I think we'll see a Trump administration with the Republican Congress pepper the next several years with laws that, in the name of security or fiscal policy or some other smokescreen, strip women and minorities of what they have. They'll be "voting rights" acts that make it harder for Blacks and Latinos to vote. Passed under the guise of voter fraud protection. The Affordable Care Act might not get axed straight out, but I can easily see it getting de-funded in the name of fiscal responsibility. Immigration quotas will be tightened under the pretense of saving jobs. Almost certainly a hundred other laws that, to all but the deliberately obtuse, will chip away at equality.
So how does this impact comics?
With stricter voting regulations, fewer Blacks and Latinos will be able to vote, thereby making them even less represented than they already are. Added security will lead to even more profiling, both of which leading to more minorities in prison. Of course, if you're in prison, the chances of you having the ability to create and publish comics drop pretty radically. How many voices won't we hear because of this?
With the ACA gutted, how many people are going to have to try to track down full-time jobs just in order for them to get healthy insurance? When will they have time to work on comics? Or what about those who aren't able to get a job (since they're competing with so many others like them) and die as a result of the inability to get treatment? More voices we won't hear.
Women who try to make comics, but then quickly drop out of the industry altogether when they're harassed and threatened.
What about the LGBTQ community, whose have trolls drive them back into the closet already? Even in the couple of days since the election, there's been an uptick in violence against them, attributed to being given a pass by Trump's own behavior. How many people will find it preferable to simply hide and avoid getting beaten than speak up and find themselves in the hospital or worse...
Undoubtedly, and certainly in the near term, many creators will speak up and speak loudly. But as day to day living becomes slowly more difficult, with fewer safety nets, and a very real danger to the physical safety, I suspect we'll start hearing less and less from them as they try to take care of themselves. Which they absolutely will have to do. But that will also mean time they can't work on making their voices heard through comics.
One thing I've actively tried to do over the past decade or so has been seek out those smaller voices, and either amplify them or provide some measure of support. And I've tried to use whatever privileged forum I have to promote tolerance and diversity, often using comics as the medium to send that message. But it obviously hasn't been enough. I'm not speaking loudly enough, or eloquently enough, or passionately enough, or persuasively enough. I've never really thought of myself as a writer, but I've never felt less of one than now. I will continue to do what I can to support and promote women and minority voices, but I apologize for not doing more. Or better. I don't want to see voices that are different from mine silenced. But I expect that many of them will be as the real-world effects of President Trump will quiet them little by little as they succumb to having to put all their energies into mere survival, sadly casting aside the relative luxury of creating comics.
My point here is just that, like I said a decade ago, Trump is trying to silence them. If you didn't think his intentions were as obvious as I saw them to be back then, they sure as hell ought to be obivous now. It's not enough to be content with, "Well, I'm not saying or doing anything racist." Trump is actively out there trying to silence women and minorities, so you have to actively counter that or else he will wipe them out.
I wasn't being hyperbolic ten years ago, and I'm not being hyperbolic now.
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