Conservative columnist Ben Garrison this week drew a cartoon depicting former President Donald Trump as the heroic knight Don Quixote — without realizing that essentially means he’s calling Trump delusional.
In the cartoon, Trump is riding on a horse and aiming a spear at a windmill that represents major tech platforms Facebook, Google, and Twitter, as seen below.
The point of the cartoon seems to be that Trump is heroically using a lawsuit to defend free speech against the monsters of Silicon Valley.
However, the story of Don Quixote is about a wannabe knight who attacks windmills because he mistakenly believes them to be monstrous giants — and the book makes very clear that attacking the windmills is an act of madness and not of heroism.
Garrison’s apparent failure of basic reading comprehension earned him ridicule all over Twitter — check out some reactions below:
Teacher: "Mr. Garrison did you read Don Quixote?"
Ben Garrison: "Uh…. Yeah."
Narrator: "Ben of course had not read it." pic.twitter.com/YbO283Cw4a
— 💀DeathMetalViking💀 (@DeathMetalV) July 8, 2021
In a very meta way this cartoonist actually gets the Don Quixote analogy right, but I just don't think it's in the way he thinks it is. pic.twitter.com/Wwl0tabVvn
— Todd Hoyer (@toddhoyer) July 8, 2021
Don Quixote charging the cancer causing windmills. pic.twitter.com/b2XbM1P7vm
— JFK (@JFKtheone) July 8, 2021
Does…
Does Ben Garrison not realize that Don Quixote was completely insane and is the literary exemplar of futilely raging against an imaginary foe? pic.twitter.com/E0A42hBJ4l
— KevinlyFather 🇺🇲🇨🇦🇲🇼🇸🇿 (@KevinlyFather) July 8, 2021
Reasons why a liberal arts education that includes literary "classics" is important now needs to include: "So you don't radically misinterpret 'Don Quixote' and get dragged by the entire internet."
Amazing.
— Jonathan Ficke (@jonficke) July 8, 2021
bro no one expects you to read don quixote it's long as shit but tilting at windmills is literally the one thing people know about don quixote and you got it wrong pic.twitter.com/fsTvMkPXIR
— Ping-pong, Pnin? (@jermergerg) July 8, 2021
