Flaming moderates
Perhaps the time for consensus, compromise and cooperation has passed. White supremacy and climate change don’t negotiate.
At first I didn’t think of this as an editorial cartoon. Cartoons in this genre tend to be reactive, inspired by something specific, the outrage of the day. The killing of George Floyd, the racist gaffe from a senior politician, the outrageous behavior of some nominee to a high government office, these are the traditional starting points of a political cartoon. But this cartoon is a more big-picture reflection on the dynamics of democracy. It’s about the inherent inability of the moderates in a society to compete with the passionate fringes. Moderation, by its very nature tends to be more passive; the phrase “flaming moderate” is not one you hear often, or really, at all.
This feeds the polarization of our public life as the fringes take over the debate, occupying the space the moderates had a claim to, but have abandoned.
Not that this is necessarily a bad thing. The room for incrementalism and compromise seems to have run out in our time. Climate change and white supremacy don’t negotiate or compromise. Moderates must choose which side they embrace, a livable earth, and an expanding notion of what equality and freedom mean, or a country that is as repressive politically as the climate is repressive environmentally.
Of course, I could be wrong.