Developed by Eitan Darwish (2017)

Ever since election day, half the country has been disappointed. Day after day, new controversies arise that expose our current President, Donald Trump, and cause us, or at least me, to feel great discomfort. In dealing with the current political climate, we must make choices, and decide how to channel our energy. For this project, I decided to channel my creative energy into creating political cartoons describing current events that are troubling to the point that they are funny.

CONVERSATION: This piece was meant to outline the division in our country that seems to bar certain types of people from being able to converse with each other. Through looking at Facebook comment chains, and watching CNN panels, I have an uneasy feeling that has been growing; people with diverging political views simply cannot see eye to eye and have a conversation. A liberal person who begins to speak will be shut down and cut off by a conservative, but conversely, a conservative who begins to speak will be shut down and cut off by a liberal. In this case, the cartoon is a critique of both the far left and the far right for a lack of effort when it comes to trying to understand the other side. This unfortunate duality makes me feel uneasy about the future of our nation where some people might not be able to even have a simple conversation. I sought to speak truth to power by drawing this cartoon to expose the comedy of this problem, almost as if to say “come on.”

COAL TO DIAMONDS: This was a direct response to the climate agenda of President Donald Trump. The appointment of Scott Pruit to head the Environmental Protection Agency, along with countless baseless comments about climate change’s being a hoax along the campaign trail, have made me angry. To deal with this anger, I put together this cartoon that comes up with a comical justification for backing coal so strongly. The idea is that viewers will consider the illogical policies of supporting coal given the environmental risks involved.

DIEU MERCI: This cartoon is simply a button-pin of French President Emmanuel Macron that I drew the day he won the presidency. This cartoon does not speak truth to power as much as capture the collective sigh of relief anti-Trump Americans exhaled as a major European nation did not follow suit with the Brexit- or Trump-style election of the far right candidate Marine LePen.

I SWEAR…: This cartoon is a critique of Americans who say that they will take action and never actually do. People were saying “I swear, I’m moving to Canada if Trump wins” during the election, but the truth is that most people who said that did not move. Americans are stuck with Trump for at least the next four years and must now deal with the problems directly rather than run away from them. The joke is that if we get nuked, we would be dead – we couldn’t move to Canada.

PUTIN VOLLEYBALL: As more and more news was coming out about Russian interference into our election and European elections, I felt a growing sentiment that Russia is trying to control global events, and that Putin, at the helm for Russia, is playing with the world, hence the volleyball-earth.

FLOWER SALESMAN: This cartoon simply aims to capture Donald Trump’s demeanor and rhetoric. His use of hyperbolic language is evident every single time he opens his mouth, and he exaggerates things he does not know anything about. Besides the actual speech in the cartoon, Trump is meant to be selling something he knows nothing about. The flowers are actually meant to be a metaphor for the GOP House Healthcare Bill. The flowers have not yet bloomed, yet Trump is selling them as the best flowers even though we have no proof of it. We have seen this time and time again with Trump, as he says something is going to be “the best ever,” and there is not a single trace of it in reality, but of course, there is apparently an alternative reality about which we know nothing.