Politico Cartoon Mocks Suffering Hurricane Victims In Texas

Matt Wuerker, a political cartoonist for Politico, drew this horrifically offensive cartoon denigrating Texan victims of Hurricane Harvey.

The image depicts a man in a Confederate flag shirt, cowboy hat and boots, surrounded by a Gadsden flag and a “Secede” sign, exclaiming, “Angels! Sent by God!” while being rescued from the flood waters by the Coast Guard.

Mind you, people are still drowning and being rescued in Texas, and Wuerker thought it would be a good time to make Texans and their suffering into a political joke.

There was a huge backlash online and Politico removed a tweet promoting the cartoon. The cartoonist attempted to respond to some of the people calling him out. Read some of his pathetic tweets:

Oh yeah, the Texan secessionist movement looms large in America right now. PUH-lease! It’s California that has a big secession movement going – one in three Californians wants to secede. Is he going to mock them the next time there’s a disaster in that state, too?

By the way, does Wuerker really think that if Texas did actually secede and became their own country they wouldn’t have their own Coast Guard and government? And just because someone wishes to secede doesn’t mean they aren’t still a citizen of this country, under our government.

Nobody’s calling for the abolition of the Coast Guard – except maybe liberals who are always trying to cut defense spending. So the implication that the man in the cartoon is hypocritical for being rescued by them is absurd.

Secessionists, libertarians, and others on the right who want limited government and responsible spending still want and deserve the basic functions that are the government’s legitimate roll to provide. The people who want no government are the anarchists and ANTIFA terrorists.

We’re lucky to have rescue services every day. Why would that need to be pointed out? If that were truly his intent, this wouldn’t have been a joke cartoon, it would have been a solemn one made in gratitude to our first responders whom we often see after tragedy strikes.

The cartoon takes away from private individuals’ heroism by acting as if it doesn’t even exist, as if it is only the government saving people. Hundreds have been rescued by ordinary people who wanted to help. The theoretical man in the cartoon just as easily could have been saved by one of them. It may have been more unlikely by air, but there are private helicopters doing rescues.

I think the Coast Guard would be offended at being portrayed as so uncaring, mocking the people they save, as this guardsman seems to do while glaring at the man as he delivers the sarcastic liberal punchline of the cartoon.

Because anybody who believes in God is a backwards hick who deserves to be mocked, don’t you see? Simply praising God for your life being saved is subject to liberal scorn. Of course this cartoonist would want to “correct” things by saying it’s the government, not God – because to liberals, government is a god. But just because it is literally a member of the Coast Guard who is saving someone doesn’t mean that the God who created Heaven and Earth didn’t have a hand in it. God is so much bigger than liberals can even comprehend.

In France, Charlie Hebdo had a disgusting cartoon cover of their own that said, “God Exists! He Drowned All Neo Nazis of Texas!” Many liberals have made disgusting remarks about the tragedy in Texas based on their assumptions of the people there. They celebrate whites and Trump supporters suffering “karma.” Meanwhile, Houston voted for Hillary and non-Hispanic whites make up only a quarter of the city’s population.

The bottom line is: Don’t mess with Texas – especially in the middle of a natural disaster as the bodies are still being counted.

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Alexa is a freelance writer and communications consultant, with experience working on the Hill, at the RNC, and for... More about Alexa

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