Failing My Children and My Great-Grandmother

in which our hero laments the state of his country

Dear Readers,

I love the idea of my country, but I hate the reality of it.

It’s the morning after election day and my fellow Americans have decided to return a fascist to the White House. I’m trying to find some reason to hope for a better tomorrow, but the truth is that there is none. The next four years will be very, very bad—not just for our country, but for countries around the world. Here’s just a few of the ways I see it going down:

• The procedure which made it possible for me to have children (IVF) will be outlawed.

• My daughters will be denied bodily autonomy. Then, if the worst should happen and they get pregnant when they don’t want to be, they may end up like my great-grandmother, Edna Baker Clark, who died in 1919 of a self-inflicted abortion.

• Netanyahu’s Israel, emboldened by Trump’s return to power, will continue his genocide of the Palestinian people.

• Vladimir Putin’s Russia, together with his new pals from North Korea, will “do whatever they hell he wants”—permission given to him by the President-elect—and will eliminate Ukraine. Then, for good measure, he’ll take my ancestral homelands of Poland and Lithuania.

• North Korea will invade South Korea.

• China will invade Taiwan.

• The U.S. economy will collapse under the weight of Trump’s disastrously stupid tariff plan and his plan to deport immigrant workers doing jobs that no entitled, self-important native-born American would ever do.

• Republicans will somehow still find a way to blame the Democrats for this, even though the Republicans will control all three branches of government.

• My wife and I will both lose our jobs as a result of Trump’s plan to dismantle the Department of Education.

• Known vaccine conspiracy theorist RFK Jr. will push a ban on vaccines and Americans will start dropping like flies from whatever the next pandemic ends up being.

• The FCC licenses of any and all networks who defy the new president will be revoked.

• Enemies lists will be established. I’ll be on one of those lists just for writing shit like this. A lot of you reading this will be on those lists, too. The rest of you are laughing uncomfortably because you can’t believe it’ll be this bad. But you’re wrong. It will be this bad. In fact, it will probably be worse. And eventually they’ll come for you too.

We are a nation of self-centered, self-serving, racist misogynists who largely care about nothing but our fucking bank accounts. We think nothing of other people, especially if those people don’t look like us, love like us, or believe like us, and we will throw those people under the bus at the first fucking opportunity we get if it’ll save our own skin.

I’ll be back next week with news about the comic. I know it seems silly to make art or talk about making art right now—at least there’s a large part of me that’s trying to make me feel that way—but I honestly think that making my comic is the only thing that’s going to keep me sane. That, and sharing it with you.

Yours,
Chris