Almost every politician in America loses at some point, and does so very publicly. How candidates handle defeat is presented as a measure of the kind of leader—and person—they are. Political defeat offers satirists a golden opportunity to skewer politicians. Richard Nixon has for several decades served as a useful visual shorthand for political humiliation—even if, as in Pat Oliphant’s sketch here, Nixon was defiantly unrepentant as he was forced to resign. Oliphant’s bronze statue of a bitter Nixon as Napoleon on horseback, brooding over his loss (Waterloo/Watergate), hearkens back to a common symbol of defeat in 19th-century visual culture. But there were other familiar tropes for loss as well. One was the notion of candidates being “sent up Salt River” when they lost a campaign, referring to a twisty stream in Kentucky that led only to oblivion. Jefferson Davis was reported to have tried to escape from Union troops in May 1865 wearing a dress and shawl. Whether or not the Davis story is true, the emasculating (and misogynistic) image of a defeated leader in women’s clothes became a common form of visual shorthand in American political satire.

“A Correct Chart of Salt River, Prepared by Father Ritchie,” lithograph (n.p., c. 1848).