Every week political cartoonists throughout the country and across the political spectrum apply their ink-stained skills to capture the foibles, memes, hypocrisies and other head-slapping events in the world of politics. The fruits of these labors are hundreds of cartoons that entertain and enrage readers of all political stripes. Here’s an offering of the best of this week’s crop, picked fresh off the Toonosphere. Edited by Matt Wuerker.Politics
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Black leaders across the South have expressed a visceral shock in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision gutting the Voting Rights Act. But as the surprise wears off, a sense of isolation has begun to set in among some.
Black lawmakers and activists across the Deep South argue they have been abandoned by the Democratic Party to fight an existential crisis on their own. They say they’ve been let down by nearly all corners of the party: would be-presidential hopefuls who have flocked to early and swing states but don’t bring their megaphones elsewhere; congressional leadership focused on majority-making battlegrounds while safe Black seats are drawn out; and years of chronic underfunding that has allowed local party apparatus to wither away.
“Folks who lead our party go to swing states like North Carolina and Georgia, but states like Mississippi and Tennessee and Alabama and South Carolina are really neglected and are really forgotten and are really treated as if it is inevitable that we’ll always stay in such systems of what I call apartheid type of politics,” said Tennessee state Rep. Justin Jones.
The feeling of neglect is compounding what the lawmakers called a crisis for Black representation already underway in the wake of Louisiana v. Callais, the April Supreme Court decision that took aim at the VRA.
While Black Southern lawmakers sound the alarm on the long-term consequences for their congressional delegations and legislatures, Republican leaders in several Southern strongholds have already signaled plans to redraw district lines ahead of 2028.
Florida state House Minority Leader Fentrice Driskell said that between the Supreme Court, the White House and GOP-controlled statehouses, there is a “concerted effort to suppress Black votes” — a refrain many Black leaders have been shouting recently.
“Republicans in the Legislature and the Supreme Court have said that it’s okay to turn back the clock and reverse civil rights progress in this country,” Driskell said. “They’re basically giving these Southern states what they have consistently and persistently wanted, which is to suppress Black voices.”
Though many Black leaders said they ultimately hold Republicans responsible for the Callais decision — andthe subsequent redistricting efforts — a sense of frustration at congressional Democrats is also palpable, especially among younger Black Americans.
“The Democrats sort of allowed for this behavior to regularly happen,” said Yolanda Renee King, the granddaughter of Martin Luther King Jr., noting that the party fumbled its chance to pass the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act during the Biden administration. “I think that there could have been an opportunity before this second surge in MAGA. As of right now, I’m not sure if we necessarily have the infrastructure for that.”
Black elected officials and activists who spoke to POLITICO did not call out particular party leaders by name, with Jones’ team arguing it is a broader problem in a “political system that continually abandons Black voters.”
“This crisis of multiracial democracy is bigger than any one person’s failing, and will require a unified movement if we are going to stop the largest assault on Black representation since the end of Reconstruction,” Chandler Quaile, Jones’ chief of staff, said in a later statement.
But it comes at a time when the party’s three most prominent leaders — Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and DNC Chair Ken Martin — face discontent from various wings of the party.
The DNC defended its work with Black communities and voters, saying it has been providing some tools to Southern states — such as training and staffing for those in need of infrastructure, including a 10-week training for states without a voter protection director. And since the start of the year, Martin has traveled to cities including Atlanta; Selma, Alabama; and Memphis, Tennessee.
“The DNC will use every tool at our disposal to protect the right to vote and to fight against the dilution of Black political power as a result of the disastrous Callais decision,” said Angelo Fernández Hernández, spokesperson for the DNC, in a statement.
And Republicans rejected Democrats’ characterization of their post-decision redistricting scramble. In a statement, White House spokesperson Allison Schuster said the Supreme Court’s ruling ended “the unlawful practice of drawing congressional districts on the basis of race” and was “a win for all Americans and our colorblind constitution.”
But Black Democrats say it’s hard to build a defense when party leaders are clashing over what their offensive strategy should be. Some have called for redrawing maps in blue states to favor Democratic candidates, while others are relying on lawsuits challenging new GOP maps.
Some have called for both.
“I don’t need anybody to hold my hand, but what I need is strategy,” Driskell said. “I need us to be thoughtful, and I think that that is what is missing.”
Like Jones, Driskell didn’t direct her frustrations at any one specific party leader, but added that Black leaders across the South “definitely understand” the potential repercussions Callais could have on their communities — and that “it would be great for the national dialogue to pick up on that.”
Jeffries’ office did not respond to a request for comment, and a spokesperson for Schumer declined to comment, instead directing questions to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.
Jessica Knight Henry, deputy executive director for the DSCC, said in a statement that Democrats are working to meet Republican-led attacks on voters through the courts and investments.
“Democrats have worked to meet these attacks head on in court, in campaigns, and we will continue to invest strategically in states that offer opportunities for Democrats to flip seats and take back majorities so we can fight to pass legislation that advances voter protections and rights, like the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act,” Knight Henry said.
Still, over the last year, the party’s main focus has been on winning back the House and Senate. Even the chair of the Congressional Black Caucus PAC, the campaigning arm of the entirely Democratic 62-member caucus, said in a previous interview that its focus remains taking back Congress.
“The PAC has always been focused on electing Democrats in tough seats so that we can reclaim the majority. That goal, that focus, has not changed,” Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.) told POLITICO in May, shortly after the Callais ruling came down.
The fight over redistricting could dramatically weaken Black representation, both in Congress and in state governments; CBC leadership has projected that roughly a third of their members could see their seats erased with redistricting efforts.
And in The POLITICO Poll in May, 45 percent of Democratic voters said the party should consider countering Republican efforts by drawing their own maps that create more Democratic seats, even if it means reducing the number of majority-minority districts.
Black leaders in the states said that dual reality — Republicans targeting seats in the South and a Democratic Party rank and file seemingly willing to abandon other seats for more political power — only deepens the isolation they feel. Non-Black voters fail to grasp the gravity of the moment, they argued.
For these leaders, the stakes are personal, citing a direct, familial connection to a pre-VRA era, when Jim Crow laws were flourishing across many Southern states.
Virginia Attorney General Jay Jones recalled sitting across the dinner table from his father, who integrated a public school at just 7 years old, while Driskell shared stories of her father seeing “colored only” water fountains at public parks as a child.
“A lot of Black people feel like, in some ways, we’re fighting this by ourselves,” Justin Jones, the Tennessee lawmaker, said. “We need the wider community — particularly our white allies — to step up and see that this is not just a fight for Black people, but it’s a fight for all Americans who really believe in multiracial democracy.”
Some state leaders are now leaning on each other to try and get ahead of potential issues come the midterms this November. Jay Jones said his office is using “every tool at our disposal” to maintain “free elections,” including collaborating with other Democratic attorneys general to brainstorm voter protection tactics.
“We want to make sure that everybody participates and steps up, that they can go do so freely, without fear of intimidation, retribution, or being denied a ballot,” said Jay Jones, the commonwealth’s first Black attorney general.
Meanwhile, activists are leading their own charge as well, trying to rally a groundswell movement that they hope cannot be ignored.
“Every major question of whether America is going to be a democracy — that question was asked and answered in the South,” said LaTosha Brown, co-founder of Black Voters Matter. “And so, once again, we’re being asked. And our question is: Is America going to be a democratic nation with free and fair elections? That question is for America, but the South will answer it.”
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Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (former captain of the Yale University baseball team) said he’s not “a soccer fan.” But he did take some time to talk about the World Cup and U.S. national team while guest hosting Sean Hannity’s radio program Thursday — including a blunt assessment of how the team fared in its 4-1 loss to Belgium earlier this week.
“I’m not a soccer fan, but there’s a lot of interest in it,” DeSantis said. “I think the U.S. laid a big egg the other day against Belgium. I mean, again, I don’t even know that much about soccer, but I tell you, they got their rear end kicked, no question about it.”
Miami has been the host of several World Cup matches, and DeSantis did attend last month’s Brazil-Scotland game. The GOP governor wound up taking a Scotland fan to the iconic Joe’s Stone Crab restaurant in Miami, which he publicized on social media.
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For one evening at least, Les Bleus accomplished what few others can: uniting France’s political class.
Senior French politicians from across the spectrum praised France’s victory over Morocco in the World Cup quarterfinals on Thursday night, as they eye eventual glory in New Jersey on July 19.
“We’re proud of our Les Bleus,” said French President Emmanuel Macron. “Congratulations to Morocco, a formidable opponent tonight just as they were four years ago. France is in the semifinals, with panache and camaraderie!” His party ally Benjamin Haddad, France’s Europe minister, added: “Bravo to the French team for delivering a magnificent collective performance. The adventure continues!”
Even Jordan Bardella joined the chorus — notable given the French far right’s often fraught relationship with the multicultural national team.
“Congratulations to the French team, which completely dominated the game and advanced to the semifinals. Les Bleus are now just two games away from the ultimate achievement!” said the National Rally party president.
Surprisingly, none of France’s 2027 presidential wannabes — far-right Marine Le Pen, conservative Bruno Retailleau, centrist Edouard Philippe and hard-left Jean-Luc Mélenchon — were quick to post their reaction to the result.
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Macron’s sports protectionism
French president and dedicated soccer fan Emmanuel Macron is having himself a day. He attended the Tour de Francein the Pyrenees earlier Thursday, hours before France’s World Cup quarterfinal against Morocco. French outlet RMC Sport reported that shortly after the cycling stage finished, Macron urged star French rider Paul Seixas to remain with his team: French outfit Decathlon CMA CGM.
It’s not the first time Macron has tried to influence a French star to stay with their French team — he lobbied Kylian Mbappé to remain at his club Paris Saint-Germain and not transfer to Real Madrid … a battle he eventually lost.
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Dream lives for Moroccans in Brussels
BRUSSELS — The atmosphere at Le Stalingrad tea salon in Brussels is electric, full of supporters packed shoulder-to-shoulder, with Arabic commentary blaring from the televisions and every chance greeted by deafening reactions.
The crowd has erupted each time Morocco held firm defensively, but the loudest roar of the night (so far) came when France’s Kylian Mbappé missed a penalty, sending the tea shop into a frenzy of cheers and chants of “Bouno!” — the Moroccan goalkeeper’s last name.
Not every ovation was football-related: fans also burst into applause when pop star Shakira appeared on the stadium screens during the broadcast.
For some supporters, however, the evening carries significance beyond full-time. “It would be a shame if there was violence after this game,” said Moroccan native Adil, 23, recalling the unrest that followed his country’s World Cup victory over Belgium four years ago. “It was terrible.”
Whatever the outcome against France, Adil said he would continue supporting Belgium in the tournament if Morocco is eliminated.
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Morocco has its eye on the 2030 final
Morocco is having a moment as a powerhouse soccer nation, reaching the business end of back-to-back World Cups and seeing a pathway to winning this year’s tournament.
“Morocco has gained everybody’s respect now,” team coach Mohamed Ouahbi told reporters after the squad’s victory over the Netherlands in the first knockout round of the 2026 World Cup. “It’s not because of what we’ve said. We’ve now shown it.”
Morocco has its eyes on staging the 2030 final, as well, already antagonizing its co-hosts in Spain and Portugal in its efforts to claim the next men’s tournament’s showcase match.
Since the country’s historic run to the 2022 World Cup semifinal, Rabat has accelerated spending on stadiums and academies, while positioning itself as Africa’s premier soccer hub. It staged the 2026 African Cup of Nations, which it lost on the field during the final — before a court overturned the result.
A key element of Morocco’s soccer expansionism is the aggressive recruitment of diaspora players with dual nationality, particularly those developed in European academies.
The national team has successfully persuaded stars born or raised in countries such as France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Spain to represent Morocco, strengthening its competitiveness while reinforcing ties with Moroccan communities abroad.
At home, Morocco is spending more than a billion dollars on soccer stadiums, irritating some citizens. A wave of protests roiled the country in fall 2025, as a Gen-Z-led movement demonstrated over chronic failings in health care and education — and criticized the investment on soccer arenas. In a sport long dominated by European interests, Moroccan maneuvering has won the world’s attention.
“One of the positives of the World Cup is that every four years you’re reminded that there is incredible talent and ambition and passion for the sport outside of Europe; and for all its faults, one message that FIFA firmly has right is that football belongs to the world, not only Europe,” an official with ties to European soccer leadership, granted anonymity to discuss sensitive political dynamics, told POLITICO.
“Within that, Morocco is a really positive case study — quietly developing on the pitch into being a powerhouse; while gaining influence politically off the pitch. And as we saw during Qatar 2022, they have the most wonderfully passionate fanbase,” the official added.
The next off-field test of how seriously the soccer world takes Morocco’s emergence will come when FIFA has to decide where to place its 2030 final. Soccer’s governing body decided in late 2024 to accept a joint bid from Spain, Portugal and Morocco to host the centenary tournament.
Spain is putting forward two of the sport’s most famous spaces, Camp Nou in Barcelona and the Santiago Bernabéu in Madrid. Morocco has one that hasn’t yet been built: A 115,000-capacity Stade Hassan II near Casablanca that soccer officials say will be ready by the end of 2027.
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Seventy-two members of the European Parliament on Wednesday demanded an investigation into FIFA President Gianni Infantino after FIFA lifted the red card suspension of star U.S. striker Folarin Balogun following a call from President Donald Trump.
Last Thursday, Trump called Infantino to lobby for the automatic ban given to Balogun after receiving a red card against Bosnia and Herzegovina to be overturned. Four days later, FIFA’s disciplinary committee cleared Balogun to play in a crunch match against Belgium.
In a letter sent to the national football federations of the EU’s 27 member countries and obtained by POLITICO, the lawmakers asked them to “add your voice to recent calls in support of an investigation” into Infantino.
“Let us be clear: FIFA’s decision to change the rule on red card suspension mid-tournament is a disgrace and perversion of justice,” said Renew MEP Barry Andrews, who wrote the letter. “Once again, we’ve seen Infantino and FIFA surrender to the demands of the Trump administration.”
Despite Balogun taking part, the U.S. lost to a fired-up Belgium team, whose players mocked Trump’s dancing after scoring their fourth goal in a 4-1 demolition of the host nation.
The lawmakers argue that since FIFA imposes its ethics rules on the 27 member associations, they are similarly “bound by FIFA’s code of ethics to demand that senior FIFA officials be held accountable.”
FIFA did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the letter, but Infantino has previously denied influencing the committee’s decision.
Wednesday’s letter is the third missive in two weeks from European lawmakers to the world football governing body. Andrews wrote a letter last week urging FIFA to investigate Infantino over alleged violations of the organization’s own political neutrality rules, telling POLITICO that FIFA was “profoundly corrupt.” Two days later, fellow Renew MEP Petras Auštrevičius rebuked FIFA over its decision to allow Russians to participate in the U-15 World Cup in October.
The previous letters drew signatures from 50 and 44 MEPs, respectively, making the newest letter the most broadly supported push yet. The letter was signed by MEPs from six parliamentary groups.
“Not many issues can garner that level of bipartisan support,” Andrews added.
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The Muslim manosphere and Achraf Hakimi
The World Cup quarter-final against France folds every saga about Moroccan defender and captain Achraf Hakimi into a single frame.
France is the team that ended Morocco’s historic 2022 run, the country where Hakimi became a global star at Paris Saint-Germain — and the legal system now charging him with rape over a 2023 allegation.
Hakimi denies any wrongdoing. But if convicted, he could face up to 15 years in prison. A quarter-final loss Thursday would raise the possibility that this becomes Hakimi’s last World Cup game and that Moroccan football loses one of its clearest throughlines from its 2022 breakthrough as a global football power to its role as a 2030 World Cup co-host.
A global vessel for Arab, African and Muslim pride in the last World Cup in Qatar, Hakimi soon emerged as a different kind of icon elsewhere: In 2023, amid his divorce in Spain, online manosphere circles obsessively embraced an unverified rumor that he shielded assets from his wife by placing them in his mother’s name. Lauded by figures including controversial online influencer Andrew Tate, Hakimi was cast as a masculine legend imagined to have outsmarted a woman in a rigged gendered battle. This lore has been resurfacing the past three weeks, since a French court ruled Hakimi would stand trial for the rape charge.
While Hakimi’s exploits clash for some fans, they are congruent enough for others. Within Muslim manosphere circles, there is no contradiction between Hakimi the superstar and Hakimi the defendant.
Western manosphere ideologies frame men as individuals dispossessed by the state and by women who have gained too much power, with divorce law, false allegations, dating culture and economic independence among major fixations.
In specific Muslim contexts, manosphere beliefs echo similar gripes but center them around a restored family unit and the sharper absolutism that gender roles have strayed from divinely sanctioned hierarchy. More than a simple misogyny flanked by cherry-picked Quranic verses, it is a politics of anti-liberal gender views, minority resentment and secular distrust.
French courts strike a particular nerve: State secularism promises neutrality toward religion, but many deem that neutrality a guise to police Muslim communities and their racial minorities. Hakimi will be adjudicated in what some defenders consider an inherently hostile judicial order — one shaped by modern Western feminism and refracted through older tropes of the “dangerous Muslim man” in Europe, where biases pull on centuries of migration, empire and civilizational suspicion.
The cultural politics of Hakimi’s case extend beyond the star athlete. Patriarchal interpretations of Islam can mobilize new support for right-wing parties in Western democracies, even amid otherwise exclusionary stances. And Muslim women are left with a pointed dilemma: Naming gender violence within their communities can be read as feeding anti-Muslim sentiment, while not naming it feeds the silence that insulates perpetrators.
That tension between gender and religion, defense and accountability, surrounds the Hakimi case during this unresolved period. The verdict isn’t likely to lead to a resolution that satisfies all — acquittal will look to many as if his status protected him, and conviction will suggest to others that no status would ever be enough to earn fair treatment.
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Mbappé-Paraguay racism row rumbles on
Remarks by Paraguayan Senator Celeste Amarilla shocked France — and much of the world — earlier this week after she branded Kylian Mbappé a “brute,” mocked his intelligence and questioned his French identity.
Days later, the fallout has spiraled from international condemnation to criminal investigations and extraordinary South American threats to extradite the France captain.
Amarilla’s comments landed against an already charged backdrop after France’s World Cup tense knockout victory over Paraguay. Hours after the match, revelers at Paraguay’s annual San Juan Ara festival burned an effigy labeled “Kylian Mbappé.” But once the senator’s remarks sparked international outrage, Paraguay’s government moved to distance itself Monday, calling them “contrary to the values and principles” of the country and insisting they reflected neither the government’s views nor those of the Paraguayan people.
FIFA President Gianni Infantino said in an Instagram story on the same day that he “unequivocally condemned” the abuse, adding: “All of football and society stand in solidarity with the France captain — we need to fight racism and defeat it all together.”
France hit back just as forcefully. Mbappé accused Amarilla of being a “despicable woman” unworthy of office, while the French Football Federation announced it would take the case up with prosecutors. By Tuesday, French prosecutors had opened an investigation into alleged racist abuse following the complaint from the FFF, citing an offense punishable by up to one year in prison and a €45,000 fine.
French President Emmanuel Macron weighed in on X the same day: “Another goal for Kylian Mbappé. Against racism this time.”
Amarilla, meanwhile, responded with a lengthy open letter on Tuesday in French and Spanish after deleting some of her original posts. While saying she regretted insulting Mbappé “with the same insults” she had herself endured as a mixed-race woman, she spent much of the letter demanding that the France captain apologize to her, accusing him of insulting her and threatening legal action if he refused.
Hours later, speaking to reporters, she struck a different tone acknowledging that her posts “were racist” and “unfortunate.” But she again stopped short of apologizing. “I’m trying to build a different Celeste Amarilla,” she said, blaming the attitudes she grew up with. “Have patience. I’m trying.”
The condemnation only widened. Paraguay’s Senate on Wednesday formally rejected Amarilla’s remarks, saying they did not represent the chamber. The U.N. human rights office warned that “language that dehumanizes people because of their race or ethnic origin has no place in sport or public discourse,” while World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus called the episode “a disgrace,” adding that “racism is not a joke, a personality trait, or an excuse rooted in ‘where I come from.’”
The saga may not be over just yet. Speaking to ABC Cardinal on Tuesday, Amarilla said she was considering suing Mbappé, arguing that his response constituted “gender violence” and “political violence.”
The following day, her lawyer, Guillermo Duarte Cacavelos, told the broadcaster they would meet to discuss the case and that no decision had yet been made. But he also laid out an expansive legal argument, claiming Mbappé’s description of Amarilla as a “despicable woman” could amount to criminal defamation in Paraguay because the comments had legal effects there — and suggesting the France captain could ultimately even face extradition to stand trial.
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