Fighting the pitchfork parade

We need a national strategy to fight against the bullies in power

Early in my journalism career I learned just how powerful political cartoons can be.

I was editorial page editor of The Eagle Tribune in Lawrence, Mass., then a 60,000 circulation afternoon newspaper. My job title sounded more impressive than it was in reality; I was an opinion page one-man band. I wrote editorials, laid out the pages, edited letters and, as it so happened, chose which political cartoons from regional and national cartoonists I would run every day.

One such talent was Dave Granlund, who drew cartoons for 31 years at The Middlesex News in Framingham, Mass., and is still drawing cartoons all these years later (portfolio here). After then-Archbishop Bernard Law of Boston proclaimed in 1984 that Catholic voters should only vote for political candidates who opposed abortion, Granlund was ready. He drew a picture of Law in all his vestments sitting in a voting booth that looked like a Roman Catholic confessional. A voter, entering to cast his ballot, looked startled to see the archbishop, who is sitting beneath a sign saying, “Catholic Voting Booth.”

I thought it was interesting, provocative, and ran it immediately.

Then the fun began.

The day after the cartoon ran, the paper’s saintly editor of the living section, Mary Fitzgerald, stopped by my desk as she arrived in the newsroom after attending daily Mass. That morning she had the pleasure of listening to the homily of her parish priest as he denounced the newspaper and me in particular for running such an outrageous cartoon.

My phone began to ring constantly. I got nothing done that day except listen to outraged subscribers. It took a solid seven hours for the phone calls to subside.

But you know what didn’t happen? Nobody threatened to kill me or the cartoonist. Nobody said they would harm my family. Nobody spread lies or made it necessary to call the FBI.

All of which The Buffalo News cartoonist Adam Zyglis experienced after he penned a tough, edgy cartoon pointing out the hypocrisy of Texas officials who routinely denounce big government but who quickly rattled their tin cups pleading for federal money in the aftermath of floods that killed more than 130 people. The cartoon shows a drowning man wearing a MAGA hat saying, “Government is the problem not the solution,” and holding a sign saying, “HELP!”

I am indebted to my friend Roberta Baskin, who sent me Margaret Sullivan’s excellent column on this issue from her substack, “American Crisis.” Sullivan is a former editor of The Buffalo News, my hometown paper. She is also a former public editor of The New York Times and a former media critic for The Washington Post. She is smart, a good thinker and writer on media topics. Her take is that the right-wing media machine is always ready to push back on the media. The conservatives began sharpening their words, many of them threats, as soon as someone on X, formerly Twitter, inaccurately accused the cartoonist of criticizing anyone who voted Republican.

To me, this is only the latest example of how violent and threatening political discourse and actions have become, mostly emanating from those on the right but never acceptable from any source. It’s an echo of Brownshirt terror-tactics widespread in 1930s Germany. It is disgusting, unacceptable, and becoming common as dirt.

Fear is dominating America since Donald Trump regained office. His only strategy is to swing a club, from threatening countries with tariffs for no good reason other than he can, pardoning and thus freeing hundreds of imprisoned thugs, threatening lawmakers who don’t vote the way he wants and requiring immigration authorities to terrorize the undocumented.

Since bullies now lead our government, we need a nationwide movement to organize against them. One of the best ways to fighting bullying in schools is the Olweus Bullying Prevention Program. Begun in Norway 40 years ago, it has many components but at its core it helps innocent bystanders intervene in bullying. It gives students strategies to speak out and makes it not only not OK for bullies to harass others, but also makes it unacceptable for the vast majority to look the other way.

We need a national, organized Olweus-like program to help ordinary citizens push back against the threats, fear and attacks. Many people who are so quick to threaten violence can’t be easily shamed because they are anonymous and amoral; they need to be exposed for the cowards they are. We also need more countries, colleges, lawmakers, states to stand up to the president, who thrives on inciting fear.

Many have suggested that the current environment shows that we need an emphasis on civics education. I disagree. An understanding of how the government runs doesn’t make people better behaved. Those who incite fear need to face demands for civility and decency, not to mention pushback from the majority who find their behavior odious.

I don’t know how such a movement would work. All I know is that there are more decent people than there are bullies, more of us than them. We need to get organized.