Update: The offensive cartoon has been taken down:
A weekly Kansas newspaper, published by a county GOP chair, is under fire this weekend for publishing a cartoon to its Facebook page, comparing Democratic governor Laura Kelly’s order requiring people to wear masks in public to the Holocaust. Dane Hicks, the publisher of the paper, the Anderson County Review, “said in an email to The Associated Press that he plans to publish the cartoon in the newspaper’s next edition Thursday.”
The cartoon refers to “Lockdown Laura” and depicts the governor directing Kansans to a cattle car, while clad in a face mask adorned with the Star of David:
This jump to using Holocaust imagery is not unique to the Kansas GOP: a county commissioner in Utah last month received criticism for tweeting that it “won’t be long before you are required to do the Sieg Heil salute to [Utah Gov. Gary] Herbert” (he would later apologize), a California couple called California Gov. Gavin Newsom a Nazi over his face mask mandate, wearing swastika masks to protest.
Not only does this cheapen the memory of the millions who perished at the hands of the Nazis, but this also speaks volumes about people who would engage in such fear mongering. The sheer lack of knowledge, or empathy, that could lead one to believe that a face mask can be equated with mass murder boggles the mind. Is it unbridled entitlement that can lead one to believe that their own comfort trumps the health concerns of thousands of people? The Anderson County Review’s anti-Semitic decision to run this cartoon can only be interpreted as a flippant disregard for the memories of the murdered, and a callous “screw you” to the Jewish community at large.
Throwing Holocaust imagery around for something so frivolous as a face mask either shows the true level of disregard one has for the Holocaust, or one’s ignorance of it. If there has ever been a cogent, acute case for Holocaust education in America, these people are it. The second one says “this is like the Holocaust”, any statement that could follow – short of an accounting of mass murder – is moot.
