Under pressure from an avalanche of social media backlash, Politico has deleted a tweet containing a cartoon appearing to mock the survivors of Hurrican Harvey... Drawn by Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist, Matt Wuerker, the cartoon shows a person in a Confederate flag shirt, thanking god for being rescued from a flooded house bearing a secessionist sign (and a Gadsden flag). The cartoonist's irony appears to be that the federal government sent the helicopter to rescue him.
As Wuerker tried to explain... Matt Wuerker ✔ @wuerker Just trying to point out times like this we're lucky to have rescue services. Don't see how this takes away from private individuals heroism https://twitter.com/MQSullivan/status/902947504030961664
Similarly, even The Washington Post described the cartoon as "tone-deaf" and "unhelpful," saying it was a "needlessly vast oversimplification of a very complex issue at a very sensitive time."
"It's almost a caricature of what you'd expect a liberal cartoonist to draw in response to conservative Texans relying upon the government in their time of crisis," said Aaron Blake, a Post blogger.
Matt Wuerker ✔ @wuerker Had no idea so many people liked Texas Secessionists and hate the Coast Guard. It's pro Coastie!
"The Confederate flag T-shirt. The Gadsden Flag. The reference to being saved by God (which seems extremely dismissive of Christianity). The Texas secession banner. It's all kind of ... predictable?"
Just luck that President Trump didn't retweet it before they deleted it.