In political commentary, a little nudity goes a long way.

At the conference in Manchester, I attended a panel by Roger Sabin and Martin Barker titled "Doonesbury goes to Iraq," and it mostly concerned what is, from a European perspective, the rightward turn in the politics of Trudeau's Doonesbury after B.D. had his leg blown off.  Their argument, briefly, is that focusing on B.D.'s gradual acceptance that he had suffered Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder transforms him into an object of sympathy for both the American right and left; and that, as such, PTSD represents a political common ground that is, to the rest of the world, rather unsavory.  For example, if an American soldier kills civilians in Iraq, from the American perspective, that soldier suffers a trauma; whereas from the international perspective, that soldier may have committed a war crime, etc. 

It was an impressive argument, but it didn't sit well with me because it relied too heavily on the notion that, unlike Vietnam, the United States military is a volunteer force.  It ignores both the extent to which stop-loss has been used to plug recruitment shortfalls and the class politics at play in all military recruitment.  If you want to claim that the United States military is used to achieve imperialists ends, there's an argument to be made there; but if you want to claim that United States soldiers knowingly support an imperialist agenda, you have your work cut out for you.

All of which is only to say, it seemed odd that these sharp British scholars were taking Gary Trudeau behind the woodshed for being implicitly conservative when there are so many explicitly conservative cartoonists who better express the ideological incoherence of the foreign policy and cultural politics of the contemporary right.  Granted, they might not consider actual conservative cartoonists worthy of their attention, and I can see why.  Consider Chris Muir, a.k.a. the man who unwittingly proves that white male Tea Party aficionados only listen to arguments proffered by scantily clad women. 

The only interesting thing about Muir is how bereft of his ideas his "strips" are: he finds the conservative talking point of the day, imagines a domestic scene in which his female characters would be fully or partially nude, and combines them into a poorly drawn political burlesque.  How formulaic is he?  He could continue his strip indefinitely without ever needing to "draw" again in his life.  To demonstrate the validity of this claim, I've done Muir the favor of remixing some of his recent output into entirely new comics:

They do, I admit, border on the absurd, but I'd consider that an improvement.  I suppose I understand then why Sabin and Barker decided to treat the implicit conservatism in Trudeau then: they probably had a difficult time believing that folks like Muir realistically represent conservative thought in American politics.  Would that they were correct.
 

Comments

[Ahistoricality]

My reading of Doonesbury has been very sporadic since I moved to climes where it's not in the newspaper, so I'm not as attuned to his rhythms as I used to be. From what I've seen, though, I have a great deal of difficulty buying the "rightward" argument: GT's soldiers are either wounded and recovering -- with various degrees of critique of the veterans' services system and civilian understandings -- or cynical and/or obviously clueless about their position in society and the imperial mission. If anything, it's a strong internal critique of imperialism, pointing out the damage -- physical and psychic -- done by even successful military missions. Since GT's rarely gone into foreign policy, his extended consideration of US imperialism -- drones, CIA involvement, occupation -- is arguably more aggressively leftist than his recent relatively weak domestic commentaries, which have been much more personal and generational.

[Karl Steel]

Characterizing GT as a developing rightest is silly on its face, which is precisely the point: the presenters, presumably, get to demonstrate their keen political sensitivity, and the audience gets to feel it's been let in on an esoteric secret, thereby joining the political vanguard. It's the intellectual make-work move in critique that we see performed repeatedly, but perhaps not one that's in itself bad. No doubt the actual rightists must feel we're doing the same thing when we accuse them and their allies (e.g. Darleen) of racism, for example, except the difference (and I hope this is a qualitative one) is that they're actually racists.

It sort of looks like this:
Presenters pointing out GT's rightism:Red Army Faction pointing out Germany's fascism::SEK pointing out Darleen's racism:ANYONE pointing out Chile's fascism, also mid 70s

The moves look sort of similar; there's a seed of truth in each; but the former is so suspicious that it could discover fascism or racism anyone; and the other one is discovering secrets 'on the surface.' It requires less intellectual work, I suppose, but it might have the benefit of being useful.

rarely gone into foreign policy
What about Duke? US foreign policy as a playground for sociopathic drugaddled insiders?

[Ahistoricality]

What about Duke? US foreign policy as a playground for sociopathic drugaddled insiders?

Like I said, rarely. Duke is much more a critique of the myth of competency and the self-regarding auteur in general; in regards to foreign policy, it's the decision-making process, not the policy itself, which is the primary target for satire. I never liked Duke as a character or punch line -- but then I never got the Hunter Thompson thing, either -- but I understand why he exists now in a way I didn't before.

[magistra]

One of the reasons for British interest in Trudeau is probably that Doonesbury appears regularly in the Guardian newspaper, so it's a strip that (liberal) UK audiences are familiar with. I don't know whether there are any other US political strips that regularly appear in UK papers (as opposed to stuff like Garfield).

[alkau]

I can't help seeing red when Vietnam and Iraq are presented in the same article. Most vocal Americans did not want us in Vietnam and made sure the armed forces knew it. Many Americans do not want us in Iraq for entirely different reasons. What we know about returning soilders in both cases is they all face(ed) physical and psychic issues. What happened in the 60's and 70's gave major lessons on "What not to do for returning soilders". Having said that, today's world still is quick to call events murder without knowing all the facts. Granted some souilders like to kill,but most are just trying to stay alive, obey orders and help bring a better life to the people of Iraq and GET HOME ALIVE AND WHOLE. PTSD is a real issue and telling soilders that they have murdered people is not helpful even when it is in a public forum. It would be better to do something to aid the men and women who gave part of themselves to our country. We need to give back to those who sacrificed their health and stabilityfo their lives to fight for our country. We failed to do this for Vietnam. We should not label these vetrans killers. We need to get them everything they need to gain back a life left behind. The media needs to support them and not use the war to address their own political views. Free speech is ok, just realize that you may cause damage by what you write.

[latinist]

1. "All of which is only to say, it seemed odd that these sharp British scholars were taking Gary Trudeau behind the woodshed for being implicitly conservative when there are so many explicitly conservative cartoonists who better express the ideological incoherence of the foreign policy and cultural politics of the contemporary right."

2. "The only interesting thing about Muir is how bereft of his ideas his "strips" are[.]"

Doesn't that make it seem less odd?