Mitch McConnell. Ted Cruz. Lindsey Graham. And, for good measure, Alex Jones. Four douchebags who are backing Trump's insane refusal to concede for the most craven, cynical reasons imaginable. Support from the base is more important to them than the integrity of the democratic process. Boo! Put another way, they would rather risk fanning the flames of extremism and division and undermine the stability of not only their government but also their country than lose potential votes. The only other explanation for their (and around 95% of the GOP) continued support of Trump that rings possible for me is the "Sow doubt over the integrity of the election with a flood of bullshit, use that as evidence of same, and use the Supreme Court to allow appointed Electors" strategy. I've listened to many opinions as to why that is extremely implausible, and I trust those opinions, generally. Still, though. They might give it a shot.
Like a lot of Canadians, I follow American politics very closely. We are the mouse in bed with the elephant. It's compelling because the stakes are so goddamn high.Willful ignorance and brazen hypocrisy are hard pills to swallow, and these guys make a meal of them.
These kaleidoscopized images are based on photos that are in the public domain. The Cruz and McConnell photos are official government portraits, Alex Jones' pic is his mugshot from his relatively recent drunk driving arrest, and the shot of Lindsey Graham was put in the public domain by its creator, Gage Skidmore. I think it is only fitting that all of these image manipulations also be donated to the public domain, so let me state that every image on this page is available using a CC BY license in the Creative Commons. Just acknowledge that Justus Hayes is their creator, and a link to here would be nice (but not necessary).
Please note that the only distorting filter used here is the Kaleidoscope filter. This is simple mirroring. The next step is to start doing some editing; the Alex Jones image at the end of this post is an example of this.
It's interesting how easily the human face forms genitalia-like features when recombined and reflected using the Kaleidoscope filter. It never occurred to me before I started doing this that human flaps and folds translate across human anatomy.
A word about this Alex Jones source photo, his mugshot. The biggest version of the original photo available online that I could find was relatively small (520 x 650ish) and has a noticeable grain. Here it is:
As a result, I had to screw around with the image once I had blown it up to a printable size to make it high res enough and minimize that grain.