Under pressure from an avalanche of social media backlash, Politico has deleted a tweet containing a cartoon appearing to mock the survivors of Hurrican Harvey...
Drawn by Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist, Matt Wuerker, the cartoon shows a person in a Confederate flag shirt, thanking god for being rescued from a flooded house bearing a secessionist sign (and a Gadsden flag). The cartoonist's irony appears to be that the federal government sent the helicopter to rescue him.
As Wuerker tried to explain...
Just trying to point out times like this we're lucky to have rescue services. Don't see how this takes away from private individuals heroism https://t.co/Tk4xCqyV0v
— Matt Wuerker (@wuerker) August 30, 2017
Had no idea so many people liked Texas Secessionists and hate the Coast Guard. It's pro Coastie!
— Matt Wuerker (@wuerker) August 30, 2017
This did not sit well with many conservatives... and Politico deleted the tweet soon after.
. @politico couldn't have missed the mark more w/ this comic. Tremendous diversity and complexity to #Houston & #Texas politics. pic.twitter.com/cxEmFWOrmE
— Adam Green (@AdamGreen_WSD) August 30, 2017
@politico If you're going to poke someone in the eye about their faith why not right after they've lost everything.. #NoClass https://t.co/qxjkBvZOUh
— Jason M ???????? (@jmmesserschmidt) August 30, 2017
Besides being disgusting, this is theologically ignorant. As if God only works through overt miracles. https://t.co/eBmoITqvXZ
— Greg (@Greg651) August 30, 2017
This is supposed to be funny. It's not. It insults victims of epic tragedy. Ppl whose labor funds this beloved govt. https://t.co/xKs1JTE4JB
— Chris Rochester (@cdrochester) August 30, 2017
It's pro-Coast Guard, anti-people who are being pulled from their homes and who lost everything, including friends and family members
— Shelby Webb (@shelbywebb) August 30, 2017
The flag is not obvious, so it ends up reading like a swipe at people of faith.
— Elizabeth Scalia (@TheAnchoress) August 30, 2017
Similarly, even The Washington Post described the cartoon as "tone-deaf" and "unhelpful," saying it was a "needlessly vast oversimplification of a very complex issue at a very sensitive time."
"It's almost a caricature of what you'd expect a liberal cartoonist to draw in response to conservative Texans relying upon the government in their time of crisis," said Aaron Blake, a Post blogger.
"The Confederate flag T-shirt. The Gadsden Flag. The reference to being saved by God (which seems extremely dismissive of Christianity). The Texas secession banner. It's all kind of ... predictable?"
Just luck that President Trump didn't retweet it before they deleted it.