Mike Thompson’s cartoon look back
If I had a can of Goya beans for every time someone said over that past four years that President Donald Trump was a gift to editorial cartoonists like myself … I’d be really sick of eating Goya beans.
Far from making my job easier, the past four years of Trump’s reign caused me more consternation than I can remember. The problem has been that like any malignant narcissist, Trump sucked all the oxygen out of the room.
He dominated nearly every news cycle, and his appalling conduct eclipsed important issues facing our country. Many days this left Trump as the most obvious topic to draw about.
Trump’s gaslighting was designed to shift our focus away from his self-dealing and abhorrent policies, and I was loathe to play his game. But at the same time, Trump’s norm-shattering presidency demanded commentary. I often found myself in the position of passing on important issues such as climate change and racial inequality in order to speak out against the latest Trump outrage.
Trump is an abomination, but there’s no need to say so every day, yet I had to fight the urge to say so every day. Because every day there was a new outrage, every day there was another disgusting new low in presidential conduct, and such matters are natural targets for my pen.
No, Trump did not make my job easier. How do you caricature a caricature? How do you keep coming up with unique, new ways to make the same basic point that Trump is an awful human being?
Trump wasn’t a blessing for me professionally … or personally. I look forward to a return to commenting on more substantive issues than the antics of a giant man-baby. That doesn’t mean that President-elect Joe Biden will be spared the wrath of my pen when warranted.
But if I ever see another can of Goya beans, I’m going to run from the room screaming.
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