The Youngkin Purge

Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin is purging voters' right before election day

This cartoon was drawn for the Fredericksburg Advance.

There’s a right-wing political cartoonist who decided to cover this subject, but he failed to do it without lying. A.F. Branco is more of a propagandist than an actual political cartoonist. I say this because journalists, even opinion journalists, don’t base their work on bullshit. They don’t lie. Branco, like most right-wing goosestepping cultist troglodytes, is a liar. He is not a journalist.

Branco’s cartoon claims Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin purged illegal voter registrations. Research and knowing your subject is important, kids. Know what you’re talking about. Maybe Branco does know what he’s talking about which would make him a willful liar in this case, though I do have doubts about that because after viewing his “work” over the past few years, it’s obvious the man is a grade-A idiot with his head up his ass.

Do I care if piss off right-wing goosestepping Trumper cartoonists? Not particularly.

Youngkin did NOT purge “illegal” voter registrations. The governor purged these voters without knowing if they were citizens or not. In his rush for “election integrity, Youngkin has purged legitimate voters as most of these turned out to be voter registrations of citizens of the United States, NOT illegal voters.

Glenn Youngkin is violating voters’ constitutional rights. Your right to vote should be protected from a fucknut MAGAt governor rushing to delete it without checking the facts first.

The Department of Justice, and several organizations protecting voting rights, are suing Virginia. The DOJ is suing the state because Youngkin purged these voters within 90 days of an election. That’s illegal. Youngkin’s defense is that state law allows him to do this. A governor should know that federal law supersedes state law. Duh.

Youngkin has purged over 6,300 voters, most for making a paperwork error of checking the wrong box stating they are non-citizens, or not checking either box at all. The state elections commissioner, appointed by Youngkin, said most of these are citizens.

Youngkin told Fox News’ Sean Hannity, “This is the next step that we have taken, to have daily — daily — scrubbing of our voter rolls to make sure that, in fact, if an illegal immigrant either mistakenly or maliciously registers to vote, that that person will be cleaned off the ballot immediately and turned over to our prosecuting attorneys to make sure that they are prosecuted to the full extent of the law.”

Youngkin is maliciously engaging in voter suppression.

Youngkin, while campaigning with Donald Trump who has been spreading election lies, said, “Noncitizens will be prosecuted if they vote.” But since Youngkin entered office in 2022, there haven’t been any cases of non-citizens voting in Virginia. Not one. The irony is that Youngkin is howling about “election integrity” while campaigning with a guy who committed electoral fraud.

Republicans like Youngkin care more about non-citizens voting (which isn’t actually a thing) than a president (sic) calling up a secretary of state and demanding he find him non-existent votes, 11,780 non-existent votes to be exact (which is a thing). Trying to install fake electors is another actual thing.

Branco claims in his cartoon that the DOJ is working for Harris while ignoring that Youngkin is working for Trump. What’s in it for Youngkin?

Virginia governors are term-limited to one. That means there’s no place for Youngkin to go after next year…except the Trump administration if he’s reinstalled within the next two weeks. If Youngkin can win Virginia for Trump (he won’t), he’s assured a cabinet position. He’ll probably get one just for trying. Don’t believe me?

A few days ago while being interviewed by Jake Tapper on CNN, Youngkin was acting as the Trump Whisperer and told Jake that Trump didn’t mean he’d actually use the military to go after U.S. citizens he deemed his political enemies.

Trump suggested during an appearance on Fox News that the National Guard or military should be employed on Election Day to fight against possible disorder from “the enemy from within,” which he said includes “radical-left lunatics” Tapper asked Youngkin, “Is that something you would support?.”

Youngkin said, “What former President Trump is talking about are the people that are coming over the border, that, in fact, are committing crimes, that are bringing drugs, that are trafficking humans, and that are turning every state into a border state.” Youngkin went into a long screed about the border, drugs like fentanyl (which is mostly brought into the nation by U.S. citizens), bad (brown) people, blah blah blah.

Tapper pointed out that it wasn’t the border Trump was talking about and said to the governor, “he was talking about sick people, radical-left lunatics who should be handled by the National Guard or the military.”

Tapper pointed out that Trump mentioned congressman Adam Schiff and said, “That’s who he was talking about using the National Guard and military against, radical-left lunatics, enemy from within, people like Adam Schiff.”

Youngkin told Tapper that he misinterpreted Trump’s rhetoric and was “misrepresenting his thoughts.”

Jake replied, “I’m literally reading his quotes.” Here is Tapper literally reading Trump’s quotes. Check out the pained look on Youngkin’s stupid face while Tapper reads off the quotes.

Youngkin is literally trying to sanewash Trump while suppressing votes for him.

Creative note: I drew ten roughs for this cartoon and not because Martin, my editor was knocking each idea down one by one. It was me who wasn’t satisfied with the ideas and was knocking them down myself before Martin saw them. Martin is a great guy, by the way. He proposed a different subject and I asked to do this one first and hit his proposed issue next week. He agreed immediately because he trusts my judgment. A cartoonist really appreciates that in an editor and more editors should trust their cartoonist. I’ve had too many editors not trust me in the past, as though I was going to sneak a dick in the final version. By the way, there’s a dick in this final version. See if you can find it.

Another way Martin rocks: I wanted to do this issue for my syndication clients, but instead of doing that, I asked Martin if he’d allow me to give it to them a day after he published it. He has every right to say no because he commissions me to draw these weekly cartoons exclusively for the Advance, but he said yes. Since the Advance is still new, this cartoon in other publications may bring some exposure to it. I also felt this was the best cartoon out of the bunch of ideas I drew.

More hyper-local news outlets, like all the new ones popping up in cities across the nation as traditional newspapers fade away, should hire cartoonists. There’s nothing more hyper-local than cartoons covering your school board. Get on it, editors.

Music note: Alice in Chains.

Drawn in 30 seconds:

Timelapse with a voiceover:

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