Before, political cartoons were shown primarily in a local context (or in international papers to an audience that was more aware of political things) so labels weren’t needed. These days, political memes are disseminated online to an international audience who don’t necessarily know what every single US politician looks like. I have no idea who the person on the left is without a label, for example, besides “that person who said ‘we’re all going to die.’”

This doesn’t strike me as an example of over-labelling, the way that gets satirized in Kelly comics.