'Vile' Newspaper Cartoon Mocks Texas Flood Victims, Sparks Immense Backlash
The bodies are still being counted, but liberals don’t care as long as they can make a political point.
A newspaper cartoonist in New York state, with a body of work attacking President Donald Trump and his supporters, is drawing fire for a piece published Monday making a mockery of the victims of Texas flooding that has killed at least 120, including 36 children.
The revulsion from the attack was widespread, but one local Republican Party official probably summed it up best.
“@TheBuffaloNews ran a cartoon mocking Texas families who lost loved ones in a tragedy, just because they might’ve voted Republican,” Erie County Republican Party Chairman Michael Kracker wrote in a post on the social media platform X.
“Twisted, vile, and shameful. They owe those families an apology and should pull this filth immediately.”
.@TheBuffaloNews ran a cartoon mocking Texas families who lost loved ones in a tragedy, just because they might’ve voted Republican.
Twisted, vile, and shameful. They owe those families an apology and should pull this filth immediately. pic.twitter.com/IDN6AWH6T8
— Michael Kracker (@makracker) July 9, 2025
The cartoon was drawn by Buffalo Daily News cartoonist Adam Zyglis, a 2015 Pulitzer Prize winner whose Instagram account shows contempt for Trump and Trump backers published on a near-daily basis.
The cartoon showed a drowning man wearing a red MAGA hat — naturally — with a sign that says “Help” and a speech balloon with the words “Gov’t is the problem not the solution.”
Text at the top titled the image simply “Swept Away…”
Zyglis no doubt thought it was clever. On his Instagram post with the cartoon, he wrote, “[T]hat argument’s gone in a flash.” Get it? Gone in a flash? A flash flood? Hilarious, is it not?
It’s not. And the backlash has been brutal.
In a post on X, Chris Jacobs, a former Republican congressman who represented the area wrote that “historically we put partisan politics aside during times of major tragedy or crisis. Unfortunately, the Buffalo News did the opposite with this depraved partisan cartoon.”
Our nation has always had political parties, but historically we put partisan politics aside during times of major tragedy or crisis. Unfortunately, the Buffalo News did the opposite with this depraved partisan cartoon pic.twitter.com/sytWqmub0u
— Chris Jacobs (@JacobsNY23) July 9, 2025
And there were many others:
The Buffalo News ran a DESPICABLE cartoon by artist Adam Zyglis, seemingly mocking Texas families affected by the devastating floods because they voted for President Trump!
Liberal lunacy running amuck!
Is such vile behavior customary to those you employ, @TheBuffaloNews??… pic.twitter.com/lphcQFDbtu
— Shawn Hawkins (@ArmedPatriot45) July 9, 2025
DISGRACE: @TheBuffaloNews runs a VILE cartoon by artist Adam Zyglis, appearing to mock Texas families affected by the floods because they voted for Trump pic.twitter.com/PJkodyXFsI
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) July 9, 2025
You should be fired. This is disgusting. pic.twitter.com/ShfN0CyP1K
— Redwave (@ExcessGore) July 9, 2025
Beyond the violation of basic human decency involved in publishing maliciously driven political attacks in the middle of an unfolding tragedy, the cartoon is just as offensive for its vacuous logic.
The knee-jerk liberal conceit that the Trump administration’s budget cuts somehow contributed to the Texas disaster has no basis in fact. (Even a Texas Democrat had to point out that Trump’s first federal budget won’t go into effect until October.)
The progressive instinct to blame Trump for all things ignores the fact that catastrophic flooding is not new to Texas. In fact, the New York Post on Tuesday profiled a volunteer searching for flood victims. In 2015, the man had lost his own family to flooding by the Guadalupe River — the same river that flooded on July 4.
Most Americans might remember that, a decade ago, Trump was still a political novelty act, far from the levers of power in Washington.
But truth and logic has never stopped liberals.
Controversy comes with the territory of political cartoonists, of course, but there are times when commentary steps way over the line. And this is one of them.
It’s also not the first time Zyglis has put himself and his newspaper in this position. In 2024, as Buffalo’s WGRZ reported, The Buffalo News had to issue a formal apology for a Zyglis cartoon that literally dripped with anti-Semitism. (Even Chuck Schumer sometimes realizes that Jew hate and the left go hand in hand.)
With the death toll still rising, the full scale of the Texas disaster isn’t yet clear. But one thing is obvious already.
Liberals can’t even wait for the bodies to be counted before using a tragedy to make their cheap points.
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