Dang but things SUCK right now. I know. And I keep seeing this question: what can we do?
Take Good Care of Yourself!
First, take a deep breath. Drink water. Moisturize. Eat a good snack. Keep doing the things that bring you joy. For instance, I love the art of dressing. Putting together a cute outfit is one of my favorite hobbies. But ever since 2017, when I really stepped up my political advocacy, organizing and volunteering, I didn’t dedicate as much time to that. No more! Me and my ridiculous amount of dresses are going to look AMAZING as we combat all this bullshit.
After that foundational “self-love,” here’s what I have been gathering from other resources and my own thinking of what to do to make things better:
Start local, start small, and don’t do what they tell you
Today at work, I changed the font size to enlarge the part of my email signature that denotes my pronouns. I made the colors in light blue, grey, and pink to represent trans pride flag. I discussed with my library staff co-worker how we are going to double or triple down on our thematic displays and decorations that honor diversity, equity and inclusion. Even more Black History Month decorations, posters, displays. That kind of thing.
Once I was alone in the office, I also blasted “Killing in the Name of” and danced like mad to it. Cartharsis!
Stay local for politics, too
Whoever is an elected official or high level government official in your local or state government that is doing good things and fighting the good fight, do all that you can to support and promote them. Donate, volunteer, share their initiatives. The Massachusetts Secretary of Education made inspiring comments to the presidents of the state collges and our college president shared them with us. These are the fortifying things we need to keep in our minds, hearts, and spirits.
Courage to change things
I keep thinking of the serenity prayer, even though I am not a Christian. So you can make it secular: “grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.” Or you can speak to the spirit that you do believe in for the start of the prayer. “Dear Brigid, Triple Goddess of the beginning, the middle, the end, and renewal, grant me… etc etc.” The point is, you can’t affect these stupid executive orders and terrible appointed federal officials. So don’t dwell on that news. Keep your intake to one half hour of one trusted news source a day, max. Keep focusing on local news, too, since that’s where we all have the most impact. Discern what you CAN do. Then act on what you can.
Take action now: you don’t have to wait for anyone else
I am also thinking about the final episode of Rachel Maddow’s podcast “Ultra” where she discusses how it was that the extremism of the 1930s and 40s, that was on the rise globally and in the United States, was ultimately defeated. It was not one thing, or one person, or one movement, or one approach. It was people using all the tools in their tool belts to do what they could to defeat extremism. They didn’t wait to see what other people were doing. They just took action, and worked hard, and made cracks in the facade of extremism and fascism and Nazism and eventually the foundation gave way. That’s what we have to do.
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion are AMERICAN VALUES
Say what we mean, and call them out when they don’t say what they mean. We keep letting them say “DEI” instead of “diversity, equity and inclusion.” The person in presidential office is CONDEMNING , stopping, reversing advances in the AMERICAN VALUES of DIVERSITY, EQUITY and INCLUSION.
Or they’re falsely saying their anti trans initiatives are “protecting children” when it is doing nothing of the sort — in fact, it is harming trans and all LGBTQIA+ children and their families and friends, which is the opposite of protecting children.
Call people out on their bullshit, and use the language YOU want, not their rhetorical rigamarole.
Analog Living
My big thing for this year is analog living. I detailed this out in my last post.
Issues not politics
I’ve been a die-hard Democract since 2002 (after a brief period from 1998-2001 of being a Green Party member). Since 2017, I’ve done A LOT of things for local and national candidates for office. I’m really burnt out on the Democratic Party right now, though. So, until the DNC et al on a national level can get their collective heads out their collective tushies, I plan to do any advocacy/ organizing/ activist work on an issue-based level, instead of doing so for a particular Congressional or Presidential candidate. State and local politics is a bit different, since you really can make an impact at that level (as I noted above.) But even in this case, I’m still focusing on issues more than state politics: ranked choice voting, changes to how the state legislature works, homelessness, abortion rights, etc etc.
Move along, together
It sucks right now, and it’s scary. But 1/3 of us actively voted against this. 1/3 of us didn’t participate because of a myriad of reasons that we can maybe change in coming election cycle and get those non-participants motivated again, or for the first time. 1/3 of the voting population voted for this but even then, not all of them wanted THIS. They (IMO, ignorantly and/or foolishly) believed the populist economic message and thought they would be seeing a better economy be the focus of this Admonistration. The rest, so less than a 1/3 of the voting population, wanted this. And this is who we will work to defeat in big and small ways as we move along this period of history together. (Yes, I just took lyrics from the Muppets “Moving Right Along” to end this; I’m listening to the song is why! Ha.)
I hope this advice has helped you. There is a lot of good advice out there, right now. Swear, scream, get angry, for sure. Then take care of yourself. Then work on what you can to make things better. That’s what I’m doing.
💗
