The Art Of Politics: November’s Election Aftermath
by Richard Bruton
Welcome once more to Comicon’s Art Of Politics, gathering together the finest political cartoonists to perfectly skewer those in power…
This month’s a short one, as we’ve already had two special Pre-Election and Post-Election Art of Politics posts already. And if you’re asking ‘which election?’ you’re in the wrong place. Watch some bloody news.
But here’s what happened in the rest of November, as the world and the US settled in for what seems to have been a preview of the next four years of absolute chaos… summed up nicely by Peter Schrank with ‘The future is bleak. The future is orange’…
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THE USA (& THE REST OF THE WORLD) SETTLED INTO A WEIRD NEW POLITICAL LIFE…
Welcome to the future…
Lots of cartoonists have an apocalyptic view of what the second Trump presidency might mean…
Mike Luckovich with the same…
Ben Jennings on Trump’s promised roll-backs of climate commitments and to ‘drill, drill, drill.’
Martin Rowson on the same – although it works just as well for a general view worldwide of what the Trump Presidency Mark II means…
Nicola Jennings on the prospects for Ukraine…
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Not so much a cabinet of curiosities, more Trump’s Cabinet of Chaos, Criminality, Cock-ups, and Conspiracies…
Then, throughout November, we had the increasingly deranged and completely off the wall picks by Trump for government posts. If we weren’t looking at it thinking this is insane, it would be ridiculous how we had ever more inappropriate and/or inept names for the big jobs in the US government…
Starting, of course, with Elon Musk as head of efficiency – the richest man on the planet coming off like he’s practising for a role as Co-President…
Peter Schrank on possible problems for the EU…
This was followed by RFK JR, an anti-vaxxer and believer in multiple conspiracy theories to do with science and medicine, as secretary for the Department of Health and Human Services, and Matt Gaetz for Attorney General, even as he was subject to an ethics committee report from Congress looking into allegations of sex trafficking and having sexual relations with minors. Okay, Gaetz got kicked to the curb, withdrawing from the role before the Republicans, who really don’t like him, fail to approve him. But there’s still plenty more very, very dodgy picks… appointment after appointment of yes men and yes women, all with a view to push that extremist agenda…
Morten Morland
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And next in the stupid ideas… tariffs…
Trump came out with a plan to introduce tariffs on China, Canada, Mexico, and (implied) anyone or any country he doesn’t get on with. Needless to say, financial experts worldwide have pointed out that this isn’t going to mean the US economy gets any better.
WAR, WAR, WAR, WAR… BUT TRUMP WILL MAKE IT ALL BETTER, RIGHT?
Martin Rowson on the current state of the world at war…
Ben Jennings on Putin’s rhetoric over using nuclear weapons in the wake of Biden’s US letting Ukraine use US-made long-range weapons to attack Russia.
Martin Rowson on Putin’s Russia using hypersonic missiles on Ukraine…
In good news, there was a ceasefire brokered between Israel and Hezzbollah/Lebanon. Sadly, nothing but more bombs dropping and more innocents dying in Gaza…
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COP 29 – MORE CLIMATE FAILURE…
Amongst all the Trump cartooning, there was little out there on COP29, another climate conference where countries fly out, gather, chat, and seemingly fail to do absolutely anything that might do even the slightest bit to stop climate change…
Martin Rowson on Keir Starmer, the increasingly pointless Labour Prime Minister of the UK…
VERY LITTLE HAPPENING IN THE UK?
Very little UK-specific cartooning this month really coming out of the UK. Everything was absolutely dominated by Trump and the USA…
Assisted Dying Bill…
The UK’s Assisted Dying Bill went before parliament. It would give terminally ill people with less than six months to live the option of choosing a dignified death. It passed through Parliament, but still faces plenty of hurdles in the future before it has any chance of becoming law in maybe four years. As a personal aside, it’s a start, but it’s only a start. My dear old Mum, gloriously strident and forthright, glamorous, stubborn, proud, and all that, would have signed to end her own life before dementia took her, like she’d seen it take her own mother’s life. Sadly, she never had the chance and died a horrible death, a pathetic shell of herself, and something she would have hated, did hate, becoming. This bill would do absolutely nothing for mum and many others in that position.
Anyway, Ben Jennings on the vote…
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Farmer’s protesting the new inheritance tax rules…
Farmers protested this month after the Labour government’s decision to tax inherited agricultural property.
Basically, inheritance tax it’s pretty much like estate tax in the U.S., where any property, possessions, and money of someone who dies is charged at 40% tax, above £325,000 (about $410,000) – meaning it doesn’t actually hit a lot of people who would dream of passing on that sort of money. However, farm land and farm buildings, including farm houses, have been allowed to be passed down through generations with zero tax charged.
But from April 2026, farms worth more than £1 million (about $1.3 million) will have to pay 20% tax when they are handed down to the next generation, half the rate paid by others, with 10 years to pay the liability back interest free. Farmers have been up in arms. Although how many true farmers it will hit is estimated to be 500 estates per year. You could look at it and point out that the one group it will hit is very, very rich landowners who utilise the farm excemption to have farms on their land just to avoid inheritance tax.
