Writing about the prickly presidential election cycle of 1960, John Steinbeck was prepared to find the humor in politics and, when also writing about his favorite comic strip, “Li’l Abner,” the politics in humor as well. Steinbeck died a month after Richard Nixon’s election in 1968, but if he were still alive he would likely be laughing at this September 20, 2020 political cartoon by Signe Wilkinson. Showing two carloads of families in flight but coming from opposite directions—one from West Coast fire, the other from East Coast weather—it drives its point home with the caption “Grapes of Wrath, 2020.” A Pulitzer Prize-winning political cartoonist at the Philadelphia Inquirer, Wilkinson clearly enjoys irony à la Steinbeck. “This year, with smoke from the western fires reaching D.C., Congress should start addressing our own environmental problems,” she explained. “It’s in everyone’s best interests. Republicans certainly wouldn’t want fleeing Californians invading their states.”
Image courtesy Signe Wilkinson/Philadelphia Inquirer.
About Administrative Team
