*** This originally ran in 2017 and was then heavily revised in 2018. I’ve updated it again for 2021, since there are many more reasons to hold mostly peaceful protests. ***

Some people are pitchfork people. They like the heft, the balance, and the soothing calm that comes from sharpening evenly-spaced tines. Pitchforks look deadly. They are a practical yet humble implement used by commoners to work the land. When it’s time for 1776 shenanigans, pitchfork people herd oligarchical despots like snakes to a mongoose convention. Just as God intended. If you don’t find a cartoon-ish jab to the behinds of bankers, TV doctors, and corruptocrats as spectacularly hilarious as myself…

…then you are probably a torch person.
Torch people favor the agility a lit torch grants during disorderly political rallies. They enjoy the soothing calm that comes from staring into a dancing flame. Torches are the tool of alchemists, using a secret chemical reaction which few can explain, but everyone can understand. Making despotic autocrats do a heat-avoidance jig is humiliating and effective. Fire cleanses in a righteous manner. Also as God intended.

You’d think torch people and pitchfork people could work together when society is going through the misery of a Bolshevik Revolution. That they could cooperate with one another. Find common ground. Discover synergies that make a decent riot blossom into a full blown uprising. An uprising that would become even more fun and effective for all the participants. It seems like a no-brainer. An idea as good as bacon and pizza, cheese and toast, or egg and nog.

Sigh.

Whether you are a fan of the pitchfork or the torch, you have a responsibility. There is a certain etiquette that participants adhere to when a society is physically transforming itself. That etiquette is centered around knowing who will be used to water and fertilize a thirsty tree of liberty. Mob participants that turn on each other before storming the castle will be laughed at by the guards.

During the Boston Tea Party of 1773, did tar people fight feather people? They did not. During the French Revolution of 1789, guillotine people and rope people found a way to work together. Improvised weapons can be surprisingly effective, especially if you have a riot buddy.

Group cooperation doesn’t just happen. It takes commitment from all sides to adhere to the implied social compact that takes place in the middle of public protests. Don’t be afraid to compliment your creatively-girded compatriots. Mixed-arms are our strength.

As an individual contributor brimming with revolutionary fervor, consider the following scenarios:

• Do you want to waste time extinguishing a smoking horned-helm, or would you rather be doing the stabby-stabby-samba-strut with a panicked oligarch?
• How frustrated will you be as a 500-lb RESIST! fanatic Rascals^TM away with slug-like speed because your foot is pinned to the pavement by a pitchfork?
• A presstitute approaches to ask your thoughts on the action, but your pitchfork handle burned to ash earlier in the scrum. They’ll depict you as a loon.
• A politician encumbered with an overflowing Santa-sack of flammable cash bricks races by. You, however, are stuck on a door-frame by pitchfork pranksters. Is this winning?

Individual tribes might not agree on who the real target should be, but they would all be better off with some modicum of cooperation. Politicians, bankers, oligarchs, Antifa, college professors, presstitutes, big-jab doctors, and bow-tie-twirling traitors are all valid targets. If you corner an Antifa member and a bow-tie-twirling traitor, and you only have one torch, use it on the traitor. If you have a pitchfork-wielding mob-buddy, then team up and do the fork-n-fire on the traitor. Traitors are the worst.

Pro-tip: Eventually the bowtie bois will twirl so hard the fabric will snap. You can still identify them because they are quick to inform you that you are mobbing wrong, and that leads to unfavorable press coverage. Optics are everything to these people.

In time, leaders will emerge. This is a natural process that arises out of chaos. For example, a well-spoken pitchfork enthusiast pins an Antifa thug to the hood of a police car, with nary a pause in their brainy rhetoric. Perhaps a clever torch-wielder demonstrates the magic that occurs when fire is combined with flour inside the rented bus of goose-stepping Marxists. Heroics like these attract followers.

Hopefully these leaders can keep the real target in focus, and encourage their tribe to do the same. In an ideal world, this is what everyone would want.

Always remember that only you can decide what level of revolutionary support you can offer. If you’re backbiting and brawling earns you last-place in the hangman’s  line you still won’t save yourself. Dead is dead.

I’m just a cartoonist, not the mob police. This advice? Take it or leave it. I’ve encoded a secret message in this article. If you can sleuth it out, then consider it as a final thought. Always remember to riot peacefully!

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The Spork Speaks — Tempest in a Teardrop — tempestinateardrop.com