Visual Rhetoric Analysis: Mother Nature and Voter Fraud from the Biden/Harris Campaign
Before I get into this essay, I’d like to urge you to vote in the upcoming midterms if possible. No, I don’t think voting is a solution or a replacement for other more substantial forms of advocacy and organization, but I still think it’s important to counteract politicians who are trying to take people’s rights away and make life generally worse for most people, even if the lesser evil isn’t necessarily going to do much to meaningfully improve your life or advance your rights forward.
I also recognize that in-person voting can be inaccessible for many, and I’m publishing this too late to promote mail-in voting (which also has some barriers) to an online audience for this particular election.
As an able-bodied person, I’m nonetheless aggravated by the fact that all pandemic precautions are seemingly being thrown out the window, proving the time-tested truth that disabled people are seen as unimportant and disposable by political figures and society at large, but that rant is (1) for another essay and (2) better articulated by many disabled activists online.
Anyway, the reason I brought this up is also to clearly state that I disagree with these cartoons because climate change is real and voter fraud is not a widespread problem.
I’ll probably do more political content on here and my YouTube channel somewhat soon, but I’ve fooled myself with that promise before, heh.
Finally, onto Ben Garrison —
Hi! Do you like politics? Well, do you like ass? You’re in luck because this Ben Garrison cartoon fuses both. This image conveys a message of climate change denial not just by using text but also with the color scheme and its use of shape and position.
This comic has a cohesive color scheme that is aesthetically pleasing to look at. The smiling sun and the angry clouds on opposing sides of the picture show the chaos and variety of weather conditions, and in tandem with what the Mother Nature figure says, reinforces the message that turbulent weather conditions are the standard and downplays the possible human causes of climate change. Furthermore, the illustration of Greta Thunberg, who is regarded as a negative force and an annoyance, antithetical to nature’s true best interests, is wearing purple, a color that is not visible in the rest of the panel, serving as an effective use of contrast between the two subjects. Thus, the use of color in this cartoon was largely successful.
The use of shape is also notable. The characters’ heads and the personified faces of the sun and clouds are all enlarged relative to their bodies and/or surroundings. This is mostly visible with Greta, which reinforces the image of her as a whiny baby, since babies tend to have proportionally large heads. One issue with the sizing is that the cloud, which depicts more turbulent weather conditions, is larger than the sun, which represents more pleasant and desirable weather conditions. This could unintentionally undercut the message that climate change is not a threat, as the angry stormy cloud is visibly seen to be contributing to the cold. However, since said cloud is shown to be in the arctic environment, this does not cause a contradiction.
Earth is shaped as a very oblong ellipsoid rather than the more correct and expected spherical shape, which implies that Mother Nature is applying force on it and undercuts the idea that the Earth is not under strain and stress due to changes in nature. It also makes it look like Ben scaled his image incorrectly, as does the very crowded spacing towards the bottom of the image as the plants and animals are crammed so close together that the image looks a little bit unbalanced. The land on the left side of the image is angled higher up than the land on the right, so while the contrast between the weather scenes on each side is effective, the arrangement of the non-human elements is subpar.
While the human figures are visually positioned in an appropriate way, the actual characterization thereof is anything but. It is finally time to address the elephant in the room: this very grown man thought it acceptable to draw a teenage girl getting spanked.
This makes the image much more unpleasant to look at, even for some more seasoned anti-climate activists, because it dubiously sexualizes someone who was underage at the time of publication and, at any rate, heavily distracts from Garrison’s main political message.
Ben is a self-described libertarian, as can be seen on the about page of his website, and while this means that he claims to dislike government intervention in the economy and people’s personal lives, there is a prevalent stereotype of libertarians wanting to lower the age of consent. One example from 2016 saw a Libertarian candidate for a Michigan congressional seat arguing — in response to a story about a 24-year-old teacher being charged with sexual misconduct with a 13-year-old student (Spangler) — that “hard age of consent laws don’t take into account the actual maturity of the child” and that certain teenagers can handle sexual relationships with adults, stating that “unintended consequences of government action can often cause more harm” to the children that age of consent laws aim to protect. Just this month, a recent Newsweek article covered comments made by Libertarian Party candidate for the Arizona Senate race Marc Victor, wherein he stated that the age of consent should be up for a vote, prompting Libertarian Party chair Angela McArdle to distance the party from his comments. The fact that these questionable beliefs are commonly debated in libertarian circles only intensifies the suspicion that this comic creates.
On the blog post dedicated to the cartoon, Garrison makes a strawman of Thunberg’s climate change agenda by referring to “human hating Greenies [who] want us all going backwards” and creating a hypothetical scenario of her being unable to get to the UN climate change summit in a ‘green’ way. He suggests that “maybe she needs someone to loan her a paddle and a canoe?” and the post header states that she should “shut up and start paddling to Spain!” With all this mention of paddling and the blog’s heading mirroring the Mother Nature figure’s dialogue — “don’t mess with Mother Nature!” vs. “You can’t fool Mother Nature!” — you’d expect that maybe she would at least be using a paddle to justify this baffling artistic decision. However, that is not the case, and therefore the fact that Greta Thunberg is being spanked in this comic obscures the focus.
Because of this muddied focus, I have decided to write the rest of this essay about a different cartoon.
At first glance, this drawing may seem to be equally confusing, but it is more visually effective than the former for a few reasons: it is less cluttered and has clearer points of visual emphasis. The colors, while less vibrant, are also less distracting. Lastly, the beliefs of the creator are not outright stated by any of the characters, but the characters are shown behaving in ways that support his understanding of them as corrupt and fraudulent — an example of “show, not tell”, which was sorely lacking in the prior cartoon, wherein the audience was being told a political idea and shown a (seemingly largely unrelated) scene.
Without directly saying his political beliefs, how does Garrison get his message across? Firstly, he portrays people he ideologically opposes as visually unappealing. Next, he emphasizes the claim that the Democrats are creating fraudulent ballots by having the copies appear both scattered throughout the foreground and clearly visible in the arms of the Biden figure. Lastly, he uses elements of art like color and shape and principles like balance and proportion.
Garrison’s illustrations of political figures impress his biases onto the viewer. He does this frequently the other way around, too, with Trump being portrayed as cool and hot and strong and manly, as can be seen with a cursory search of his website. Examples include (but are by no means limited to!), “Trump Endorsements For The Win”, “Drain The Swamp Again”, “Happy Independence Day”, and “Is Hillary Above The Law?”
This tactic is by no means unique to Garrison. As seen in the video “Who is the WORST political cartoonist?” other illustrators like AF Branco and Michael Ramirez also employ the tactic of covering their political opponents with blemishes and wrinkles to strengthen the audience’s impression of said people as evil and gross (3:32) or overly stylizing political figures to the point that, without additional context, the caricatures are nigh unrecognizable as the person being mocked (6:41).
In “Cheating Asses (Democrats)”, this tactic creates an implicit ad hominem fallacy by diverting the audience’s attention from any tangible political wrongdoings or criticism of Harris and Biden, instead using their appearance as a visual shorthand for evil.
Returning to the common element between these two Ben Garrison cartoons, ass:
Another positive (if you could call it that) of this cartoon compared to the prior is that, in addition to the subject being an adult woman this time, the drawing of Kamala Harris serves the purpose of showing her as incompetent and lazy.
Finally, the artistic elements and principles are more cleanly executed in this comic. While the contrast in lighting is not necessarily symbolic of anything, it does establish a slight sinister tone to the printing room, and on a more aesthetic note, the lighting of the scene makes the image easy on the eyes — well, as easy on the eyes as a drawing of the Vice President photocopying her own rear end could be. The positioning of the figures correctly uses perspective to avoid being distractingly off-scale, but both Biden and Harris are shown to be roughly the same size, making them out to be of equal significance in the Democrat agenda, and the printer is larger than both people and in the center of the image, serving as the focal point visually and complementing the central claim that those who Garrison politically opposes are making fraudulent ballots.
Therefore, I believe that, while Ben Garrison’s comics are not only incorrect but often unclear at worst and laughable at best, his comic “Cheating Asses (Democrats)” is a more effective political cartoon than “Mother Nature” due to its more organized usage of space and its concise and focused use of text and imagery to convey its argument.
References
Garrison, Ben. “Mother Nature”. Grrr Graphics https://grrrgraphics.com/mother-nature/
Garrison, Ben. “About”. Grrr Graphics, https://grrrgraphics.com/about/
Spangler, Todd. “Mich. Candidate Says Sex with Teens May Be OK in Some Cases.” Detroit Free Press, Detroit Free Press, 6 June 2016, www.freep.com/story/news/politics/2016/06/03/michigan-consent-law-tom-bagwell/85364338/.
Bickerton, James. “Arizona Candidate Proposes Referendum on Age of Consent.” Newsweek, Newsweek, 7 Oct. 2022, www.newsweek.com/arizona-candidate-proposes-referendum-age-consent-1749981.
Garrison, Ben. “Cheating Asses (Democrats)”. Grrr Graphics, https://grrrgraphics.com/cheating-asses-democrats/
“Who is the WORST political cartoonist?” YouTube, uploaded by Thought Slime, 1 October 2021, www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zdmlYW9e3M.
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