The cartoon, “Swept Away,” by Adam Zyglis, a nationally syndicated staff cartoonist for the Buffalo News, depicts a man with an all-caps “HELP” sign held in the air and a bright red MAGA hat just barely above nose-high flowing water in Kerr County. Just behind him, a text bubble reads a paraphrased version of a famous Ronald Reagan quote on the Republican ideal of limited government, “Gov’t is the problem not the solution.”
The cartoon appeared in the July 8 edition of the paper. Just two days later, the Buffalo Newspaper Guild announced it was canceling a scheduled event, “Drawing Support for Journalism,” at the Buffalo History Museum. The happy-hour event was organized to honor the closing of a 20-year exhibition that included dozens of Zyglis’ works, but “serious concerns about public safety” created hesitance.
In a statement, the Buffalo Newspaper Guild said, “malicious campaigning for individuals to protest and confront Zyglis at [the] event, resulted in a series of death threats against [him] and a deluge of other direct threats to hurt him and his family.”
The Buffalo Police Department confirmed to online art publication Hyperallergic that its threat management unit had launched an investigation.
The Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ), the oldest organization representing journalists in the country, defended Zyglis and the opinionated work of cartoonists. Earlier this year, the society had awarded him for outstanding contributions to editorial cartooning.
“The cartoon falls within the long and respected tradition of editorial cartooning: provoking thought, encouraging debate and challenging power through visual commentary,” wrote the SPJ. “People are free to disagree with that point of view. What they’re not free to do is threaten violence in response.”
After the event was canceled, Zyglis broke his silence on social media.
“Threats to me and my family are never an acceptable response to disagreeing with an editorial cartoon,” he wrote. “Threats of violence have no place in a democracy that supports Freedom of Speech and the First Amendment.”
How We Got Here
For almost two weeks straight, a seemingly endless barrage of heart-wrenching stories has come out of the Hill Country, most notably from Camp Mystic, an all-girls Christian overnight camp based on the banks of the Guadalupe River. Over 20 young campers, including several from Dallas, were killed in the flood. But it isn’t just locals grappling with the inescapable devastation; the nation has its eyes on Texas right now.The disastrous flood came just months after President Donald Trump rolled out mass layoffs within several federal departments tasked with monitoring and managing weather and natural disasters. Critics have pondered how and if the layoffs influenced the flood response and whether some of the loss was preventable.
The lack of flood warning signals in the region known for flooding, albeit not usually as severe, has also come under scrutiny. Improving flood preparation and infrastructure in flood-prone areas was immediately added to the agenda for the Legislature’s upcoming special session.
"We delivered on historic legislation in the 89th Regular Legislative Session that will benefit Texans for generations to come," Abbott said in a statement. "There is more work to be done, particularly in the aftermath of the devastating floods in the Texas Hill Country. We must ensure better preparation for such events in the future.”
Tragedy Becomes Partisan
As people attempt to understand what went wrong in Kerr County, various reports of the region’s spending and requests from the state have emerged.According to the Texas Tribune, Kerr County requested federal funding for flash-flood warning sirens from the Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA) during President Joe Biden's administration. The Texas office in charge of distributing federal funds denied the request.
The county was awarded millions of dollars through Biden’s 2021 American Rescue Plan Act. Almost the entire fund, which did not have set spending parameters, went to law enforcement projects. Some community members in the highly conservative county did not want to accept the former president's offer.
“I’m here to ask this court today to send this money back to the Biden administration, which I consider to be the most criminal, treasonous communist government ever to hold the White House,” one resident told county commissioners in 2022, according to a video circulating online.
In the wake of the flood, less empathetic people, usually on social media, have begun to blame the residents of Kerr County for the significant loss, more or less claiming, “You get what you vote for.”
Zyglis’ cartoon, which is still posted on his personal social media, has more than 1,100 comments, some nice, many not.
“Mocking flood victims for voting for Trump reveals how deranged and soulless the media has become,” wrote one user. “Adam Zyglis should be fired.”
Calling for his firing is one of the more light-hearted calls to action on the post. Other commenters have called him and his work “vile,” said that he deserves to drown, and even leaked the names of his family members.
Others have praised his work, noting that the discomfort it causes is the point of political commentary.
“The mental gymnastics people are doing in your comments to intentionally misrepresent your intent here is insane,” wrote one commenter. “Political commentary is NOT making light of children’s deaths and we all know that. To act otherwise is a pointed choice to overreact.”
