Earlier this month, political journalist and cartoonist Ian Murphy contacted me about running a piece for The Progressive’s website. He wanted to interview climate scientist Michael Mann, who was involved in “Climategate.”
Mann is “uniquely qualified to talk about the politics of climate change—the ugliest bits,” Murphy wrote. “It [climategate] was very similar to the DNC hack/Podesta-phishing-scam. Rich goons pay geeks to break into a server, take everything as out of context as possible in the most casual of emails, leak it to in-house media or friendly shit-carriers, next thing you know Hillary Clinton murdered Seth Rich & Michael Mann faked all his science because he's an egghead who hates America and so on.”
Sold, as only Ian Murphy could sell it.
In a piece on net neutrality, Murphy wrote, “To turn the gage back toward freedom, we as activists need to have guts; to act with bravery at all costs. Afterwards, if we're not all in jail . . . we should probably get some burgers too. Big ones! No pickles. OK, you can have pickles. But only if you trade me a cat.gif. Or better yet, an unregulated cat.gif that strangely applies to our current situation. Ah, here's one . . .”
“When might you file?” I inquired. I never got a response, and was deeply dismayed to learn that Murphy died just a few days later, on July 17, at the age of forty; the cause of death was not disclosed.
Ian Murphy had a career as a poke-you-in-the-eye political commentator, and was editor of the “The Beast,” an alternative news site in Buffalo, New York, with the tagline, “The world’s only website.” He became a viral sensation for a prank phone call he made in February 2011 to then-Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, pretending to be billionaire David Koch.
At the time, Walker was facing massive street protests resulting from his efforts to eliminate collective bargaining rights for state employees as part of a “budget repair bill.” Among Walker’s admissions to the fake David Koch on the phone was that Walker had considered planting troublemakers to stir up violence in the otherwise peaceful crowds.
Murphy was also selected to run for office by the Green Party in a special election in New York’s 26th district race about which, he told The New Yorker, “I would hope that I could announce my candidacy in a clown outfit.”
His contributions to The Progressive over the years included a cartoon of “Trumptivities for Kids,” which offered a “punch the protester” connect-the-dots, and a “help Pap-pap find the Trump rally” maze.
He wrote often about the hypocrisy of centrist liberals, and was especially critical of President Obama’s use of drone warfare to combat terrorism. In one piece on the topic, as he decried the lack of opposition from Democrats in Congress, he presciently wrote, “The right is against anything this President does. . . . And the ‘left,’ a major faction of it anyway, feels forced to defend policies formerly considered Republican because there’s no alternative. We’re locked in a self-reinforcing political binary: you’re either with us or against us. And the tribal battle is transcending factual reality.”
Murphy’s writing, if sometimes convoluted, was always fun to read—a no-holds romp over a weird political landscape. In a 2013 piece on two U.S. Supreme Court cases on marriage, for example, he mused, “Their decisions could potentially destroy the sanctity of marriage, and invariably result in a shotgun wedding between your child and a Norwegian Elkhound—except you won’t even have a shotgun because Obama’s going to confiscate them all, so he can melt them down into prison bars for the super-secret FEMA camps (I’ve said too much!).”
Summed up as only Ian Murphy could. He will be missed.