This Cartoon was Rejected 6 Years ago for being Unfair and Alarmist

Cheetos can't melt steel beams.
- Cheetos shit themselves

rejected by who?
- He did not point the finger at any particular paper. At least not where I saw the cartoon.
  
  I bet most any publication would have rejected it at the time.

I mean... I'm from the US myself and this is extremely true

I've never seen anything in the US more complicit towards fascism and autocracy than the US media. They reported NOTHING negative about Trump for months? Why? Fairness? But Kamala got fucked every headline ''Job Numbers trending up, but are the numbers too soft because of Harris? " type of bullshit.
- I’ve never seen anything in the US more complicit towards fascism and autocracy than the US media.
  yes, including social media. People think adopting Donald Trump methods of dehumanizing those you disagree with, Donald Trump Twitter-think and Tweet-length mental attitudes is actually addressing the problem... in reality, it is joining in with the bonfires of goodness. Instead of a "we are under siege mentality" of posting a thread to the top of every social media platform every 6 hours since 2015 when it was clear Donald Trump and Putin wanted to fulfill their "Conservative International 2013" politician aims, people have just mocked and gone along with the total mockery media values of MAGA / Donald Trump Twitter-tweeting thinking.
  I’ve never seen anything in the US more complicit towards fascism and autocracy than the US media.
  People are entirely unable to defend and resist absurd comedy, surreal humor, surreal absurd "jokes', they all end up joining in / jumping on the bandwagon with the mocking and mockery.
  Neil Postman was correct in 1985: “When a population becomes distracted by trivia, when cultural life is redefined as a perpetual round of entertainments, when serious public conversation becomes a form of baby-talk, when, in short, a people become an audience, and their public business a vaudeville act, then a nation finds itself at risk; culture-death is a clear possibility.” ― Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business, 1985
- Always has been. Have you ever checked out how the imperial media covers genocide?
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_model
- Almost as if the rich and powerful have WAY too much control. Break out yer guillotines!
  
  They want fascism. It's an element of class war.

Uhhhh get this human generated slop out of here!

The pathway to authoritarianism is lined with people telling you to stop overreacting
- I hope as fuck that everyone who said that eventually realize they were warned, and take some humility into the future
  Maybe, maybe, break Cassandra's curse. At least for a little bit
  
  Yea, and then they’ll say “never forget” and build a monument and a museum. And then everyone forgets 2 generations later. Just look at Israel, the families there still materially experience the lingering effects of genocide yet they continue to perpetrate another one.
- The pathway to chronic fatigue leading to inaction is lined by people catastrophizing every day. Sometimes I wish the criticism of Trump was a bit more targeted. Some people claimed with a straight face that he would amend the constitution to take away women's voting rights on his first day of office. While time and effort was spent talking about that, some of the "lesser activities" he performed, like greatly curtailing the EPA, or budget cuts to the IRS went unnoticed.
  I don't know if there is a name for this effect, but it seems like so many people are talking about how the world is burning in every way and that makes it difficult to conduct opposition to his efforts.
  The only "good thing" for me is that almost by any way you measure his presidency, it's been pretty bad. Wages haven't gone up, productivity hasn't gone up, GNP hasn't gone up, etc. Every day it gets a little harder for his fans to defend him. I suspect instead of leaning on actual data that they will just confabulate some other data that makes things seem favorable.
  I find it a little comforting to think that it wouldn't have gone as bad as this if Kamala got in.
- There are plenty of people overreacting, so stop overreacting about no overreaction /s

2016 was worse for America than 9/11.
- Yes. Trump's failure during Covid was killing a 9/11's worth of Americans weekly.
  
  Trump was already responsible for one 9/11's worth of American deaths when he refused to send aid after Hurricane Maria. Then COVID happened.
  
  Republicans preventing the US from joining the first world probably kills more than that every week.
  
  give 'em some time. it's still early in the first quarter and he's still getting warmed up
  
  And yet somehow there are still far more people in the USA than there were before COVID struck. What gives?
- Jr Bush/ Cheney laid an awful lot of the groundwork for Trunk One’s malevolence
  
  As did Reagan and Bush I. And for that matter, a lot of their people cut their teeth under Nixon. Some cancers take a long time to grow.
  
  Karl fucking Rove
- 2000 was worse for America than 9/11.
  
  I'm sure this has been discussed to death but... would Gore have read the memos and stopped the attacks?
- ~~Never Forget~~ We Forgor
- Retrospectively? Would give someone’s left nut for 2016 murca and not fucking bullshit 2025 fucking Russia (the one between Maine/Alaska/Hawaii/Florida under the orange thumb)
  Hope your kids never wanted to ski outdoors Heritage Foundation!

- wait what

Mr. President, a second presidency just hit the south tower.
- They’re building a third tower now

Needs an update:
Now of course the "Rule of Law" is already destroyed and the plane should be headed for the 2nd one...

I do think that Trump's first administration was fascist-lite. He had set precedence that future politicians will do. However, his second term has now gone full fascist and it is no longer "setting precedence", but making breakthrough and ripping apart the very heart of democracy and what it means to be human.
- Kick a narcissist out of your home and tell them you don’t want them anymore, and if they manage to get back in, you won’t ever forget you crossed them.
  
  The media called his second run a "revenge tour", and they weren't fucking wrong. Trump's only objective this time around is to stick it to the people who held him back the first time. First his old cabinet, then career civil servants, then judges, and eventually, the rest of us.

Just need a 2nd plane labelled "republican traitor filth".
- I don't know why you would write the same term 3 times.
- They could be labeled trump 2024 and trump 2028

Source: https://bsky.app/profile/murphycartoons.bsky.social/post/3lnlwmypsgk2d
- That's what I was looking for! Thank you.

Lots of real people actually died on 911.
Imagine believing that losing the constitution and "us law" is similar to even a single life. They're both racist authoritarian trash.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_religion
- So you're saying the people that have died and continue to die due to Trump's policies aren't 'real people'?
- My friend, it's important to keep in mind that abstract concepts have real impact on real people. Innocent people kidnapped to CECOT are losing their lives because their constitutional right to due process under the law is not being respected. We don't just want the real prison to be nicer.
- Over a million Americans died to covid, and his administration chose to not send ventilators to blue states because they didn't deserve the help.
  The joke in Team America is that the destruction they're trying to prevent be 9/11 times 1000. Well, covid had gotten us to almost half at 1.2 million. https://www.pnas.org/doi/epub/10.1073/pnas.2313661121
  He and his administration helped covid kill many people directly and indirectly by sewing doubt in the CDC.
- Citations please.
  Also people have died already from trumps choices. A lot of people. Probably much more than 9/11.
  
  The "war on terror" killed more innocent civilians alone.
- 1 tweet from trump kills more ppl then 9/11.
  -150 000 children now will be born with HIV because of trump. -remove food regulation, how many millions will get cancer in usa. -covid, throw in another 100 000s ppl because of his incompetence and rather give his russians friends the testing machines, instead of Americans. -crashing the economy, agony, suicides. weakening USA and your foreign aid that saved over 25 million ppl is gone. millions more to die becuase of trump. -his incompetence in ukraine, 100 000s of dead. would be very easy to push back russia if you support ukraine with weapons, forcing russia to surrender.
- Tens of thousands have already died this year directly due to Trump abruptly cutting off medical aid across the globe.
- Is it violence only when there's a bullet fired, a knife stabbing or an explosive collision?
  There are plenty of ways to inflict violence on another just by way of policy and letting extremists have their way with no constraints.
  Would you say the millions upon millions of people who died under Hitler's policies aren't comparable to the "lots of real people" of 9/11 just because it wasn't Hitler himself firing all the bullets and setting off all the gas chambers? All violence can be traced back from the direct perpetrator to the one who gave the order, and both are accountable for it.
- Is it violence only when there's a bullet fired, a knife stabbing or an explosive collision?
  There are plenty of ways to inflict violence on another just by way of policy and letting extremists have their way with no constraints.
  Would you say the millions upon millions of people who died under Hitler's policies aren't comparable to the "lots of real people" of 9/11 just because it wasn't Hitler himself firing all the bullets and setting off all the gas chambers? All violence can be traced back from the direct perpetrator to the one who gave the order, and both are accountable for it.

It was rejected for being extremely distasteful.
It's not wrong, but there's no tie in to the administration that makes the image need to be the scene of thousands of people murdered by terrorists.
- Trump's terrible response to COVID19 resulted in a daily thousand people dead for nearly three years, 10,000 a week at it's peak, almost a million in total.
  His admin has also been accused many times of using terror tactics.
  I think 20 years is long enough that political cartoonists can make 9/11 similes without worrying too much about pearl clutching.
  
  Americans aren't very good at history, but most of them can at least keep this millennium straight...
- I took the analogy not as "Trump equals terrorism and death" but that Trump's attack on the rule of law and the Constitution is at least as big of a threat and should be met with an equally vigorous response by a united United States. The cartoonist could have done it in the style of the Pearl Harbor attack and it would have achieved the same metaphor, though probably wouldn't have had the same gut-punch effect.
  Point is it should be a lightning rod for America to act. Sad that it is not.
  Also, not condoning the wars that followed 9/11 and the Patriot act and all of the other bullshit we got because of it.
- Thousands of people are on the verge of being murdered/deported by terrorists now, seems like a fair comparison to me.
- Trump and his cult are terrorists though
- How much blood will be on their hands before this is over. I totally get this image.
- He's killed way more than 911
- You certainly have a point that doesn't deserve to be downvoted like that.
  Are you New Yorkian, by any chance?
  
  Not the person you replied to, but I'm a New Yorker. I lived near the city on 9/11. My friends lost family members. My dad was across the street from the towers and thankfully made it out alive.
  I've downvoted every single 9/11 joke I've ever seen. I've personally shut down people who made 9/11 jokes in real life. It's not really something to make jokes about.
  But this comic is right. 9/11 was the defining moment of my generation. It changed America for the worse.
  Comparing that to Trump's fascist takeover is apropos.

It's kinda tasteless and doesn't really say anything.
I'd have rejected it 6 years ago for not being good
- Doesn’t say anything? It clearly implies that Trump’s actions are deliberately trying to sabotage US stability and democracy.
  
  If this guy could read he would be very upset with you
  
  There are lots of interpretations. Maybe it says that... in the most offensive and irrelevant way possible.
  
  Political cartoons are supposed to be clever and this is not. "9/11 was really bad. Trump is also really bad." Wow... Never thought about it like that...
  And it's in bad taste, using 9/11 almost as a punchline. Replace the twin towers with any tragedy and it's the same "joke." How about a cartoon in Uvalde? The kids can be wearing that text on their shirts.
  Agreeing with the message doesn't blind me to how r/im14andthisisdeep this is. It's just not a clever cartoon.