I concede that Kirby was a liberal Democrat.
But I never saw anywhere that he exhibited the scorched-earth rhetoric toward Republicans that the writer of this article projects on all conservatives. I just don't see Kirby having that level of meaness in him.
If it were, say, Harlan Ellison, Mike W. Barr, Steve Gerber or Mark Evanier, then I'd say yeah, that's a natural speculation of what their ideas were. But Kirby...
Kirby was more of a sane guy speculating from the sidelines about ideological fascism that could be applied to either side. Justifieers as Kirby portrayed them could be Nazis, Stalinists, leftist Cold Warriors, hippies like the Manson cult, the Weather Underground, overzealous police or U.S. soldiers, or applied to other ideological causes.
Look at NEW GODS 6, where Kirby portrays an ideological battle between an Archie-Bunker-esque father and his conscientious objector son. He portrays the ideological sides of both father and son as decent people, both courageous and true to their values. I don't see Kirby as rabidly anti-conservative. Guys like Ellison, Evanier and Barr, I could definitely pull up quotes to support the notion of their rabid ideological leftism.
Kirby's stated inspiration for Darkseid and Anti-Life is Adolf Hitler and the Nazis. The only other clear inspiration he listed was for the character Glorious Godfrey, begun in FOREVER PEOPLE 3. And Kirby's visual inspiration for that was Rev. Billy Graham, in his televised evangelical meetings. But from what I could see, he didn't think Graham was evil either, just that his ability to sway large masses at his rallies disturbed Kirby, and maybe reminded him a bit of Hitler's enthusiastic rallies.
