten Morland sums it all up…
Comedy’s Me To moment?
Russell Brand’s pivoting to the right over the last couple of years and his building up a MAGA-like following of acolytes willing to believe anything he tells them appears to make a lot of sense in the wake of numerous allegations of sexual assault, rape, emotional abuse and inappropriate workplace behavior.
Rupert Murdoch retires
The media mogul and shaper of the political landscape of the last few decades steps down as chair of Fox and News Corp. The damage done by him and his machinations is immeasurable.
OVER IN RUSSIA…
North Korea’s Kim Jong-un visits Russia on his armoured train to discuss a possible arms deal to supply Putin for Ukraine.
