Claytoonz: The Gazpacho Police

I knew there was going to be a lot of Soup Nazi jokes after Marjorie Taylor Greene had a flub and said “gazpacho” instead of “Gestapo” in one of her bewildering brain-dead yee-haw rants. But then I thought that it’ll be OK to use Soup Nazi in a cartoon, despite all the memes and possibly other cartoons because everyone else would miss the context.

Hell, even while reading this cartoon, people will miss the context. What am I talking about? I’m glad you asked because I’m going to tell you what I’m talking about.

Stupid congressthing Marjorie Taylor Greene accused the January 6 Committee of going after political targets when they are in fact, going after people who tried to destroy our nation, overturn an election, and install a racist orange fascist puppet who lost an election as our dictator-in-chief. Simultaneously, she accused House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of having secret police, which MTG was trying to describe as Pelosi’s own personal Gestapo. Marjorie Taylor Greene lied and accused her opponents of being Nazis. While doing this, she said “gazpacho” instead of “Gestapo.”

Here’s my problem with the reactions to this. We’re all hung up on gazpacho.

We’re all hung up on gazpacho and yukking it up over the consistent stupidity of Marjorie Taylor Greene that we’re overlooking the really serious parts of this.

Marjorie Taylor Greene accused her opponents of being Nazis. She lied and accused the Speaker of the House of having her own Gestapo. She once again equated something to the Holocaust. Did I say “again?” Yeah, it’s not the first time. Hell, it’s not the second time. Instead of calling this out, we’re hung up over soup.

How many memes have you seen on this that only serve to make fun of MTG? Within a minute of posting this cartoon on Facebook, someone planted a meme underneath it, which totally pisses me off. I hate memes. But this meme showed Keystone cops with the label “Gazpacho Police” and another label of “Soup Unit.” OK, why would there be a soup unit of the Gazpacho Police? Gazpacho is soup. Wouldn’t there be a gazpacho unit of the Soup Police? Gazpacho is a type of soup and not the other way around, soup being a type of gazpacho. Yes, I can be very analytical. Also, I hate memes. But, this meme didn’t have context. It only made fun of MTG.

So far, I have only seen two political cartoons on this. Guess what. They were both the same cartoon. Both cartoons had MTG in a bowl of gazpacho. What else did the cartoons say? Nothing. That was it. Hee hee. No context. And, people loved them. The Klan chowder jokes I saw have more context than that lazy-ass shit.

Sure, bad cartoons piss me off. And yeah, readers and editors not being able to recognize that crap is crap annoys me. But I’m more annoyed we’re overlooking the lying and antisemitism in all of this. I take this seriously. While I do use humor to attack it and take it down, there’s a very real danger within a member of the House of Representatives, again, equating stupid bullshit she’s making up with the Holocaust. She’s equating Democrats with the people who committed genocide and the murder of over six million people.

And creatively, it’s an easy day as a commentator and satirist to say Marjorie Taylor Greene is stupid. As one of my very intelligent readers said, “it’s shooting fish in a barrel.” I replied, or in this case, fish in a bowl of gazpacho.

I have this rule for myself that prevents me from drawing cartoons on Donald Trump that merely say he’s stupid, vile, or just a horrible person. Like we already know MTG is stupid and horrible, we already know the same about Donald Trump. Pointing this shit out is very Captain Obvious-like. While I’d use and make fun of the stupid shit Trump would say or do, I’d use it to make a more important point. That’s supposed to be the challenge in what I do. Do I need to lighten up? Probably, but I think I can still be silly and goofy while including context and making important points. I think my rule was helpful (it’s part of a huge list). And yeah, I did break it a couple of times but only when it was too much fun. I’m like the Joker that way.

Marjorie Taylor Greene and other Republicans love to use the Holocaust as a political talking point. While you can occasionally find similarities between a current politician and Nazis, it’s very difficult to find anything equatable with the murder of six million Jews. What China is doing with the Uyghur population is comparable. Having to wear a face mask indoors is not.

In a way, by focusing on gazpacho and the stupidity of Marjorie Taylor Greene, we’re also missing just how vile and dangerous she is. This is a person who has stalked her colleagues and screamed at them through mail slots. This is a person who stalked a child who was a survivor of a school shooting, as she was following him down a public street while taunting him. But sure, let’s make soup jokes.

We need to notice that people like Marjorie Taylor Greene accuse their opponents of being Nazis will be unable to condemn actual Nazis, like the tiki-torch Nazis who marched in Charlottesville or the Florida Nazis who are currently standing at intersections screaming at traffic.

Donald Trump is a clown. He looks like a clown. But we never lost focus he is a dangerous clown. He is a clown with a cult willing to destroy our democracy for him. Marjorie Taylor Greene is also a clown…and very dangerous. Let’s not normalize how dangerous these people are. Let’s not normalize comparing political opponents to Nazis. Let’s not normalize equating discomforts with the Holocaust.

Focus, people…or there will be no soup for you.

Larry Thomas, the actor who played the Soup Nazi has a few takes on this. He is bewildered someone could grow up in the 20th century and not know what the Gestapo was. He believes MTG actually thought Hitler’s secret police were the “Gazpacho Police.” He said, “They say ‘You can’t write this shit.’ It’s beyond you can’t write this shit.”

Greene tried to be a part of the joke and Thomas took issue with that too, as she made a Soup Nazi reference tweeting the “no soup for you” and “and you’re gonna end up in the goulash.” Thomas said, “I’m sure somebody wrote that for her. She can’t possibly be that funny.”

Larry Thomas is right and I would love to sit down over soup with him.