Look Between the Feet

Just before the 2020 presidential election, Mother Jones ran a story called The Republican Party Is Racist and Soulless. Just Ask This Veteran GOP Strategist.

The story was by David Corn, and profiled Stuart Stevens, who you may have seen on MSNBC if you're one who watches that network. 

I'm writing about this today because the article was illustrated with this art by Woody Harrington:

So why am I mentioning this today, almost two years later?

Well, at least once (possibly more than once) a Republican group has found Harrington's image — probably while searching for "Republican elephant" — and used it to illustrate their group. 

Here's the post this morning from Lawrence County, Alabama, as captured and shared on Twitter:

And Harrington's response on Instagram:

The Lawrence County group has since apologized for posting the image because of what it means — but I'm not sure they apologized for using the art without permission.

I'm going to be charitable and assume they were only using an illustration without permission or credit, without noticing the point of the illustration because they're not very perceptive — and not that they agreed with Harrington's use of the negative space between the elephant's legs.

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I recognize the irony of me writing about others who use images without permission. This may not be a legally defensible point, but I think there is a difference between a personal blog, with no revenue, that is read by dozens and that does its best to identify creators and credit images vs. organizations or businesses (especially profit-making ones) that don't do either. Copyright laws may not differentiate between these instances, but that seems wrong to me.