Editorial cartoonist Ann Telnaes quit The Washington Post a couple of days ago. She had drawn a cartoon depicting what’s going on in Mango Mushpot land these days: corporate leaders are making personal donations to Trump’s Inauguration fund, apparently to gain favor with him during his upcoming doom administration.
The cartoon was killed by owner of The Washington Post, Jeff Bezos. Bezos also owns Amazon.
Here’s Ann’s rough sketch of the cartoon in question.
Ann posted a full account of the story, and the subsequent reactions on her substack.
While it isn’t uncommon for editorial page editors to object to visual metaphors within a cartoon if it strikes that editor as unclear or isn’t correctly conveying the message intended by the cartoonist, such editorial criticism was not the case regarding this cartoon. To be clear, there have been instances where sketches have been rejected or revisions requested, but never because of the point of view inherent in the cartoon’s commentary. That’s a game changer…and dangerous for a free press.
The next four years are not only going to be incredibly exhausting and dangerous politically, but they have the very strong potential to screw up this country for at least a generation.
I’m still blown away that so many people either completely lack a moral foundation or are so incredibly selfish that they voted for a second Trump term.
This is not going to be fun. But apparently America voted for the felon it deserves.
