Tow #6: Gov Shutdown

This political cartoon depicts Barack Obama being kicked by an elephant. The elephant is the symbol for the Republican party and since the congress and the President could not decide on an annual budget, they are trying to protest against Obama.
The context of this cartoon is the recent government shutdown. Our government cannot agree on a budget, so the Republican Tea Party in congress decided to shut down. The author's purpose was to depict the conflict between Obama and the Republican-dominated congress.
This cartoon comes from Dagbladet, which is Norway's second largest tabloid paper and the third largest newspaper. This is a pretty credible source because this was also republished in the New York Times.
This cartoon was created for people in America and the world to better understand what this government shutdown means and why it happened. The author uses many rhetorics to convey the conflict between the democratic president and the republican congress. Obama and the republicans are juxtaposed by being placed next to each other when they are part of two different parties and want different things. The author also uses vivid imagery to depict the president so it resembles him closely. The author also purposely colored in the president and the elephant to make them stand out from the whole picture. The author also purposely included a white tea cup at the bottom and it looks like the elephant is reaching it, but Obama is trying to stop it. That shows the new tea party movement that is thriving the shutdown.
I think that the author achieved their purpose because the problem was accurately depicted and this cartoon helps people better understand what the problem is with the government shutdown.