Bill Sanders was stationed in South Korea while serving in the U.S. Army, as the commanding officer of the Pacific Stars and Stripes Army Unit in Seoul (1955–1957). After he was discharged, he stayed in Japan and worked as a Department of the Army civilian reporter-artist for Pacific Stars and Stripes in Tokyo (1957–1958). He went on to illustrate political cartoons for The Japan Times, and Greensboro Daily News with a national syndication. The Milwaukee Journal hired Sanders in 1967, when it was a crusading newspaper that would often feature his political drawings on the front page. He ended up in a public spat with Milwaukee Mayor Henry Maier over Milwaukee’s lack of an open housing ordinance, and his work was often critical of city leaders, social issues, and reflected the turmoil of the Vietnam War era. Sanders remained in Milwaukee until his 1991 retirement, when he moved to Ft. Myers, Florida. He remains active by writing and drawing on his blog, Sanders Cartoon-Commentary.
This collection of political cartoons represent the view Sanders has of the current president, along with an essay he wrote that articulates his thinking more directly than in the satirical illustrations.
ON “WANTING PRESIDENT TRUMP TO SUCCEED”
From the vast middle ground of our nation’s political landscape, one occasionally hears this about President Donald Trump: “I didn’t vote for him, but I want to see him succeed.”
When this longing for his success comes from his core supporters or the right wing remnants of the Grand Old Party, I understand it because I am aware of their motivation. However, when it comes from that nominally informed Middle America, the reason escapes me.
I do not want President Donald Trump to succeed.
His political success would roll back and denigrate the very values that I understand this nation and our Constitution represents, and that is simply unacceptable. As imperfect as our practical efforts to provide for the defense, health, education, and general welfare are the tunnel vision of Donald Trump, facilitated by the likes of Steve Bannon and the Russian oligarchy, should not be politically successful.
What is the difference in that and the effort to thwart success by President Barack Obama? It is in the brain and personality of the man one would cloak in success or failure. For openers, Donald Trump is a pathological liar.
Research that charge and it is described as a “behavior of habitual or compulsive lying.”
“A compulsive liar is someone who lies with ease and finds comfort in it. The person may even continue to lie when presented with the truth in cold, hard facts. Getting a compulsive liar to admit he or she lied can be nearly impossible. Although not officially designated as a mental disorder, pathological lying is often seen as the tip of the iceberg for deeper psychological problems including narcissistic personality disorder, antisocial personality disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorder.”
Donald Trump, in normal speech – without the aid of speech writers or adult coaching, has the vocabulary and syntax of about a twelve-year-old at its best, the mind of a juvenile. He was raised in a cocoon of wealth that enhanced his bullying tendencies and his gravitation to self-aggrandizement and hyperbole.
Seventy years has codified his personality as an impenetrable bubble of narcissism in which he lives — exclusive of any real world of activity or factual information that might challenge his hubris. He is not a reader. He is ignorant. Is that the new standard we want to emulate? Is that the kind of personality we want to be successful in a presidency?
Wanting to see him successful is wanting him to change who he is. That is like the bald headed man looking for the formula that will grow hair on a cue-ball.
– Bill Sanders, 2017 June 05
© Illustrations
Bill Sanders
