November 10, 2024 - So that election didn't go the way I wanted, but at the same time I can't say that I'm surprised. Since I've started With Fetus I've been following the rightward trend of politics and watched liberals get complacent about abortion being enshrined as law and to ignore all the increasing attempts to tear that law down. And it's not just abortion but so many American principles, from freedom of speech to freedom of the press to freedom of religion and fact-based knowledge in school. There's some solace in the fact that for the most part society overwhelmingly does want abortion access, not to be persecuted for their speech, their religion, or their identity, that society does want their children to get a quality fact-based education and not some bullshit American exceptionalism nonsense. But that's not stopping bad actors from perverting American desires for political or capital gains, especially when there's so little urgency to stop these bad actors or direction from leadership in terms of ways to do so.
Right now, it's very easy to Monday morning quarterback and finger point and try to place blame. And I'm not going to say that's unproductive or conversely to rally around the fact that inherently people are good (because as I stated in the first paragraph they are). All I want to say is reiterate that I'm unsurprised. And I'm unsurprised because I felt so powerless to do anything this election cycle. I do not feel I personally could have done anything to change the outcome. And I am very very very angry about my lack of agency. I am angry at leadership that didn't give me anything I could point to that might have won over voters or strategies to effectively deploy volunteers. I am angy at media that tried to convince me, usually successfully, that things were okay. I'm angry at all the times they had the option to have difficult conversations with apathetic voters and instead chose to do what felt good. The times they were on Saturday Night Live instead of campaigning in the "blue wall," the times they couldn't be bothered to fly to Austin but wanted Joe Rogan to come to them, the times they put out condescending ads about voting against your partner instead of encouraging conversations between partners about their political feelings, and so so so much more. Why is it Harris can have a great debate performance after which Taylor Swift links to footage of the debate with her endorsement and the campaign then puts out virtually no media that anyone can easily or proudly link to?
It doesn't feel good to feel powerless, and this sense of powerlessness has pervaded America for a very long time. This is why Harris lost. It's not because people didn't understand, it's because people feel that their actions do not matter so they stayed home due to feelings of a lack of agency. And I still feel powerless to watch as so many people are going to get hurt under an aministration that has no interest addressing the anger it exploited to ride to victory because, of the two campaigns, it was the one that acknowledged that that anger exists.
I don't have solutions to that anger. Neither does Trump. Neither does at least the current Democratic Party leadership. Neither does the media. And it's frightening to think this anger can get worse. In all likelihood it will. People are good, but we need leadership, leadership that it's increasingly clear we do not have with the scariest thing of it all being how I know the leadership of both sides is going to blame everyone else before accepting responsibility, that they'd rather feel good about themselves than admit they could possibly do something wrong.
I'm not a part of that leadership. I don't really want to be, because I like feeling good about myself too. And maybe I'm lying to myself about how much more responsibility I should accept or how much more I should have done. At minimum I feel I'm doing the best I really can and could have. It's up to leadership to offer more, inspire me to pursue more, and at the end of the day I do not and did not feel those options were there.
Things are going to suck for a while. I made an effort to get that comic up last week just so I could post that people should vote in the blog section, and I made an effort to post now to get this rant in. Abortion access is in a pretty bad spot, but all that can really be done for now is to continue to vote down any bans and try to get liberal politicians into office because everything is very much at the mercy of the courts. Public opinion remains overwhelmingly in favor of legalized abortion access, but the laws against it are not good. There are resources available for people seeking abortion access, I think prochoice.org is probably a good starting point if you need information and as always discussing sexual health, reproductive rights, and contraception use is always good for consensual sexual relationships. For nonconsensual situations one can contact thehotline.org. And obviously there are a host of other issues under threat by another Trump presidential term that you can look up and get involved with if you're so inclined. Don't really know when I'll post next. Still want to finish writing this stuff with February before really working on drawing it. I've hit 400 scripts and think it concludes probably just shy of 500, so we'll see how long that takes. My current plan for 90 involves some animation and 91 has even more animation planned so those comics do tend to take longer, so I'm not sure if I'll manage to post again this year considering how bad I am at posting already. But sometimes when I say expect a long delay then I actually get stuff done. ...only sometimes though.
-D
Right now, it's very easy to Monday morning quarterback and finger point and try to place blame. And I'm not going to say that's unproductive or conversely to rally around the fact that inherently people are good (because as I stated in the first paragraph they are). All I want to say is reiterate that I'm unsurprised. And I'm unsurprised because I felt so powerless to do anything this election cycle. I do not feel I personally could have done anything to change the outcome. And I am very very very angry about my lack of agency. I am angry at leadership that didn't give me anything I could point to that might have won over voters or strategies to effectively deploy volunteers. I am angy at media that tried to convince me, usually successfully, that things were okay. I'm angry at all the times they had the option to have difficult conversations with apathetic voters and instead chose to do what felt good. The times they were on Saturday Night Live instead of campaigning in the "blue wall," the times they couldn't be bothered to fly to Austin but wanted Joe Rogan to come to them, the times they put out condescending ads about voting against your partner instead of encouraging conversations between partners about their political feelings, and so so so much more. Why is it Harris can have a great debate performance after which Taylor Swift links to footage of the debate with her endorsement and the campaign then puts out virtually no media that anyone can easily or proudly link to?
It doesn't feel good to feel powerless, and this sense of powerlessness has pervaded America for a very long time. This is why Harris lost. It's not because people didn't understand, it's because people feel that their actions do not matter so they stayed home due to feelings of a lack of agency. And I still feel powerless to watch as so many people are going to get hurt under an aministration that has no interest addressing the anger it exploited to ride to victory because, of the two campaigns, it was the one that acknowledged that that anger exists.
I don't have solutions to that anger. Neither does Trump. Neither does at least the current Democratic Party leadership. Neither does the media. And it's frightening to think this anger can get worse. In all likelihood it will. People are good, but we need leadership, leadership that it's increasingly clear we do not have with the scariest thing of it all being how I know the leadership of both sides is going to blame everyone else before accepting responsibility, that they'd rather feel good about themselves than admit they could possibly do something wrong.
I'm not a part of that leadership. I don't really want to be, because I like feeling good about myself too. And maybe I'm lying to myself about how much more responsibility I should accept or how much more I should have done. At minimum I feel I'm doing the best I really can and could have. It's up to leadership to offer more, inspire me to pursue more, and at the end of the day I do not and did not feel those options were there.
Things are going to suck for a while. I made an effort to get that comic up last week just so I could post that people should vote in the blog section, and I made an effort to post now to get this rant in. Abortion access is in a pretty bad spot, but all that can really be done for now is to continue to vote down any bans and try to get liberal politicians into office because everything is very much at the mercy of the courts. Public opinion remains overwhelmingly in favor of legalized abortion access, but the laws against it are not good. There are resources available for people seeking abortion access, I think prochoice.org is probably a good starting point if you need information and as always discussing sexual health, reproductive rights, and contraception use is always good for consensual sexual relationships. For nonconsensual situations one can contact thehotline.org. And obviously there are a host of other issues under threat by another Trump presidential term that you can look up and get involved with if you're so inclined. Don't really know when I'll post next. Still want to finish writing this stuff with February before really working on drawing it. I've hit 400 scripts and think it concludes probably just shy of 500, so we'll see how long that takes. My current plan for 90 involves some animation and 91 has even more animation planned so those comics do tend to take longer, so I'm not sure if I'll manage to post again this year considering how bad I am at posting already. But sometimes when I say expect a long delay then I actually get stuff done. ...only sometimes though.
-D
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