Sorry. I tried to come up with a positive, hopeful holiday message. But as was often the case in 2017, cold, harsh reality won out.
It's a shame, because truly, this is the one time of year where a cynical editorial cartoonist gets a pass at being openly optimistic. Not so much after this week, this month, this year...
But you know, now that I think about it, maybe I am being hopeful. The messaging in Christmas stories would seem to be pretty straightforward: good prevails over evil, kindness over meanness, love over hate. Thus, the Grinch heart grows two sizes that day. Scrooge keeps Christmas in his heart all year long. The Peanuts gang rallies around good ol' Charlie Brown and his poor little tree. I mean, I'm not making this up, right? These are arguably the intended lessons to be learned.
And yet, in this new bizarro world, the lessons are clearly not learned. All that time and energy spent trying to teach people to be good, kind, decent -- well, that's out the window. It doesn't seem to matter. It's all about self-interest and winning and doubling-down regardless.
So maybe, maybe drawing the opposite of what we should be striving for will help to get us back on track. Or maybe it's the end of the year, and I'm just very, very tired.
John Auchter is a freelance editorial cartoonist. His views are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Michigan Radio, its management, or its license holder the University of Michigan.
