u/JohnSith

​Lindsey Graham died on Saturday. They announced it on Sunday, picked his unqualified sister to replace him on Monday, and swore her in on Tuesday. She hasn't even had time to plan her brother's funeral and they already got her in office in the US Capitol. Meanwhile, when Representative Sylvester Turner, a black Democrat, died on March 5th, 2025, Texas Governor Greg Abbott waited until April to announce there would be no election to replace him until November, leaving the largely black and Hispanic district here in Houston unrepresented for nearly an entire year.

​This is how Republicans play politics with death. While Democrats are drafting generous statements of condolences for their oppressors, Republicans are callously seizing power from the oppressed. They pulled the same stunt when Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia died and they wouldn't even hold a hearing on Obama's nominee, but then raced to replace Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg when she died in the final months of Trump's term. Republicans demand that Democrats observe all kinds of outdated rules about death and mourning, but then break the same rules when Democrats die.

​They're doing the same thing in Kentucky with Mitch McConnell in the hospital. When McConnell started glitching a few years ago, his Republican state legislature passed a bill stripping the Democratic governor of the power to replace him. They were fine when a Republican governor had the power, but they changed the rules for a Democrat. That's because the rules themselves are a trap. Democrats have to follow all the rules, but Republicans get to break them with impunity.

​Just like the rule of meritocracy. Republicans love to whine about affirmative action and DEI, which give opportunities to qualified women and people of color, but they just appointed a US Senator whose main qualification is simply being the sister of a dead senator. And you can't say that both parties do it when one party spent the past few decades claiming to only care about merit. They said that Barack Obama, and Kamala Harris, and Ketanji Brown Jackson were unqualified, but then they sing the praises of people like Herschel Walker, Pete Hegseth, and Donald Trump, who was the first person elected president in US history with no experience in government or military.

​They whine about Democrats being unfair to Republicans in California and Virginia with redistricting while they steal seats in Texas, Florida, and Missouri, and they started it. That's why Trump tried to change the US Constitution on birthright citizenship by executive order. That's why he just fired all the Federal Election Assistance Commissioners while he's trying to seize ballots and intimidate poll workers, and why he's desperately trying to pass a national voter suppression bill to stop mail-in ballots, which he uses himself.

​Rules for thee, not for me. That's the Republican motto. So let this be a lesson. Stop playing by their rules. Republicans have only one rule: power. Every other rule is negotiable. The old rule book has been burned, and we will be too, if we don't wake up.

Herblock drew inspiration from the internal warfare for the control of the Republican party after a defeat in the 1964 election. Highly radical, conspiracy minded groups were trying to assert control over local and national Republican infrastructure. Here, Herblock shows an violent octopus "Right Wing Groups" attempting to imitate, infiltrate and strangle the Republican party.