Civil War

By | Tuesday, October 21, 2025 Leave a Comment
Yesterday's La Cucaracha by Lalo Alcaraz...
While Alcaraz is not first to call what's going on in America a civil war -- I was making direct comparisons with the 2024 movie of that name back in June -- he's the first person I've seen to be bold enough to put it in a newspaper. Frankly, I don't see how you can call it anything else at this point. The President of the United States is actively sending into cities armed troops that are capturing, and in some cases, killing innocent U.S. citizens directly against the expressly stated wishes of the states' governors. That is literally the set-up/preface to the Civil War movie; the only difference is that, in the film, Nick Offerman's version of the President ordered an air strike on civilain protestors while Trump merely posted an AI video of doing so.

That Alcaraz is calling this for what it is before any journalists largely just speaks to the failure of journalism writ large. And sadly, I suspect, his naming this for what it is will not be heeded because he's "just" a cartoonist. It's his job to exaggerate for the sake of comedy, after all. Except that's not the exaggeration. In fact, the "exaggeration" of this particular comic actually downplays things because Portland has brought in an army of giant frogs, not just one. (Fun fact: the collective noun for a group of frogs, particularly when they are working together, is indeed "army." You can also use "knot" if they are merely close to one another but not necessarily working together.) Alcaraz is not exaggerating for effect here and, to be fair, he would've created today's strip at least two, maybe three, weeks ago before the inflatable frog costumes sold out everywhere.

Will things get to a state like what was depicted in the movie last year? Maybe, maybe not. I certainly wouldn't rule it out at this point. But humorists are often the canaries in the coal mine, voicing the truths that others are too scared to speak. Alcaraz is giving everyone a warning; I suggest you all listen.
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