Those of us in the news business take the freedom to publish seriously, but sometimes there are exceptions to the rule. The shocking cartoon in a recent Republican newsletter was one of those times.
Obviously, whoever edits the Vernon Township GOP broadside this month didn’t look closely at the vile cartoon which appeared just as Democrats begin their presidential convention in Chicago. The two-panel cartoon, titled “Democrat Women in a Nutshell” makes light of domestic violence, reproductive rights and women.
It shows a battered woman in a “Vote Blue” T-shirt with a donkey in a man’s body displaying a “BLM” (Black Lives Matter) neck tattoo and the words “War,” “Open Border,” “Cost of Living” and “Crime,” on his body while holding a whiskey bottle labeled “Debt.”
“B—ch, you ain’t gonna leave me, right?” the donkey asks the woman. “As long as I can have abortions,” the woman, with a bloody nose, says.
The supposedly satiric cartoon got some 3,500 likes on social media, which is scary in itself. It also was posted on X, where it got thousands more likes. Unfortunately, domestic abuse crosses party lines.
Also frightening is the work of someone who goes by the moniker of SKS Cartoon, an ultra-right-wing cartoonist based, according to his, her or their Instagram and Facebook addresses, in New Zealand. New Zealanders usually aren’t known for appallingly bad taste. Maybe they have fewer cases of domestic violence there, unlike here where thousands suffer.
Most of us are familiar with the land of Kiwis from watching the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy, which was filmed in the picturesque nation. Or the PBS programs “My Life is Murder” with Lucy Lawless, known to American audiences when starring as “Xena: Warrior Princess,” from the mid-1990s to 2001, and the clever “The Brokenwood Mysteries” series.
Many gun owners, including some GOPsters in Vernon Township, probably know SKS can also stand for the 10-round SKS carbine which shoots a 7.62mm cartridge. The weapon was once the main combat rifle used by the old Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact countries until it was replaced with the AK-47. The handy and bargain-priced rifle apparently is popular in New Zealand with sport shooters, hunters and collectors, especially the cheaper versions produced by Chinese arms manufacturers.
Loathsome caricatures such as the one published in the Vernon Township newsletter turn off voters. It went beyond the pale.
If Illinois Republican Chair Kathy Salvi of the Mundelein area wants to return the state to the red ledger, as she professed last month, she better get her troops in line and ease up on the divisive, and hateful rhetoric and images. However, it might be too late.
Democrats quickly went into shaming mode after getting a glimpse of the offensive cartoon. “Weird and disturbing,” Lauren Beth Gash, chair of Lake County Democrats, said, according to Olivia Olander’s page-one News-Sun story last week. State Rep. Daniel Didech of Buffalo Grove called the cartoon, “offensive, outrageous, and downright weird.”
Groups that aid victims of domestic abuse also denounced the cartoon’s violent imagery, according to Olander’s report. A spokesperson for the Zacharias Center for Sexual Abuse, based on Old Grand Avenue in Gurnee, criticized the cartoon as “propaganda” that “makes light of the very serious situation.”
Even-handed Republican candidates on the Nov. 5 ballot have distanced themselves from the image, which trivializes several serious issues. Vernon Township GOP officials realized the error of publishing the repulsive cartoon, according to one report.
They hope to atone for publishing the cartoon. They have promised to donate $250 to A Safe Place, the Zion-headquartered social service agency that helps domestic violence victims with housing and other services, including filing orders of protection in Lake County Circuit Court.
They may think that amount is a hefty sum, but it does little in scratching the surface of what it costs to support the agency’s housing needs, crisis line and emergency shelter. They need to ante up a bit more. Volunteering at A Safe Place or Lake County Haven based in Libertyville would go a long way toward further atonement.
Reproductive rights and domestic violence are real problems, but the foreign cartoonist reduced them to an image full of bad taste, which also crosses party lines. Area Republicans need to find another way to express their anti-choice outlook.
Tying it to domestic violence is repellent to not only Democrats, but Republicans who remain ethical, sensible and compassionate toward the issues Americans care deeply about.
Charles Selle is a former News-Sun reporter, political editor and editor.
sellenews@gmail.com
X: @sellenews