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My MAGA-inspired history of white supremacist supervillainy continues …

Last we heard from Marvel’s Adolf Hitler, AKA Hate-Monger, his new “living energy” incarnation was destroyed by the combined psychic link of thousands of racially diverse Americans rejecting his message of hate in Captain America #48 (December 2001). (See The Re-re-re-return of Adolf Hitler.)

Five years later, Matt Fraction and Ariel Olivetti created another new Nazi-themed Hate-Monger for Punisher War Journal #6-10 (June-October 2007).

His first statement, “America is for Americans,” updates Hitler’s 1923 slogan “Germany is for Germans.”

This “All-New, All-Racist Hate-Monger” also says, “Heil Hitler. Heil me.”

And though Fraction’s use of the term “miscegenation” sounds intentionally anachronistic too, a reference to his “grandfather’s Luger P-08. A classic. A holy relic that survived the fall of Berlin” means he is descended from a Nazi soldier and so is not Hitler even in some new science-fictional sense.

Olivetti’s drawings of the character, even given the detailed but exaggerated drawing style, also appear significantly larger than Hitler’s 5’ 9.” And when finally unmasked, he looks even less like Hitler.

While his belief that the “future is white and Christian and right” is generically white supremacist and Christian nationalist, his rants against “affirmative action and having to be the whole world’s damn welfare program” ground the setting in the U.S. during the late 20th or early 21st century. Fraction may be evoking the Supreme Court’s 2003 split decision Grutter v. Bollinger, which removed a university’s affirmative-action points system for race, but also maintained race as a “compelling interest” for admissions.

Fraction also anticipates Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign slogan when his Hate-Monger refers to what “makes America – that makes the white race – great.”

In a nod to Lee and Kirby’s 1963 original, Fraction’s Hate -Monger employs “H-rays.” Rather than a gun though, he uses “H-stations,” what Fraction’s Punisher, Frank Castle, calls “magic voodoo mindwarp machines.” The first is in his headquarters near the U.S.-Mexican border, with “San Deigo, and Los Angeles, and Chicago” to follow.

But unlike the original Hate-Monger, both Hate-Monger and his followers are fully exposed too: “You’re bathing in pure H-rays now. Drink them in. Frank – they can free us all.”

Whatever this Hate-Monger’s relationship to Hitler, multiple characters (a waitress, a reporter, Punisher twice) instead remark on his resemblance to Captain America, because (we’re told) he and his “National Force” followers are “wearing his uniform.” The narrative fact is odd since actual resemblance is minimal. Instead of primarily blue, the uniforms are almost entirely white – a potential gesture to KKK robes, though the effect is closer to Star Wars storm troopers. The nearest point of comparison is the chest emblem: instead of a white star, a black star with an embedded white swastika centers the Hate-Monger uniform — which Punisher removes with a knife in the final issue: “He wore the uniform, Clarke. Messed up as it was, it was still his uniform.”

Olivetti’s visual inspiration is clear. For Captain America #231-236 (March-August 1979), Roger McKenzie and Sal Buscema created “a radical hate group known as National Force,” what McKenzie’s Captain America declares “a Neo-Nazi cult.” Fraction does not allude to the earlier iteration, but Olivetti’s all-white uniform design updates Buscema’s original. Both also include red swastika armbands.

Fraction’s Hate-Monger’s intended resemblance to Captain America likely originates from the McKenzie’s “Grand Director,” and not just ideologically: “The only way to ensure America’s strength to make her pure! Because a white America is a strong America!” The leader of the 1979 organization was the 1950s Captain America – or rather, the version of the character that Marvel Comics inserted into the 1954 Atlas Comics revival of the Timely Comics original (a Steve Englehart retcon from Captain America #156 [December 1972]).

Fraction’s Hate-Monger understands his own uniform to be Captain America’s too: “S’why I took that pig’s costume away from him. It’s more than just taking a symbol back – we’re taking America back, Frank, for regular, hardworking, law-abiding Euro-Anglo-Aryan Christian white folk like you and me.” Oddly, Olivetti draws him pointing at the eagle emblem on his forehead, where Captain America instead wears an “A” emblem. The only suggestion of an eagle on Captain America’s costume are the wings protruding above his ear.

The plot point is motivated by Marvel’s 2006-2007 Civil War crossover event ending with Captain America’s assassination in Captain America #25 (April 2007) – well before Captain America: Reborn #1 (September 2009) retcon reveals that he was never actually dead.

The real-world context is even more revealing.

Writing six years after 9/11, Fraction opens his story arc with a fake 911 call from a supposed “coyote” claiming: “I just smuggled four Arab men across the border. They were talking about an imminent attack on San Diego,” sending all law enforcement in search of “Al-Qaed operatives” along what, based on Olivetti’s panel backgrounds, appears to be new portions of a border wall – presumably a reference to the 2006 Secure Fence Act authorizing construction.

After seeing a Spanish newspaper reporting National Force’s massacre of a Mexican town in order to kill “potential immigrants,” Frank begins driving to California to avenge, not the victims, but Captain America: “They’re the ones crossing the border and killing people. I can feel it. And they’re doing it while wearing his uniform.”

Fraction uses the drive and Punisher’s sidekick Stuart Clarke to provide further context. His “35.7 million immigrants in 2004, 10.3 of those illegal,” matches the census figure “35.7 Million Foreign-Born” and a Pew Research report: “There are about 10.3 million unauthorized migrants estimated to be living in the United States as of March 2004.”

Clarke’s claim, “All that’s exploded since the mid-nineties. That’s, what NAFTA or CAFTA or whatever,” also matches common analysis. The 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement resulted in Mexico corn ending subsidies for small farmers, forcing an estimated two million out of work. Clarke describes “Maquiladoras,” “special zones” with “no tariffs or taxes,” calling them “NAFTA-sanctioned sweatshops” – though the program and factories originated in the 60s.

He also notes that the “2,000 miles of border between us and Mexico” has “been militarized, and they’re building a freakin’ fence,” while “vigilante militias” are “patrolling the borders to stop people fleeing a system designed to crush them with abject poverty.” The militarization includes the Department of Homeland Security created five years earlier, and the right-wing militias Rescue Ranch and the Minuteman Project — though the first was likely David Duke’s “Klan Border Watch” in 1979.

President Bush said in a 2005 press conference with Mexico’s President Quesada: “I’m against vigilantes in the United States of America. I’m for enforcing the law in a rational way.”

Fraction’s Clarke concludes: “There’s no single solution to this,” in part because “nobody in El Nort gives a crap about what happens along the border these days as long as our lawns get mowed.”

Like Jurgens in 2001, Fraction and Olivetti focus on symbols.

When Frank infiltrates National Force, Olivetti draws him wearing a Confederate flag t-shirt and a (fake) Iron Cross tattoo.

The National Force second-in-command wears an SS t-shirt and a (real) swastika tattoo.

Olivetti expressionistically places an Iron Cross in the panel background of their handshake. In response to Hate-Monger’s nominal theft of Captain America’s costume, Punisher designs (and somehow instantly manufactures) his own version.

“This isn’t just a war against an army – Hate-Monger is waging a war of ideas. And on that kind of battlefield, Captain America can be an H-bomb.” I assume Fraction means hydrogen bomb, though the phrase also evokes Hate-Monger’s 1963 “H-ray” and 1969 “germ bomb,” as well as the “madbombs” Kirby’s Captain America thwarted in 1976. But Fraction’s Punisher is speaking symbolically: “Best of all, the symbol. His and mine.”

The incongruity is presumably intentional. Where Jurgens’ Captain America resisted and defeated Hate-Monger’s hate through love of country, Fraction’s Punisher does not resist the H-ray effects and then brutally murders a Latina photojournalist as his final rite of passage while infiltrating National Force.

Even after Punisher has destroyed his H-station and thwarted his plans, Hate-Monger tells him, “We’re exactly alike.” As he shoots him in the forehead, Punisher says, “This hate that’s killing you is mine and mine alone.”

Since the Punisher’s strategy was ineffective (the only people who saw his Captain America costume were National Force, who quickly overpowered him, and if the SHIELD agent hunting him hadn’t intervened, he would have been left dead in the desert), Fraction could arguably be undermining the notion that hate is an effective tool for battling white supremacy.

Or is the takeaway that a war of symbols is ultimately irrelevant? The only real way to defeat a contemporary fascist is a bullet to the brain?

Though Fraction and Olivetti give no indication that their Hate-Monger bears anything but a superficial relationship to previous Hate-Mongers, Frank Tieri and Paul Azaceta’s “The Exhibit” in Captain America #616 (May 2011) retcons an overt connection.

The 12-page episode features Captain America and SHIELD agent Sharon Carter investigating gallery owner Edmund Heidler, who appeared in New York three years prior — so shortly after the Punisher Hate-Monger story arc ended. He is a “clone of Adolf Hitler,” explains Tieri’s Captain America, “One of the Hate-Monger’s spare bodies. Over the years, we’ve been able to track down most of them. But this one apparently slipped through the grid after the base he was grown at was destroyed.”

This clone also “has no idea who or what he really is” because “his programming was never completed.”

The references appear to be to the “clones” Peter Gills established in Super-Villian Team-Up #16-17 (May-June 1980). Azaceta’s panel includes Adolf Hitler, a hooded Hate-Monger with an exposed mouth (so presumably Harry Springer’s 1969 costume), a hooded Hate-Monger with dotted eyes (likely Dan Jurgens’s 2000 costume), and Olivetti’s Hate-Monger (identifiable by the eagle emblem on his forehead).

The retcon is problematic since the 2007 Hate-Monger understood himself to be the grandson of a Nazi soldier and also did not physically resemble Hitler – straining any sense of the word “clone.” The addition of “programming” also contradicts Gills’ description of Hitler’s “mind-essence” traveling from body to body. The “base he was grown at” could be understood as Arnim Zola’s, which Jack Kirby “destroyed” in Captain America #212 (August 1977), but then the 1980, 2000, and 2007 stories may require an additional location to account for those Hate-Monger’s appearances. And did Tieri now reveal that the 1980 clone, who Red Skull trapped in a Cosmic Cube prison, falsely believed himself to be Hitler due to his “programming”?

Though Edmund Heidler apparently retains something of Hitler (he’s taken his first name from Hitler’s brother and last name from Hitler’s grandfather), Captain America prevents Agent Carter from killing him because Heidler has committed no wrong – even mentally, since he lacks Hitler’s defining prejudices. When he refers negatively to a Black waitress’ “kind,” he only means “teenagers.” When he compliments Captain America’s “blue eyes and blonde hair,” it’s because he thinks they will help sell art to his gay male clients. The narrative irony repeats Ira Levin’s 1976 novel and Franklin J. Schaffner’s 1978 film adaptation The Boys from Brazil in which the Nazi-hunting protagonist protects Hitler’s child clones for the same reason – they’re not Hitler.

Tieri and Azaceta’s Heidler and retroactively Fraction and Olivetti’s Hate-Monger are the last of the Hitler “doubles” that Lee and Kirby introduced in 1963. Or, I should add, “currently,” since potential future retcons could reveal otherwise.

Either way, Marvel’s Hate-Monger history isn’t over.

Next up: David Liss and Francesco Francavilla revive a non-clone version in Black Panther #521-523 (September-November 2011).

Trump turns 80 in June. He will be two years older than Biden when Biden took office. Republicans, claiming the president’s decline “was a persistent and obvious truth that was evident for years to anyone who was willing to see it,” began investigative hearings last summer. The goal was clear: “We need to know who was in charge.”  

Assessing a president through public statements and appearances is at best difficult and likely produces inconclusive results. Still, since Republicans convincingly argued that such a significant national concern should be not left to hindsight, Congress should begin its assessment of Trump’s potential deterioration now. While an investigation will have the resources to uncover more, a list of concerning events is already established.

Trump confused Obama and Biden repeatedly during his reelection campaign, including during a March 2024 event in Richmond: “Putin has so little respect for Obama that he’s starting to throw around the nuclear word.”

In July 2025, Trump confused himself with Biden when blaming his predecessor for appointing Jerome Powell to Chair of the Federal Reserve: “He’s a terrible Fed chair. I was surprised he was appointed. I was surprised, frankly, that Biden put him in and extended him.” Trump appointed Powell during his first term.

In January, Trump confused Greenland and Iceland. While complaining about NATO, Trump said: “They’re not there for us on Iceland, that I can tell you. Our stock market took the first dip yesterday because of Iceland. So Iceland’s already cost us a lot of money.” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt denied the confusion: “No he didn’t ….  You’re the only one mixing anything up here.”

Leavitt did not attempt to cover-up a Trump mix-up in March, when he confused her with Kellyanne Conway, one of his first-term advisors: “Kellyanne Conway, has anyone ever heard of her? She’s fantastic. She’s in there fighting.  A friend of mine said, ‘You know that Kellyanne, I admire the way she goes in there and she screams at those people’ – meaning the media …. thank you, Kellyanne.”

Leavitt tried but failed to cover-up remarks that Trump made in February: “We should take over the voting, the voting in at least many — 15 places. The Republicans ought to nationalize the voting.” Leavitt insisted: “What the president was referring to is the SAVE Act, which is a huge, common-sense piece of legislation.” But hours later, Trump repeated his remarks, adding further unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud: “Look at some of the places — that horrible corruption on elections — and the federal government should not allow that. The federal government should get involved.” Senate majority leader Thune clarified that he was “not in favor of federalizing elections,” because the power of states to run elections is “constitutional.”

In April, after Trump said, “We’re fighting wars… It’s not possible for us to take care of day care, Medicaid, Medicare, all these individual things,” White House spokesperson Olivia Wales attempted to cover-up the remark: “President Trump was referring to rooting out the billions of dollars of fraud in these vital programs — and his record proves he will always protect and strengthen Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.” The White House also removed the video of Trump’s speech from its website.

Last year in March, after Secretary of Defense Hegseth accidentally included a reporter in a classified group chat discussing the timing and logistics for a bombing mission, Trump was asked if he took responsibility. He answered: “I don’t know anything about it.” The evidence supports him. Hegseth’s group chat included Vice President Vance, Secretary of State Rubio, Director of National Intelligence Gabbard, CIA Director Ratcliffe – but not the President.

Similarly, the Wall Street Journal reported last month that Trump “screamed at aides for hours” after learning that two airmen were downed in Iran, and then the unnamed “aides kept the president out of the [war] room … because they believed his impatience wouldn’t be helpful” during the “stressful time” of planning the rescue.

Last October, a House oversight committee issued its report on the Biden administration, claiming that it had revealed not “just a cover-up,” but “the biggest political scandal in American presidential history.” Investigators alleged that while Americans saw the president’s “decline with their own eyes,” his “inner circle sought to deceive the public, cover-up his decline, and took unauthorized executive actions.” The report was subtitled: “Decline, Delusion, and Deception in the White House.”

Voters deserve to read its sequel before midterms.

A version of this commentary appeared in the Richmond Times-Dispatch on May 5 and 8, 2026.

A Richmond Times-Dispatch reader emailed me yesterday. I responded:

Dear —–,

Thank you for taking the time to read and respond to another of my commentaries. I am, however, confused by some  of your statements. 

You wrote: “For you to say that some of Trump’s comments have had a negative effect on the stock market is misguided. Under Trump, the stock market has performed better than ever, reaching all-time highs.”

I did not mention the stock market. Perhaps you were responding to more than one commentary yesterday and got confused  which one I wrote?

You also go into some length about what “a colossal waste of time” it would be for the Democrats to impeach Trump.

I did not mention impeachment. The process of removal for a president unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office is section 4 of the 5th Amendment. That process can only be initiated by the vice-president and must be approved by a majority of the cabinet. No Democrat would be involved.

The topic of my commentary was cognitive decline. You responded in part by describing Biden “physically” as a “mess” because he walked with a “shuffle” and sometimes “tripped” or “fell.” These are not symptoms of cognitive decline.  In contrast, you say Trump has “the stamina of the Energizer Bunny.”  Setting aside the fact that in recent months Trump has been photographed and videotaped nodding off at four events, physical stamina is not evidence of cognitive stability. 

You are probably aware that Trump’s father was diagnosed with dementia in his 80s. His physical stamina did not decline at the same rate, so in order to maintain their business, family members created a pretend office where he spent his time believing he was still in charge and issuing orders. Trump seems to be following in his father’s “Energize Bunny” footsteps rather than Biden’s “shuffle.”

When you do address the topic of cognitive decline, you apply different criteria for each president. You select statements that “stretch common sense and credibility” from Biden but not from Trump. Are you not equally concerned that Trump recently claimed to have ended a war between Cambodia and Armenia? Or that he keeps telling a fabricated story about his uncle having taught the Unabomber? Or his digressions about pens and drapes? 

Examples aside, your implicit claim is: Biden’s cognitive decline was worse, therefore Trump is not suffering from relevant cognitive decline.

That’s not an argument. 

Sincerely, 

Chris 

PS. Rereading, I see that Trump mentioned the stock market while confusing Greenland and Iceland. You somehow mistook his statement for my statement, and then you posed a counter argument to his statement, while also somehow missing the point of the quotation. Please don’t email me again. 

Last November I started obsessively researching Marvel’s Hate-Monger – a literal clone of Adolf Hitler reshaping the country through racial hatred. The supervillain seemed to meet his final death in 1980 – before he was resurrected yet again in 2000. The new 21st-century American fascist promotes a war against Black people and the mass murder of “illegal aliens” costing “you your homes, your children’s education and hope for the future.”

Any of this look familiar?

Before a further deep dive, here’s a quiz: How many times did Marvel kill Hitler?

During the first sporadic reign (1963-1980) of the Hate-Monger Hitlers, the answer is six: he was burnt alive in a Berlin bunker, shot by his own hate-crazed soldiers, blown-up by his own Nazi scientist, suffocated in outer space, burnt alive as he fell from a launching rocket, and burnt semi-alive when his salvaged brain was destroyed in a laboratory fire. And finally his fate-worse-than-death: imprisonment inside the Red Skull’s new but nonfunctional Cosmic Cube.

With Hitler trapped and narratively forgotten, writer-artist John Byrne appropriated the name “the Hate Monger” (minus the hyphen) for an unrelated villain in Fantastic Four #278-284 (May-November 1985) — whom Jim Shooter immediatley killed in Secret Wars II #2 (August 1985), revealing that he “was merely a human construct” created by Psycho-Man (whose machinery inflicts “fear” and “doubt” along with “hate”). Byrne uses his Hate Monger to briefly transform Invisible Girl into the supervillain “Malice, the Mistress of Hate” — which then motivates her to become “Invisible Woman” permanently. Byrne makes the implicit argument that her experience as Malice, while invasive and destructive, also allows her to grow by accessing her unprocessed anger from years of sexist mistreatment (see Fantastic Four #1-277).

Despite the continuity error it embeds, Roy Thomas, Dann Thomas, and Rich Buckler re-reconfirmed Hitler’s 1945 bunker death in The Saga of the Sub-Mariner #5 (March 1989), repeating dialogue from both Hank Chapman’s Young Men #24 (December 1953) and Roy Thomas’s What If? #4 (August 1977).

With Adolf Hitler now having always been dead and his Hate-Monger guise left unused for a decade, Fabian Nicieza again appropriated the name (again dropping the hyphen) for his and Steve Epting’s Avengers #341-2 (November-December 1991), Marvel’s response to the Los Angeles police beating of Rodney King. Unlike the original Hitler incarnations, Nicieza and Epting’s Hate Monger is a supernatural entity who literally feeds off hate. Nicieza also reprises the KKK-based supervillain group the Sons of the Serpent (which I discuss here, here, and here). Unlike Byrne’s implicit argument about the curative nature of anger for a long-mistreated female character, Nicieza argues that anger for a Black man is wholly destructive, requiring the adolescent superhero Rage to cease being Rage in order to defeat Hate. Overtness is the allegory’s most impressive quality.

Finally, after a two-decade hiatus (three years longer than his previous seventeen-year span), Dan Jurgens and Andy Kubert resurrected the Hate-Mongering Adolf Hitler in Captain America #25-27 (January-March 2000).

Apparently influenced by Byrne’s and Nicieza’s indifference to Lee’s hyphen and “the,” Jurgens’ iteration is simply “Hate Monger.” Unlike Carmine Infantino and Arvell Jones in 1980 and George Perez in 1977, Kubert significantly alters Jack Kirby’s 1963 costume design.

While the now defining pointed hood and holster remain, the chest emblem has migrated to the belt buckle, his hands are gloved, his arms and knees are armored, and he wears a cape with a raised collar and goggles with red, round lenses. Kubert also includes what appear to be business slacks and shoes – perhaps evoking the look of Klan members who wore their robes over street clothes, or perhaps hinting at Hitler’s non-supervillain wardrobe underneath.

The closing image in #25, the character’s first appearance in the story arc, echoes the next issue’s opening panels: five white pointed hoods with yellow cross emblems on the foreheads displayed in front of six Nazi flags. “Symbols of hate,” writes Jurgens’ narrator, “verification of man’s potential for evil.” Though the German Nazi Party and the U.S. KKK have no direct historical connection, Jurgens and Kurbert juxtapose them as equivalents.

The opening of #26 also demonstrates Jurgens and Kurbert’s interest in the role of iconography, which they expand at the level of plot. Shortly after Jurgens’ narrator identifies images of Hitler as “icons for a warped tomorrow,” Hate Monger spraypaints Captain America’s shield with a swastika.

The cover of #26 instead features the word “HATE” in dripping green letters, perhaps to avoid placing a swastika so prominently. Captain America also appears to prioritize removing the swastika (“My flag against yours”) rather than stopping a biological attack — before Jurgens’ plotting reveals the two actions are unified (the burning heat of the missile forces Hate Monger to relinquish the shield, while only coincidentally removing the paint, allowing Captain America to use the shield to free Falcon who then diverts the missiles).

The plot element may have been inspired by Roger McKenzie and Sal Buscema’s Captain America #231-236 (March-August 1979), where Captain America is brainwashed into supporting the white supremacist neo-Nazi group National Force who also paint a swastika on his shield:

When the paint dissolves and he recognizes his original shield, Captain America returns to his normal self.

Whether Hate Monger is “truly a reincarnation of Adolf Hitler,” Jurgens’ Fury replies: “One o’ several that’s been churned out.” The term “reincarnation” differs at least conatively from both Stan Lee’s 1963 “doubles” and Peter Gill’s 1980 “clones.” The nature of Marvel time has evolved ambiguously too. When Jurgens’ Fury recounts Fantastic Four #21 (1963), the phrase ”years ago when I was C.I.A.” seems to ground the events in the early 1960s while also implying a length of time shorter than 37 years. Jurgens also reprises Jack Kirby’s Nazi scientist and Gills’ only partially coherent retcon: “Wasn’t really the man hisself, but a replacement body grown by Arnim Zola.”

Depending on the meaning of “the man hisself,” Jurgen contradicts Gills whose Hate-Monger understood himself to be Adolf Hitler. Jurgens’ Fury doesn’t believe it, which Jurgens makes implicit through the divided references in “He might just succeed where ol’ Adolf failed!” and “Biggest shoveler of hate and racist garbage this side of Hitler himself.” Jurgen’s Hate Monger doesn’t seem to beleive it either, since he intends to “make the whole world the way it should be” because “Such was the vision of Der Fuehrer – and such is the vision of Hate Monger.”

Kubert visually reinforces the division by placing a photograph of Hitler in the background as the Hate Monger speaks: “The world grows sicker by the day, infected by the mongrel species whose mere existence – drags down the superior race!” This Hate Monger presumably shares Adolf Hitler’s face, but Jurgens and Kubert leave him masked.

Though his Hate Monger reiterates eugenics rhetoric (“the one, supreme race finally takes its righteous place in the world!”), Jurgens emphasizes a specifically anti-Black prejudice by kidnapping the “most accomplished African-American military man this country ever produced” to frame him: “How tragic, that a Black military man will lose control and launch an attack against other nations, igniting a race war – and discrediting his people for all time. Or so it would appear when our well-placed evidence is discovered.”

Jurgens’ General McAllister Groves, C.O. of the Joint Chiefs, is likely based on General Colin Powell, the first Black chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who retired in 1993 but remained prominent in national politics in the late 1990s (and then served as Secretary of Defense in the Bush administration the following year).

Kubert also adds U.S. slavery imagery to the Nazi mix by drawing the General in iron chains. John Buscema drew similar chains thirty years earlier when the KKK-inspired Sons of the Serpent captured Black Panther in Avengers #74 (March 1970).

Hate Monger’s pair of anthrax-loaded missiles (a variation on Gary Friedrich’s “germ bomb” from Nick Fury, Agent of SHIELD #9 in 1969) likely reflects recent biochemical terrorist scares, including the arrest of former neo-Nazi Larry Wayne Harris for possession of biochemical weapons materials in 1995. Jurgens does not reprise the Hate-ray. While previous writers have ignored the question, Jurgens characterizes Hate Monger’s followers as “outcasts,” whose “most common trait” is “a relentless hate they foster to cover their own deficiencies.” Placing the Hate Monger’s complex in Idaho, a state that voted for every Republican presidential candidate since 1968 and was 91% White and .4% Black in 2000, also suggests mid-western prejudice.

When a SHIELD leader explains that “America ain’t perfect” and acknowledges that “she’s still got loads of troubles and the biggest of ‘em is racism,” he lists “the usual rhetoric and church bombings” as the primary challenges. The reference is significant. While the history of attacks on churches largely begins in the 1950s and expands into the 1960s in reaction to the civil rights movement, it peaks in the 1990s, with thirty-five burnings from January 1995 to June 1996, the month the Church Arson Prevention Act passed unanimously in both houses of Congress. Jurgens also uses the character of Falcon to highlight the role of race: “A skeptic might suggest you want a Black man there to help smoke the bad guys out,” which the SHIELD leader agrees is “pretty much true.” Despite these racial acknowledgements, Jurgens’ narrator presents Captain America in exclusively non-racialized terms: “He’s dedicated his life to freedom, individual liberty and the order of a democratic society.”

Unlike (almost all) previous incarnations, Jurgens’ unmasked Hitler also escapes alive. When Captain America finds his costume floating in the river, he calls them “Empty robes,” reiterating the KKK influence, and shouts, “We’ll get you, Hate Monger! I swear it!”

That vow proves surprisingly false, because the next iteration of the supervillain produces a new narrative thread, and (to my best understanding of this already contradictory narrative progression) leaves this 2000 thread dangling.

Dan Jurgens, now scripter and penciller, reprised “Hate-Monger” (the hyphen returns but not “the”) a little more than a year later in Captain America #45-48 (September-December 2001). The September cover date is dramatic, but #45 was likely released in July, #46 in August, and #47 and #48 were in production before September 11, 2001 — and so their depicted content has no relationship to the World Trade Center attack.

Jurgens largely repeats Kubert’s previous redesign, though the cape is now red, the belt gray, the legs enclosed in metal, and the eyes glowing. The last two details prove significant.

When Jurgens’ Fury once again recounts his first encounter with “H-M” “years ago” in Fantastic Four #21 (1963), he reports that “Adolf Hitler was underneath” the mask, which Jurgens’ Sub-Mariner doubts: “Surely not the true Hitler! Just as this one cannot be!” Captain America confirms that his strength is now “more than human.” Though Jurgens gives Falcon a retconning aside, “When we all tangled with Hate-Monger a few months back I kind of figured he was different,” this Hate-Monger differs from Jurgens’ previous iteration. According to Jurgens’ Red Skull, this is “a new and improved version,” who “works for” him.

Apparently, when the Red Skull last used the Cosmic Cube, it merged with his “deepest thoughts,” his “memories and experiences,” including his “time spent with Hitler – and his fiery speeches of conquest and domination,” which the Cube coalesced “into a form of living energy and emotion,” “the personification of my dream — of Hitler’s dream!!”

These events seem to have no relationship with the Cosmic Cube that Peter Gills’ Red Skull constructed to imprison Hitler in Super-Villian Team-Up #16-17 (May-June 1980). Rather than being Hitler or a clone or double or reincarnation or mind-essence of Hitler, this twenty-first-century Hate-Monger is the embodiment of another person’s memory of him. Still, when unmasked, Jurgens draws him literally shining through.

Jurgens may also reference Bill Mantlo’s Peter Parker, The Spectacular Spider-Man #13–15 (December 1977 – February 1978) when Captain America calls his yet-unseen enemy “Evil Incarnate” — the phrase Mantlo’s Man-Beast Hate-Monger uses to describe himself. Or that might just be generic superhero rhetoric. A more significant reference may be to SS General and later Nazi apologist and historical revisionist Paul Hausser, unless Jurgens’s use of the last name “Hauser” for his Hate-Monger’s human disguise is merely as a generically German name.

The more significant shift is toward anti-immigrant rhetoric.

Hauser presents himself as a union representative warning a group of strikers that the corporation they work for “has shipped in a truckload of workers from Mexico,” “Illegal aliens,” “not one of them a tax-paying, voting citizen of this great country,” who will “work for pennies and stab us in the back while they’re doing it,” costing “you your homes, your children’s education and hope for the future.” A network news show soon announces: “one of the worst hate crimes ever reported,” “dozens of white men brutally attacked and killed numerous […] Mexican school-teachers here to visit, study and learn from their American counterparts.” The murders, “pharmacists, architects, retail employees and other common people,” “inexplicably believe themselves to be union employees of the Trident Corporation.”

The goal is to trigger “war along the border” with Mexico and the “complete and total destabilization of America.” Jurgens’ Fury likens the destruction to World War II: “Ain’t much that reminds me o’ London during the Blitz – but this comes close. At least five of these backwater Louisiana towns have gone up in flames. Burned by their own people.”

While the White characters are under the control of Hate-Monger, the Black characters appear to be responding only defensively: “Your kind started this! You burned our business – our churches – our homes!” They accuse Fury of being White, “Just like the ones who started this! Ever since that stranger showed up last night, they’ve been after us!” Since they don’t know anything further about the “stranger,” their impulse to “Kill him!” and “Tear him apart!” are not caused by Hate-Monger but are their actual personal reactions.

Despite the racial implications, Jurgens soon expands and alters the nature of the influence. When Hate-Monger disguised as Hauser next addresses a crowd, he announces: “At last, each and every one of you has come to recognize your true enemies! They’re those who keep you down, preventing you and your people from achieving their ultimate goals – and rightful place as the supreme race!” But Jurgens reveals on the following page that the crowd is diverse and subdivided into identity groups, each hearing a different message spoken by a seemingly different Hauser.

To a new group of approving Black men who call him “brother,” he appears to be a Black man: “they need servants to do the crap jobs so they placate you with a little bit of food, a TV and a low-paying job – just enough to keep you from seeing the truth.” To a group of Asian men, he appears to be an Asian man: “each and every one of you – is being ripped off while inferior races steal what is rightfully yours!” To a group of White women, he appears to be a red-haired White woman: “The time for talk and compromise is over! The time for revolution is at hand! Join me in taking America for us!”

Jurgens implies that all identity groups are inherently susceptible to out-group hatred. He uses his supervillains to reflect U.S. tension over multiculturalism, a term coined in 1965 and which grew into common use in the 1980s and 1990s. Jurgens’ Red Skull voices the conservative argument that multiculturalism weakens society: “I have no reason to destroy America. Not when your pathetically diverse, patchwork country is capable of doing so – all by itself, from within. Your nation is a cauldron of hate waiting to erupt. A cesspool of violent thoughts looking for release. It’s a fuse extending from one coast to the other, waiting for someone to ignite the flame.” Jurgens also selects rural Louisiana for a hate-crimes setting. The state was considered the second most diverse in 2000, with a Black population of 32.5%, more than double the 12.5% national average.

Despite overtly opposing the Red Skull’s rhetoric, Jurgen’s Captain America voices a contradictory combination of political speech: “I look around this room and see people of every race from every background imaginable! If this country stands for anything, it’s that anyone can succeed. Not only do we allow for diversity — but we embrace it because the whole is greater than the sum of the parts!” After the observation that diversity exists, “anyone can succeed” evokes a common conservative talking point used to counter accusations that prejudice remains an obstacle for minority groups. Then “the whole is greater,” a paraphrase of Aristotle that President Obama would later evoke in a 2008 speech (“this nation is more than the sum of its parts”), instead places individuality second to group identity at a national level. Ultimately, it is his “love of America and “his respect for those who defended America in years past,” rather than hatred for its enemies, that enables Jurgens’ Captain America to succeed. When Hate-Monger links himself to “thousands of minds, pooled as one unstoppable force,” he is destroyed by their conversion to Captain America’s utopic vision.

This may or may not count as Adolf Hitler’s seventh death.

Either way, it’s not his last.

Next stop: The Punisher.

If you’re looking for the short answer, it’s 1965 and/or 1967.

The answer I offer in The Color of Paper is less precise:

“Until the late 1960s, the skin of Black characters was typically rendered with equal parts yellow, magenta, and cyan, which on off-white paper produces gray-brown or taupe, including, for example, Gabe Jones in Marvel’s Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos #1 (May 1963).”

Since CMYK, the standard coloring system for comic book until roughly the mid-1990s, used codes to designate precise percentage-sized dot combinations, I added that “before 1970 Marvel colorists assigned Black characters a gray-brown or taupe skin color coded Y2R2B2 (25% yellow, 25% magenta, and 25% cyan on off-white paper),” and after 1970 they used “Marvel’s new standard for Black skin: YR3B2 (100% yellow, 50% magenta, and 25% cyan).”

That new combination, though more difficult to produce consistently, created a more naturalistic skin color. I assume that was the reason for the change. It was not due to a change in technology. CMYK coloring had maintained essentially the same four-plate process since its invention in 1879. Some comics companies did use (or tried to, since results varied) a wider range of percentages (adding 70% to the standard 25%, 50%, and 100%) for a total of 124 instead of 64 possible combinations (including the unmarked paper). But that later change occurred primarily in the 1980s, and Marvel’s late 1960s YR3B2 brown skin didn’t use any 70% colors. The change also wasn’t an innovation. Jackie Ormes had been using various CMYK browns to represent Black skin since the 1950s.

Knowing exactly when Marvel made that change could also clarify why. Since “the late 1960s” and “before 1970” are vague, here’s a fuller answer.

For Black Panther’s first appearance in Fantastic Four #52 (July 1966), the colorist (a role that was never credited while Stan Lee was editor but was probably most often Stan Goldberg in the 60s), his skin is taupe – or what Zoe D. Smith calls “straight up gray” in her groundbreaking 2020 essay “4 Colorism.”

But in an unpublished version of the cover (which included Kirby’s earlier less skin-covering costume), his face appears brown.

The published cover of Avengers #52 (November 1968) also includes a partially face-exposing mask, and his skin again appears brown.

So why brown skin on covers but taupe skin inside?

Goldberg explained in a 2002 Alter Ego interview:

“We had a little more leeway with covers, because the printing was better on them than on interior pages.” But because interior art was “printed on cheap paper,” the “colors would come through from the other side of the page, and the paper wasn’t white, either. We couldn’t get a white background on the page. The colors would sometimes be way off from what we wanted.”

That means the question, “When did Marvel stop coloring Black people gray?”, needs to be divided too.

Gabe Jones is a good test case.

When the character premiered in Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos #1 (May 1963), he appeared taupe in the interior art (shown above), but because his figure is so small on the cover, I’m hesitant to draw a conclusion about the coloring.

But he is more clearly a taupe shade on the cover of Sgt. Fury #2 (July 1963).

And on the cover of Sgt. Fury #12 (November 1964).

Because his face is typically small, it’s difficult to pinpoint the exact moment of change, but certainly by Sgt. Fury #18 (May 1965) his skin is rendered a fuller brown.

He continues to be colored brown on his cover appearances for the rest of the run, including for Sgt. Fury #23 (October 1965).

Which was published the same month as Strange Tales #137 (October 1965), where he debuted as a contemporary character in the new series Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.E.I.L.D. His skin more clearly appears brown on that cover.

Despite a possible taupe aberration on Strange Tales #140 (January 1966), I think it’s safe to say that Marvel stopped coloring Black people gray on its covers in 1965.

But what about interior coloring?

The transition must be after Black Panther’s taupe-colored debut in Fantastic Four #52 (July 1966). It’s also after Avengers #32 (September 1966), which introduced a taupe Bill Foster.

But when Robbie Robertson first appeared in Amazing Spider-Man #51 (August 1967), he skin was colored brown. Same for his second appearances in #52 the following month.

That suggests that the transition was either that month or earlier – except that Gabe Jones is still taupe in Strange Tales #159 (August 1967).

As he was taupe in #157 (June 1967) too.

Though now brown on the cover, he also appeared taupe inside Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos #45 (August 1967).

But then in #46 (September 1967), he’s brown for the first time.

And again in #47:

But as Zoe Smith discusses, coloring errors increased, since in the same issue the character also appears green:

Despite those errors, I think it’s safe to conclude that Marvel fully stopped coloring Black characters gray in 1967, completing the transition it began in 1965.

President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 in July of that year. Marvel’s first brown-skinned Black character appeared less than a year later. The motivation wasn’t technological.

After posting the above, I received an email from Ray Cornwall.

Ray wrote:

“Subject: Your blog post on Marvel coloring black characters

“I think it’s a really interesting question as to when Marvel changed the coloring of black characters.

“I immediately thought of Robbie Robertson, as you did. But you used the digital coloring (I’m assuming either in a recent printing or from Marvel Unlimited). At some point in the early 2000s, Marvel put out DVDs of scans of main Marvel series up until about 2000 or so. I think the scans were of comics owned by editor Ralph Macchio, but I don’t know.

“Here’s the pages from those scans: clearly, Robbie is brown. Hope this helps. I wonder if the difference in coloring black characters was due to the actual colorist of the comic rather than a company policy. Stan Goldberg supposedly did most of the coloring of comics until 1967, according to Mark Evanier. So it’s possible that the taupe coloring was done by Stan Goldberg, and another colorist- possible Sol Brodsky or Marie Everett- changed the coloring scheme. But I have no proof.”

I responded:

“Thank so much for this, Ray. Except for a handful of cases, I only had access to the digital versions — which I’ve found are surprisingly trustworthy for repeating original color code choices, including even overt mistakes. But of course the digital effect is always very different. 

“As far as who was making the skin color choices: I’m guessing Stan Lee. As editor, he of course reviewed and approved all pages, and according to Stan Goldberg interviews, he was pretty hands-on. The taupe and the later switch to brown were also company-wide, so Lee would have been in a position to orchestrate that. 

“Would it be okay if I quoted your email and posted your scans as an addendum to my blog post?”

Ray responded:

“You have full permission to use my post. It’s an interesting argument! Best wishes.”

Here are scans of the three panels juxtaposed with their digital recreations:

Note how Robinson’s skin color is different in each panel, further evidence of the inconsistency of CMYK printing. The color is the same in the three digital versions.

And here are the full-page scans for context:

Spider-Man #51

Spider-Man #52

Thank you, Ray.

Trump hates the media, and he has instilled reflexive contempt for news agencies into his followers. His concern isn’t for accurate reporting. His motives are personal, which his lawsuits make explicit.

After losing reelection in 2020, Trump sued CNN for $475 million, claiming that references to his court-rejected allegations of mass voter fraud as “the Big Lie” defamed him. He lost the suit, and late last month, a second appeals court refused to rehear the case, leaving in place Judge Singhal’s 2023 decision to dismiss because “Trump alleges no false statements of fact.” If a statement isn’t false, it can’t be defamatory.

While running for reelection again in 2024, Trump sued ABC for stating he had been “found liable for rape,” after he had been found liable for “sexual abuse” of Jean Carroll. Trump had already lost a nearly identical lawsuit against Carroll in 2023 when Judge Kaplan clarified that “the New York Penal Law definition of rape is limited to penile penetration,” but “Mr. Trump in fact did ‘rape’ Ms. Carrol as that term commonly is used and understood.”

Rather than face a sitting president in court, ABC settled after Trump won reelection. Trump then attacked more news agencies during his first year back in office.

In June, he sued Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal for $10 billion after it reported that Trump’s signature and a sexual doodle appeared in a 2003 birthday card for Jeffrey Epstein. The organization responded: “In an affront to the First Amendment, the President of the United States brought this lawsuit to silence a newspaper for publishing speech that was subsequently proven true by documents released by Congress to the American public.” The case was dismissed last week.

In September, Trump sued the New York Times for $15 billion for multiple statements, including quotations from Trump’s former chief of staff John Kelly warning that “in his opinion, Mr. Trump met the definition of a fascist, would govern like a dictator if allowed, and had no understanding of the Constitution or the concept of rule of law.” Judge Merryday dismissed the complaint because of its “tedious and burdensome aggregation of prospective evidence,” its “rehearsal of tendentious arguments,” and its “protracted recitation and explanation of legal authority putatively supporting the pleader’s claim.” Trump refiled, and the case is ongoing.

Trump also used his presidential powers to expand his media attacks. Last May, he issued an executive order “to cease Federal funding for NPR and PBS,” because he claimed the two news agencies were “Biased Media,” violating the “principles of impartiality” to not “contribute to or otherwise support any political party.” The order included no evidence.

Late last month, Judge Moss declared the order unconstitutional because it “singles out two speakers and, on the basis of their speech, bars them from all federally funded programs,” and “the First Amendment does not tolerate viewpoint discrimination and retaliation of this type.”

Trump has used his administration to expand his attacks too. Last October, Secretary of Defense Hegseth issued new rules limiting press access to the Pentagon by requiring the Secretary’s prior approval for news reports. Roughly fifty journalists from nearly all news agencies, including Fox News and Newsmax, walked out rather than sign the new document. Only One America News Network remained.

Late last month, Judge Friedman ruled that “the undisputed evidence reflects the Policy’s true purpose and practical effect: to weed out disfavored journalists … and replace them” with “individuals and outlets who had expressed ideological agreement with and support for the Trump administration …. This is viewpoint discrimination, full stop. The Policy thus violated the First Amendment.”

In 2016, before Trump started calling unfavorable news reports “fake news,” Pew Research reported that 76% of Americans trusted national news organizations. That trust dropped to 56% by last October. According to Gallup, 30% of Republicans had “no trust at all” in the media when Trump began campaigning in 2015. Republican distrust has since doubled to 62%.

Trump doesn’t care about freedom of speech or freedom of the press. He doesn’t want unbiased media. He wants media biased overwhelmingly in his favor. His doctrine is the same as Italy’s in 1929 when state-controlled newspapers printed a Ten Commandments for the prime minister’s followers.

The list included: “Mussolini is always right.”

[A version of this commentary first appeared in the Richmond Times-Dispatch on April 7 and 15, 2026.]

1.

This is an image of [circle all that apply]

a) Marilyn Monroe

b) Rose Loomis

c) Norma Jeane Mortenson

2.

This image was created by [circle all that apply]

d) Chris Gavaler

e) Andy Warhol

f) Eugene Kornman

g) Henry Hathaway

h) Marilyn Monroe

i) Norma Jeane Mortenson

3.

This is an image of a white cis woman. [True/False]

EXTRA CREDIT: Answer the same questions for the following images:

ANSWERS:

1. a, b, and c: The image is of Marilyn Monroe, Rose Loomis, and Norma Jeane Mortenson.

2. d, e, g, h, i, j: The image is by Chris Gavaler, Eugene Kornman, Henry Hathaway, Marilyn Monroe, and Norma Jeane Mortenson, but not Andy Warhol.

3. False: The gender and racial identities of the person in the image are indeterminate.

Explanations for those answers are complicated.

I devote a chapter, “Embodying Images” in The Color of Paper: Representing Race in the Comics Medium (Ohio State University Press, February 2026), exploring them.

Here’s an excerpt:

“Andy Warhol’s 1962 silkscreen Marilyn is a semi-naturalistic image of a nonfictional subject (Marilyn Monroe) recognizably derived from an indirect source of the subject (a photograph of Marilyn Monroe). The source is Eugene Kornman’s publicity photograph of Monroe performing the character Rose Loomis from Henry Hathaway’s 1953 film Niagara. If authorial intent is determining, then the highly naturalistic image represents a fictional subject (Rose Loomis) recognizably derived from a direct source who is not the subject (Marilyn Monroe). If Warhol’s intent is determining, then he created a representation of Monroe from a representation of Loomis – evidence that Kornman’s photograph is also simultaneously of Monroe. Warhol, as a viewer, would have perceived the image as representing Monroe when he selected it. The sequence of intentions and perceptions is further complicated if Monroe is understood to be a fictional subject performed by actor Norma Jeane Mortenson, making Mortenson both Monroe’s creator and a direct source. Warhol’s image then involves an authorial cascade: Mortenson creates Monroe; Mortenson as Monroe with Hathaway create Loomis; Kornman creates an image of Loomis; and Warhol uses that image of Loomis – which is simultaneously an image of both Mortenson and Monroe – to create an image of Monroe.”

The image at the top of this post is different. I drew it using Kornman’s photograph, which produces a similar cascade, while removing Warhol and inserting myself. The Color of Image includes Kornman’s photograph as an illustration. I had wanted to include Warhol’s silkscreen too, but its copyright is more complicated (though given the above discussion, it should be covered by fair use — which is a whole other philosophical quagmire).

I also analyze about another dozen (less complicated) examples, first dividing source (which in film is the individual physically present when the image is made) and subject (which in film is often an actor AND the fictional character the actor is portraying). There are plenty of exceptions and complications, but in comics, images tend to be only “of” fictional subjects — which reveals another layer of complexity when it comes to identities.

Here’s another excerpt on Monroe:

“The Monroe-related subjects and sources share multiple qualities. Mortenson, Monroe, and Loomis all appear to be the same height, the same age, and they all appear to be White cis women. More precisely, they all may be inferred to share those qualities based on their appearances. Since Loomis’s height is indeterminate in the photograph and, while Loomis’ gender appearance is female, nothing in Kornman’s photograph or Hathaway’s film addresses the character’s racial and ethnoracial background or birth-assigned sex. Because Monroe’s body is Mortenson’s body, neither is simply an image or set of images. Loomis, however, exists only as images, and so only as appearances and the inferences those appearances produce in viewers.”

Loomis is fictional, and all fictional characters are revisable — including racially as when, for example, DC rebooted Lightning Lad in 2019.

But since reboots create new counterpart characters who are distinct from original characters, arguably nothing changes.

Retcons, however, reveal previously unknown facts — including facts about identity.

Here’s an example about gender:

When Science Police officer Shvaughn Erin appeared in Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes #241 (July 1978), the character appears to be and is narratively understood to be a cis woman, including when romantically involved with Legion leader Element Lad. But in Legion of Super-Heroes #25–36 (January–November 1992), Erin is revealed to be a trans woman taking a fantastical gender-affirming drug to shapeshift her body, which reverts to its previous state when the drug is no longer available.

DC has retconned ethnoracial identities too.

When introduced in Green Lantern #48 (January 1994) Kyle Rayner was the son of Maura Rayner, who was Irish, and Aaron Rayner, who Kyle never met. When retconned for Green Lantern: Rebirth (October 2004 – May 2005), Kyle learns that his father was secretly named Gabriel Vasquez and was Mexican-American. Kyle was featured on a highly criticized 2022 Hispanic Heritage Month variant cover.

While the practice of retconning gender and ethnoracial identities is relatively rare, such retcons are possible only because of the innate instability of gender and ethnoracial identities for fictional characters who are represented by visual images. They can all be retconned.

To the best of my knowledge, Niagara has not been remade or sequeled, so Rose Loomis still appears to be a white cis woman. But her presumed identities are only inferences based on appearance, and because gender and racial identities are not defined by appearance, hers remain necessarily indeterminate.

We’re more than three months into a second year of authoritarianism. I keep writing letters and op-eds, and my not-quite-daily memes have shifted to tracking Trump’s many many judicial losses, plus supporting Virginia’s redistricting amendment. It’s a long, slow, ugly fight. I’m not pretending my tiny online presence is anything but a drop in a vast political ocean – but it’s my drop and I’ll keep giving it.

Good luck, everybody.

It’s illegal for Trump to cancel federal grants to states because the states voted for Kamala Harris. Only an overtly authoritarian government would even attempt such an obvious violation of the Constitution.

Thank you, Judge Carter. This should be engraved on the Trump administration’s tombstone: “The government’s request is unprecedented and illegal.” No, the DoJ can’t seize state voting lists.

Trump’s having another bad week in the courts — including in Virginia. Turns out you can’t stop funding nearly completed wind farms just because you decided you hate wind farms. Only an authoritarian government would imagine otherwise.

Thank you, Judge Menendez, for imposing some basic First Amendment order on ICE agents in Minnesota.

Charlie Kirk was awful. He was not a good person. His ideas were a huge mistake.

Rosa Parks for MLK Day.

One year later. These campaign promises were obvious lies. Were his voters fooled, or did they not care?

Thank you to the Richmond Times-Dispatch for publishing my commentary this morning. I wrote it before yesterday’s murder of Alex Pretti and didn’t intend “weaponizing” to be so horrifically literal.

Snow day art. Any title suggestions?

Protest today, vigil on Sunday. My Virginia town is small but proudly active.

Another bad day in court for Donald Trump. As anyone who has read the Constitution knows, a president can’t make up new election rules.

Beginning last winter, Donald Trump began dismantling civil rights enforcement across the federal government and replacing it with targeted attacks that rewrite, reverse, or ignore civil rights legislation. The “Action Center” in the DoJ’s so-called Civil Rights Division undermines its own legally mandated mission. (Thanks to the Richmond Times-Dispatch for running a version of this op-ed last week).

Yet another big loss for Donald Trump. Turns out that ruling against the Trump administration isn’t “judicial misconduct.” Only an authoritarian regime could imagine otherwise.

Monday, February 2, 2026:

The Supreme Court just refused a Republican request to block California’s redistricting. (Are you as surprised as I am?)

This is the plan. This has always been the plan.

MAGA’s contorted logic for trying to block Virginia from matching Red state gerrymanders. The Virginia Referendum is in April. Then MAGA loses the House in the November Blue Wave.

For folks in my corner of Virginia, I hope to see you at the Rockbridge library tonight to learn more about the genocide in Gaza and what we can do to aid the victims.

Thanks once again to the Richmond Times-Dispatch for featuring my commentary this morning. The editor chooses the title — it’s from the final sentence of what is otherwise a straightforward list of verifiable facts. My first piece of hate mail already arrived in my inbox. I’ll add a paywalled link in the comments, the print version runs Sunday, and I’ll post Monday at my blog.

Boasberg, the judge Trump tried to remove for the “judicial misconduct” of ruling against him, ruled against him again. If a government violates the Constitution, then “it is up to the government to remedy of the wrong,” not prolong a “solution-less mire.”

Yet another loss for Trump: “arbitrary, capricious, unconstitutional, and unlawful.” Turns out you can’t cancel $600 million in public health grants to states just because they didn’t vote for you. Only an authoritarian government would try.

Which president was the most humane to unauthorized immigrants, Reagan, Bush, Obama, Biden, or Trump? The answer is overwhelmingly Reagan, followed by Bush and Biden. The cruelest had been Obama in his first term — surpassed now by Trump in his second. (A Brief History of Deporters-in-Chief)

Mark your calendar, Virginia. Early voting for the Redistricting Amendment starts March 6.

No, you can’t erase the fact that George Washington owned slaves. I’m having trouble even tracking all these judicial rebukes.

Trump’s Department of Education has fully backed down in the face of numerous lower court decisions temporarily blocking its anti-DEI requirements. On Wednesday, the government officially accepted those rulings, and the court permanently invalidated the anti-DEI policy that would have defunded all schools that did not comply.

I’m loving the understated snark in the SCOTUS tariffs decision. The in-fighting is entertaining too: even though Gorsuch, Barrett, Kagan, and Jackson side with Roberts, each adds their own contradictory reason why, and even though Thomas and Kavanaugh disagree, they also add contradictory reasons.

Great typo from my MAGA representative:

I love this image of a woman standing on a tyrant’s neck. (It also includes Virginia’s state seal.)

Another extraordinary judicial rebuke. Future historians will be amazed by how long it’s taking to move to criminal contempt.

There is no consistency, no guiding plan, no coherent process, not even a vague overarching principle like so-called “America first” which explicitly prohibits this kind of foreign intervention. He just says anything. He just does anything. And his MAGA base applauds, because whatever he says or does is their definition of what is good and right.

Another judge mocking the Trump administration: “if you don’t succeed, try, try again.” No matter how many times you try, you can’t block congress from inspecting ICE detention centers.

Sorry if you thought the tariffs ruling meant SCOTUS was rethinking their Trump rubber stamp, but at least we still get Sotomayor’s scathing dissents.

This judicial rebuke even includes Trump’s hilarious White House tweet calling himself KING. No, a president cannot dictate how a city handles car congestion.

Stop Trump from rigging the midterms, Virginia. Voting starts today.

Meanwhile in Florida: No, a governor can’t declare a civil rights group a “terrorist organization” just because he hates Muslims.

Thank you again, Richmond Times-Dispatch. Here’s why the current Virginia referendum is necessary to restore fairness to the midterm elections in November.

The November midterms are being decided right now in Virginia.

I love this ruling: literally EVERYTHING Lake did in the Trump administration was illegal and now void.

Trump is losing so consistently, it’s hard just to track all the rulings. No, you can’t “streamline” immigration appeals by systematically denying them all.

Voting for Virginia’s redistricting amendment started last Friday. The choice is simple: Vote yes and Democrats control Congress. Vote no and MAGA controls Congress. If you want details, keep reading. And please share.

Boasberg will be remembered as a judicial hero at this moment when U.S. democracy was collapsing into open authoritarianism. No, the president can’t open a criminal investigation into the Fed Chair just because he disagrees with the Fed Chair.

The court calls ICE statements “utterly meaningless and false.” It’s the third judicial slap in the last week.

My last Richmond Times-Dispatch commentary on Virginia’s redistricting amendment is available at my blog. The short version: voting yes prevents MAGA from rigging congress against the blue wave in November.

Yesterday’s decision striking down Kennedy’s anti-vaccination recommendations already made headlines, so I’m just selecting my favorite passage: Kennedy’s “nihilistic” defense “completely abandons the idea of objective fact.”

The Trump administration has been averaging three loses per week since I started tracking them again two months ago. The unaddressed question behind this one: WHY would any administration WANT to shut down consumer protections? Also, best line: “clearly erroneous interpretation.”

This is the THIRD time Trump has lost his defamation lawsuit against CNN. Bottom legal line: it’s not defamation if it’s not false. CNN said Trump’s claim that the 2020 election was stolen is a “big lie.” As little as I trust SCOTUS, I hope Trump appeals one last time.

Once again: the Fifth Amendment’s “due process rights apply to all persons in the United States, whether citizens or not.” Also, no, ICE can’t just disregard its own regulations because it feels like it. This is the Trump administration’s fourth loss this week.

I was going to take today off, but then I saw this First/Fifth Amendment bombshell dropped late yesterday. I tried to keep my excerpts to one page, but there’s just so much to note here. The Judge eviscerates the Trump administration for revoking press access to reporters who don’t report favorably about them.

No Kings is this Saturday! We have plenty planned for our little corner of Virginia. And wherever your are, I promise there will be a protest nearby. Meanwhile, for visual analysis fans out there, this week’s blog applies comics theory to protest image-texts.

A new week, a new Trump loss. This one gives the administration seven days to return Maria de Jesus Estrada Juarez who they illegally deported without a hearing and in direct violation of her DACA status.

The Trump-packed Supreme Court now allows police to “inflict gratuitous pain” on peaceful protestors in violation of the Fourth Amendment. It’s not enough, but at least we get another eloquent Sotomayor dissent.

Where’s your NO KINGS protest?

See you all soon.

If you were one of the 600 people who showed up at my small town’s big No Kings rally, you heard what I have to say about voting YES on Virginia’s redistricting referendum. Anyone else who’s interested, check out the blog link in the comments.

My new Facebook banner:

If you haven’t voted YES yet for the Virginia redistricting amendment, then you need to see some numbers.

SCOTUS hears arguments today for Trump’s stayed executive order ending birthright citizenship. This may be the clearest case ever presented to the Court — appropriately scheduled on April Fool’s Day. It should be unanimous, but I predict Alito will write a dissent, which Thomas will join. Here’s the explain-it-to-me-like-I’m-five version:

I have long given up caring whether Trump is an idiot, liar, or both. This isn’t even the biggest falsehood he told yesterday (his Iran speech came later), but it’s probably the most instantly verifiable. Essentially all of the Americas (AKA, “the New World”) have unrestricted birthright citizenship.

I took a brief break from tracking Trump’s court losses, but they just keep coming — including two on Tuesday. No, a president can’t defund PBS and NPR just because he doesn’t like them. And, no, a president can’t renovate the White House as though it were his private property. I especially enjoyed the judge’s exclamation point!

Another Trump loss released this week. His Border Patrol doesn’t care about the law: due process violations, unjustified detainments, racial profiling, falsified documentation. They’re just thugs.

And yet another pair of judicial losses for Trump, both from Friday. No, you can’t force states to turn over racial data for college admissions. And, no, you can’t issue subpoenas for a baseless investigation into the Fed Chair just because you don’t like the Fed Chair — even if you ask twice. That’s five losses in five days. Fortunately for Trump, courts don’t issue rulings on weekends.

You may have heard, there’s an election going on right now in Virginia?

Raise your hand if you’ve already voted YES. Thank you!

Raise your hand if you haven’t yet voted. Not a problem. But listen up.

There’s crazy misinformation out there about this referendum. I’ve seen MAGA-paid flyers stealing Obama’s face and telling lies about Jim Crow.

Here’s what you need to know. This is the best way we have to stop Donald Trump.

Vote as though a fascist president is rigging Congress to keep his loyalists in power. Because that is exactly what is happening.

This time last year, no state was going to redraw any maps. Then Trump pressured Texas, Texas folded, and a half dozen other MAGA states followed. When Florida is done, MAGA will have flipped a dozen seats in Congress.

And that’s without a single voter casting a ballot. MAGA doesn’t do referendums.

In California, in Virginia, voters decide. And if our referendum passes, we will almost but not quite match the number of flipped MAGA seats. We are just trying to claw up to an even playing field. That’s it.

And after the next census, Virginia automatically reverts back to the bipartisan commission that I and many many others fought hard to pass in 2021.

Now let’s be clear: this is a stupid way to run a democracy.

This country needs an anti-gerrymandering law. It needs a constitutional amendment permanently ending the practice everywhere all at once. That’s not happening right now. It’s definitely not happening before November. The Trump-packed Supreme Court has given their blessing to gerrymandering. It’s legal. It’s constitutional. And MAGA is in full force.

We have two options: vote yes, or hand Congress to Trump loyalists. Which one do you think is better for democracy?

We need a House that will keep the executive branch in check. We need oversight.

The reason these people are dead isn’t just ICE, it isn’t just Donald Trump. It’s the failure of people like Ben Cline. We need a Congress that will hold the president responsible for his actions.

Voting yes is how we get there.

Now some misinformation isn’t coming from MAGA. I’ve heard anti-Trump voters say this referendum doesn’t matter, there’s a blue wave coming in November, the 4 new seats aren’t needed.

I have bad news. Yes, in the past, the party out of power flipped a lot of seats. In 2018, Trump’s first midterm, Democrats flipped 40 seats. And Trump is even more unpopular now than he was then. Polling shows Democrats headed in with a 5-point lead. And that should be more than enough. But it’s not.

When red states redrew their maps in 2020, they wiped out most of the swing districts. This next election will be decided by roughly a dozen races. Whichever party wins the House, they will have a majority in the single digits. Probably the low single digits.

Four seats from Virginia? Yeah. That could make or break Congress.

And it gets worse. The Trump-packed Supreme Court is about to overthrow the 1964 Voter Rights Act. They are dismantling the civil rights movement. That means MAGA will be allowed to gerrymander at least another dozen seats.

No one knows when that decision will land. But we do know: Every seat is essential. Every vote is essential. There’s no room for “they go low, we go high.” There’s no middle ground left. It’s fight or bow to a fascist king.

You got a flyer, a button? Look at the Virginia state seal. This is our flag. A woman standing on a tyrant’s chest. The Latin translates: “Thus always to tyrants.” 

Or, more simply: “No kings!”

Hold them up. Let’s see them. Great.

Now take out your phone. Open your camera. Take a picture of that symbol in your own hand. Borrow a neighbor’s, take turns. Take the picture.

Now send it to five people. Friends, family, colleagues, you decide. And you tell them you voted yes and you ask them to vote yes too. This is a personal request. Because this election is personal. Trump is hurting people. This is our responsibility, not just as Americans, as human beings, to stop him.

Polls reopen Monday morning. If you live in town, head to the middle school. If you’re in the county, head to the county building on Main. If you’re 17 and turn 18 by election day November 3, you get to vote too.

We have till April 21 to save our country. Keep working, keep fighting. Thank you.

Now here’s a version of the same speech but with info graphics and way too many numbers.

Look at the math. Red states started the decade by gerrymandering a 16-seat advantage.

Now new red-state gerrymanders have flipped an additional 9 congressional seats. Two blue states have flipped only 6. Florida is in the process of another gerrymander, widening the MAGA advantage from 3 to 7. If Virginia’s referendum passes, the difference drops to 3.

Do 4 seats matter? Yes. According to Cook Political Report, Democrats are expected to win 212 seats. They need 218 for a majority. Control will come down to 17 toss-ups districts, which means the entire election is a toss-up.

And that’s after calculating in the expected 5-point blue wave in the national popular vote.

If the referendum passes, the Democrats’ projection rises to 216, only 2 seats short of a majority.

Democrats will need to win just 2 of the 17 toss-ups — but those toss-ups may vanish. The Trump-packed Supreme Court is poised to overthrow a key provision of the Voting Rights Act of 1964. That will allow red states to redraw maps yet again. The damage to midterm elections will be determined by when SCOTUS announces its decision — before or after early voting starts.

Add that up, and Trump steals two more years with a loyal MAGA House.

Every seat is essential.

And, finally, I had an email exchange with an op-ed reader on the same topic. Here’s my half:

Dear —–,

Thank you for taking time to read my commentary. I wrote it for the Richmond Times-Dispatch and was unaware that it was reprinted in the Charlottesville Daily Progress.

We seem to agree on one key point. You complain that special reapportionment is “wrong,” specifically because it is “functionally disenfranchising.” I agree and explicitly state: “Partisan gerrymandering is inherently anti-democratic.”

We differ on how to respond to the status quo. Trump’s party, because it is gerrymandering more seats, may control the House despite a forecasted 5-point blue wave in November. The only way to prevent that outcome is for Democratically controlled states to gerrymander in response. I consider that a lesser “madness” than allowing Trump’s party to unilaterally gerrymander a House majority.

Your parody of my reasoning, “that in order to have fair elections, we must be grossly unfair,” is inaccurate because Trump’s party has already prevented the possibility of “fair elections.” Virginia’s redistricting can’t change that. It can only stop an authoritarian and unpopular president from seizing control of Congress even as a majority of Americans vote against his party.

I am confused by your third concern: “its expiration in 2030 is calculated to make it impossible for those who disagree with you to use it against you in the mandatory reapportionment following the 2030 census.” I’m not sure who “you” is in that sentence; are you claiming that Virginia Democrats have drawn the maps to protect themselves from voter backlash? If so, you are mistaken. The new maps are only for congressional districts. The state senate and state delegate districts are unchanged. “Those who disagree with” the amendment can use it against Virginia’s Democratic incumbents starting in the next election cycle in 2027.

Or do you mean that returning to the bipartisan redistricting commission prevents Republicans from gerrymandering new congressional maps should Republicans reclaim the legislature? If so, that would be true. It would also be true that, should Democrats maintain their control of the legislature, they also will be unable to further gerrymander. Either way, red state gerrymanders are happening without voter referendums. In Virginia and California, voters decide.

I strongly advocated for the 2021 anti-gerrymandering amendment and am grateful that it will be reinstated in 2030. I want every state in the country to have the same permanent requirement. An effective democracy would not allow gerrymandering.

But I can’t change what Trump and his supporters in Republican-controlled legislatures have done and continue to do. I have two options: support Virginia’s redistricting referendum, an imperfect and partial solution, or give an authoritarian president anti-democratic control of Congress.

Regarding your last concern, that you “are not alone in wondering how we can trust W & L faculty to provide an objective liberal arts education to our young people”: My op-eds are unrelated to my classrooms. Your accusation that I use my role as a teacher to promote my personal political opinions is baseless.

Sincerely,

Chris

Dear —–,

Thank you for the apology, and I do understand your frustration. This is in an unreasonable situation. Control of Congress should not be determined by which party gerrymanders most. But since SCOTUS has repeatedly ruled that gerrymandering is constitutional, that is our political reality.

Though to be clear: Virginia’s gerrymander would only match what red states are doing, not surpass them.

Also, I fear you are wrong on this point: “it will likely not be necessary to flip control of the House in the first place.” If you visit Cook Political Report (the most detailed and least biased source of information I can find on this topic), you will see that prospective control of the House is very much up in the air. And that is with a forecasted 5-point popular vote blue wave. In past midterms, the party not in the White House picks up a lot of seats. Democrats flipped 40 at Trump’s 2018 midterm. But those days are over. Whichever party wins this November, they will almost certainly have a majority in the single digits, probably the low single digits. Four seats from Virginia could determine control.

I wish I could share and endorse your idealism. I want to live in a country where one state’s principled rejection of gerrymandering could inspire others to adopt the same stance and bring the anti-democratic practice to a needed end. But if Virginia’s referendum fails, no red state is going to reverse their path. The threat to democracy is Donald Trump, and if he continues to command Congress in the second half of his term, the damage will be far deeper. 

I appreciate your response too, and I’m glad we’ve found some common ground.

Best,

Chris

What does this image say?

If you’re familiar with the logo, you know it’s “No Kings.”

If you’re not familiar with the logo, you can still probably deduce that it means something paraphrasably like that, including most literally “no crown.”

What does this image say?

It’s an image of the two words “No Kings.” If you read English, you know what those words mean. Unlike other kinds of images, word images require independent knowledge to decode.

The first image requires some independent knowledge too, but less so. You need to know kings wear crowns, and so an image of a crown can be used as a synecdoche for kings generally. You also need to know that an X, especially when it’s red, means “wrong” or “no” or “cancel” (though in this case the red X is atypically behind the black crown).

Combining them produces an intentionally redundant image-text relationship.

Redundancy produces clarity. That’s the point. Many political image-texts are about getting the message across as explicitly as possible.

I’ve elsewhere discussed that image-text relationship as “duplicating.” It’s the first and typically least interesting of four relationships.

• Duplicate: the two sets primarily overlap each other, neither contributing uniquely to the whole.
• Complement: the two sets primarily correspond, one or both providing additional but congruent qualities to the whole.
• Contrast: the two sets primarily contradict, each providing incongruent qualities to the whole.
• Diverge: the two sets appear primarily unrelated, neither contributing to a whole.

Duplicating relationships are common in children’s books where redundancy is the method for learning word meaning.

It’s also common in early comic books.

Bill Finger’s scripted words likely came first in the creative process, but they could have been deleted once Bob Kane drew the described image. Unlike in political image-texts, the redundancy serves no purpose.

My four image-text relationships are a simplification (and I hope clarification) of Scott McCloud’s seven “word/picture combinations.” My “duplicating” combines his “word-specific,” “picture-specific,” and “duo-specific, but my “complementing” is the same as his “intersecting.”

Political image-texts sometimes “complement” or “intersect” too.

Start with this image.

It depicts a woman holding a sword and spear while standing over a man on his back holding a whip and chain with a crown near his head. If you decode the details symbolically, you can probably deduce that the man is an abusive king who has been rightly overthrown.

If you have further independent knowledge, you may recognize the woman as a representation of Virtue. You may also recognize the image as an excerpt from the Virginia state flag and seal.

If you know the flag, the two figures may be enough for you to recall the accompanying Latin phrase: “Sic Semper Tyrannis.”

It translates: “Thus always with tyrants.”

By itself, the phrase is ambiguous. It requires the complementing image to determine that “thus” refers to Virtue overthrowing the tyrant.

In our current political context, the phrase could instead be translated:

“No Kings.”

It provides opportunities for other duplicating combinations, including a wordless one:

I prefer it with duplicating words:

The combinations still include complementing elements, since Virginians are likely to understand it as a Virginia-specific version of the No Kings movement.

Adding the date of the third national No Kings day also implies a call-to-action for Virginians to attend No Kings rallies in their areas.

Folks in my small town of Lexington are meeting at the Oak Grove Cemetery at 2:00 to march down to Hopkins Green for our rally.

Virginians also have a state redistricting referendum that ends on April 21. If it passes, Virginia will be able to send four additional Democrats to Congress, partially offsetting Trump-initiated gerrymanders in Texas and a half dozen other red states. If the referendum fails, Trump is more likely to subvert the midterm elections and anti-democratically control Congress.

How do you say all that in an image-text?

But since redundancy is the political point, our rally flyers include a clarifying paragraph:

I’m also going to stand on a stage with a microphone for five minutes explaining the necessity of the referendum.

We sent an ad to our local newspaper too:

There’s even a nifty pin:

Now what rally are you going to?

The Supreme Court of Virginia will determine whether voters can change congressional maps before midterm elections. Republicans, including two incumbents in the Shenandoah valley, have sued to stop Virginia’s new redistricting amendment. If they fail, Rep. Morgan Griffith’s 9th district will likely become the state’s lone Republican seat. Rep. Ben Cline’s formerly safe 6th district will lean against him.

Cline claims the amendment is “illegal” and “unconstitutional,” the same two words dozens of federal judges have used to strike down Trump executive actions. Instead of accepting those verdicts, Cline attacked the judiciary as “rogue judges” “overstepping their bounds.” Now he’s counting on judges to save his job.

I met with Cline three times while he was still a state delegate. Though he privately acknowledged that Virginia’s maps unfairly favored Republicans then, he refused to support any anti-gerrymandering correctives. Now that he faces defeat in November, he’s front line in what he’s calling the “fight to make sure that politicians don’t get to select their own voters.”

Cline knows the amendment does no such thing. It’s a referendum. Virginia voters decide. And, unlike most other partisan gerrymanders, the new maps leave state senate and delegate districts unchanged. The referendum only affects congressional maps. Cline is one of only five Virginian politicians fighting to keep their preferred voters.

Cline and other Virginian Republicans have said nothing about the “illegal” or “unconstitutional” gerrymanders by the Republican legislatures of Texas, North Carolina, Ohio, Alabama, Louisiana, Missouri, Indiana, and Florida. The process began last summer when Donald Trump pressured Texas to redraw its maps. After briefly resisting, the governor agreed, and the red flood followed.

Partisan gerrymandering is inherently anti-democratic, but the Supreme Court, including Trump’s three appointees, consistently allows it. The Court insists only national legislation can end the unfair practice. That can only happen with the support of Republicans like Ben Cline. But Cline would rather win reelection through lawsuits than end gerrymandering anywhere but in his Democratically controlled state.    

Virginia, however, is different. The new congressional maps are authorized only “in response to actions taken by another state.” If Virginia Republicans want to stop redistricting, they just have to convince Donald Trump to reverse his national call for gerrymanders.

Our April 21st referendum is a single question: “Should the Constitution of Virginia be amended to allow the General Assembly to temporarily adopt new congressional districts to restore fairness in the upcoming elections, while ensuring Virginia’s standard redistricting process resumes for all future redistricting after the 2030 census?” The phrase “restore fairness” refers to Congress, which will be filled with a majority of gerrymandered red-state representatives if blue states don’t follow the same process to match them.

But the amendment is temporary. Virginia will automatically reinstate its bipartisan process after the next census. That unfortunately will also give Republicans another opportunity to undermine it.

During the 2021 redistricting process, the state Supreme Court intervened when Republicans on the bipartisan commission blocked a final attempt at compromise. Republican legislators had fought to include judicial intervention as a default step because they hoped the Court’s Republican-appointed majority would favor Republicans in the redrawing. They didn’t. The Court passed a fair map unanimously. If Republicans undermine the redistricting process after the 2030 census, the Court can do so again.

But first that Court will decide whether new 2026 maps are allowed. If the Court rules against the voter referendum, I will accept their judgement as final, and, unlike Ben Cline, I will not malign the judges as “rogue” or “activists.” While we await their verdict, I urge Virginians to vote yes for an ugly but necessary gerrymandered balance in the national midterm elections.

Early voting has already begun.

[This commentary originally appeared in the Richmond Times-Dispatch on March 9 and 15, 2026.]

I will add my responses to readers who emailed me last week:

Dear ——,

Thank you for taking the time to read my commentary. 

First, I strongly agree: the phrase “congression districts” should be on the referendum. It would clarify that the state senate maps and the state delegate maps are NOT being redrawn. I imagine if that fact were clearer, more voters would be prone to support it. Usually when a state legislature gerrymanders, the incumbents in office make sure their own seats are safe. That’s not happening here. 

Second, you’re correct: the amendment is legally temporary. It automatically expires with the 2030 census, and the previous redistricting commission process is automatically reinstated. The only way to change that is to have another amendment and another referendum. This, I think, is one the best things about the amendment. It is a temporary response to current red state gerrymanders. And, as you said, Republicans are likely to regain the Virginia state legislature some day, but when that happens, no, they can’t just redraw the maps however they like. They will have to follow the redistricting commission — or put out another amendment and referendum. 

Unfortunately, you’re also right that other states do not have a standing constitutional amendment requiring a redistricting commission. All of the red states that are gerrymandering are doing it freely from their GOP-controlled legislatures. Instead of turning Virginia to that model of permanent winner-take-all, our referendum requires a return to the bipartisan process. I wish every state in the country required that. 

I’m sincerely  not sure about  whether the amendment would allow the Virginia legislature to redraw the congressional maps every year until 2030. There would be only two more congressional races, 2028 and 2030, and since the proposed  maps are likely to produce a 10-1 Democratic advantage, I can’t imagine why the Democrat-controlled legislature would want to redraw? But, yes, you may be right about the technicality. 

As far as, “Well, the Republicans did it,” yes, that’s exactly right. The Republican states have gerrymandered the House of Representatives so that even with the 5-point blue wave pollsters are forecasting in November, Democrats might not regain control of the House. Usually the party not in power gains big in the midterms. Trump’s first midterm and Obama’s first midterm saw something like 40-50 seats flip. But the current Republican gerrymandering is so extreme, there are very few swing states left in the country. If Virginia does not gerrymander in response, Republicans could automatically control the House despite Democrats winning the national popular vote by a wide margin. That’s never happened before in the history of our country. 

If you are sincere when you say you are “working hard to keep our democracy in tact,” you will recognize that democracy at the national level is in jeopardy. Gerrymandering subverts democracy. And in our two-party system, the party that gerrymanders most controls the House of Representatives and state legislatures. I think that is madness. This country desperately needs a way to end gerrymandering everywhere at once. But the Supreme Court has repeatedly allowed gerrymandering, and Congress has no will to change anything. So we are left with this ridiculous state gerrymandering race instead. The founders did not intend this. 

As to your last point, I’m sorry that you expect me to throw my credentials at you and dismiss and insult you. Unlike many voters in either party, you are engaging in a complex issue. I hope you will read and consider my response carefully.

Best,

Chris

*

Dear —,

Since you are responding only to the “headline” without bothering to read the actual content of my commentary, it is not possible for us to have a meaningful exchange on this topic. 

Chris 

*

Dear ——-,

I referred to Virginia as a “Democratically controlled state.” So, yes, Democrats redrew the  maps. Was that actually not clear?

And, yes, I am an “English teacher.” Your attempt to use that as an insult is evidence of the weakness of your counter argument. You have none. 

But your third point is at least interesting. Would I support  Republican-drawn maps if a Democratic president had demanded blue states gerrymander to control the House of Representatives despite a red wave in November? I don’t know.

I do know that when Democrats took control of the Virginia legislature after 2020, a minority opposed the redistricting amendment because they wanted to punish Republicans for gerrymandering in 2010. I opposed that position and worked to pass the amendment requiring a bipartisan process. I want every state in the country to follow that process.

Chris 

That’s the first of two core questions I pose in The Color of Paper: Representing Race in the Comics Medium. (The second is “How does the surface whiteness of image backgrounds relate to racial Whiteness?” which I discuss in an earlier blog.) The full answer takes most of the book, starting with its most central and (hopefully) useful distinction:

Representational images divide into two kinds, linguistic and spatiotemporal.

I explored examples of each in a previous blog about Malaka Gharib’s memoirs. Her first is an exemplar of linguistic color images, and her second is an exemplar of spatiotemporal color images.

The day after I posted the blog, I saw a lovely response from Gharib on Instagram:

She wrote:

“I really appreciate this thoughtful analysis on the cartoon skin colors in my books by Chris Gavaler. … The colors I use in my books to depict race is something that’s often commented on … As an artist who often draws in black and white, *my* skin color is the center. And by center, I mean the neutral: the color of paper. When people ask me why I didn’t draw more people of color in a given comic, I ask them: Why did you assume they *weren’t* people of color in the first place? I am often always drawing my family, and I don’t feel like I always have to color their skin tan to get the point across. Both my books were colored by @tobyleighillustration, and we thought a lot about the representation of color in each book. The first was abstract in the first, and more realistic in the second…. I think it is lovely to see shades of brown in comics as representation, but if a, say, Arab artist drew their mother in black and white, I already know what color she is. Thank you Chris for the thoughtful meditation and I will keep forming my thoughts about this!”

Having already placed practice before theory, what follows is the larger grounding for a linguistic/spatiotemporal distinction — or what Gharib calls “abstract” and “realistic.” Her terms are also accurate, by I’m hoping mine add further clarity.

This is aso an excerpt from the conclusion of The Color of Paper.

A linguistic image, because it is linguistic, is symbolic in the same way that words are symbolic. A linguistic image represents its subject indirectly by reproducing a set of marks that the artist and viewers recognize as a symbol. Such viewers literally read the image. Since the symbols of a language must be learned, a viewer unfamiliar with a linguistic image would not understand what the artist intended to communicate by drawing it

A spatiotemporal image, because it is not linguistic, is non-symbolic. It is spatiotemporal because it appears to be fixed in a represented space and time. Its defining example is a snapshot. The image represents its subject by creating the impression of observing the subject directly. Because understanding it does not require any additional knowledge, any viewer can understand a spatiotemporal image’s subject – though only the subject’s appearance, not its non-visual qualities, because spatiotemporal images represent only optical effects. If viewers know (or think they know) more about a represented subject, the image may trigger that information (or misinformation), but the image does not communicate it directly.

Linguistic images and spatiotemporal images are not mutually exclusive. Many images include elements of each, producing both the reading of symbols and the impression of observing subjects directly. A linguistic image may represent a subject in its entirety or represent only certain aspects of the subject, making some images partially linguistic or only some parts of an image linguistic. The parallel is true of spatiotemporal images.

Different drawing styles align more commonly with each type. Cartooning involves simplification and exaggeration and so is less aligned with spatiotemporal observing because rendered subjects contradict realistic optical experience. Spatiotemporal images also involve simplification (unless they are photorealistic), but little or no exaggeration. The more a set of marks produces a sense of optical realism, the less likely a viewer will attempt to read the set as a symbol. Since many images combine styles (a simplified and exaggerated figure drawn in a less simplified and non-exaggerated environment, for example), viewers commonly combine reading and observing. The two processes, however, remain distinct.

Because linguistic images and spatiotemporal images communicate differently, they communicate race differently. The differences are heightened by the incoherence of race, producing two contradictory ways to communicate a contradictory concept.

A spatiotemporal image representing a person includes details of the person’s appearance. If the person in the image appears to have straight blonde hair, thinner than average lips, smaller than average nostrils, and lighter than average skin, viewers will likely conclude that the person is White because those features are commonly understood to be racial markers of Whiteness. Because the perceived markers are independent of drawing norms, the same viewers would reach the same conclusion if viewing the person directly. Whether or not the conclusion is correct, the image communicates only the person’s appearance viewed at a certain moment, angle, and proximity, but not the person’s racial category, which is commonly understood to be a fixed internal quality yet also somehow based on appearance. Because race is in fact not reducible to appearance, race is outside the representational range of spatiotemporal images. If Whiteness were socially constructed differently, viewers could make different racial conclusions, while the spatiotemporal image would remain identical. Racialization occurs between viewer and subject, not between viewer and image.

A linguistic image representing a White person would include one or more visual symbols for Whiteness. Viewing the image would have the same effect as reading the word “White.” If viewers know the racial symbols, they know the represented person’s race and also that the author of the image intended to communicate it. The racial category is not a quality of the person but a quality of the image’s representation of the person. Because they communicate the ambiguous concept of race with the unambiguous precision of language, linguistic images reinforce the false belief that race is both readable and precise. Linguistic racial images also train viewers to read a person’s appearance as a set of racial symbols, even when the symbols in a linguistic image contradict a person’s appearance through racist caricature. Linguistic images then can communicate seemingly appearance-based racial information while paradoxically revealing nothing about a person’s appearance.

Observing race and reading race are not mutually exclusive, since an image may produce both spatiotemporal and linguistic effects. The effects are also not fixed, since different viewers may respond differently to the same image. The distorting exaggerations of racist caricatures develop into linguistic racial symbols through a process of repetition and imitation that further reduces spatiotemporal qualities. If a racial symbol is unfamiliar to viewers but still has sufficient spatiotemporal qualities to trigger knowledge of racial categories, those viewers may still conclude that the subject of the image is of a certain race. If so, they are not reading but are observing an intended linguistic image spatiotemporally.

.

You probably wouldn’t guess it from the above passage, but I’m not a fan of jargon — which is why I’m really hoping my uses of “linguistic” and “spatiotemporal” are clear (because I clearly communicate their meanings), justified (because not using the terms would be more confusing), and useful (because others can apply the terms in ways that add clarity to their own analysis).

I’m also hoping those three adjectives — clear, justified, useful — apply to The Color of Paper as a whole.