By Russell Working
A Soviet poster reads, “Rats of the Ku Klux Klan: American Democracy.”
My wife’s Christmas present for me last month was inspired. For years I have talked about taking a drawing class, so she signed me up for one at an art studio in our Chicago suburb.
The class is ongoing, and the teacher began the session by laying out the previous week’s artwork (white pencil or gouache on black paper) and asking for critiques.
Disturbingly, one student artist had sketched a rat in a red MAGA cap crawling out of a tipped-over trash can. The message wasn’t as original as he perhaps imagined. Portraying one’s adversaries as vermin has a long and venomous history in Nazi, Soviet, North Korean, and other totalitarian propaganda.
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The Elephant Box 