Trying To Fight Off The Dread
On the eve of the inauguration, help us spread a little positivity
Here we go.
After two-plus months of limbo after the election, Donald Trump takes office for the second time. We all knew this day would come, but at the same time, the closer the day drew near the more improbable it seemed. There are moments when it just doesn’t feel like real life. Like this just couldn’t possibly have happened. But it did. We’ve been going through the soft launch of Trump 2.0 the last few weeks, but tomorrow it opens for business and we better be ready.
When I last wrote about politics here, I was still trying to wrap my head around the results and ultimately trying to prepare for the constant cavalcade of dumbfuckery we’re going to be forced to endure over the next four years. The first sign of being back in a Trump presidency has been the barrage of news hitting 24/7, so much of it difficult to process and deal with. Every day seems to bring some new disaster to fret over, but there are some nuggets of good news to focus on. About three hours ago, a ceasefire went into effect in Gaza, hopefully putting an end to the 15 months of bloodshed. It will be tenuous as hostages/prisoners are scheduled to be released over the next six weeks and a longterm solution is figured out, but things are moving in the right direction for the first time in a while. That it’s taking place the day before everything changes over here feels almost too on the nose.
And while some things about the last couple months have surprised me (I never thought annexing Canada was going to be on the bingo card), one thing I was sure of has proven to be very true already — we’re going to need to rely on each other. This point has been driven home especially hard by the wildfires in Los Angeles.
As I’ve been following the news on the fires, I’ve been getting pretty emotional, as I’m sure many of us have. Each moment something different tugs at me. My heart breaks seeing so much destruction; looking at entire neighborhoods reduced to ash. I’m constantly worried because I know so many people who have had to evacuate. I have moments where I’ve been overwhelmed by joy when I see the outpouring of assistance from all over the world.
But then I have moments of extreme fury, moments where I want to set my computer on fire and throw it out the window, as I watch Republican politicians talk about the restrictions they want to put on federal aid to California. People have lost their homes in a natural disaster, taking care of those affected and making them whole again is sort of the entire point of having a federal government, isn’t it? This shouldn’t be a political issue, but jackwagons like Sen. Tommy Tubberville, a horrible football coach and somehow an even worse senator, need to score political points against a blue state. Hence, they start talking about how there needs to be conditions on the relief funding.
And… this is just the way it’s going to be for a long time. Empathy is no longer in power. Every single issue is going to be this craven, this divided over meaningless identifiers like party affiliation. Los Angeles has a democratic mayor, thus they deserve to suffer. It’s the sort of behavior that would be pathetic from a middle schooler, but it’s coming from nearly every member of the party that will soon have a trifecta of power in Washington.
It’s enough to make me want to curl up in a ball and hibernate until the world feels like it makes sense again. But then I started to look around at my community and see all of the good people are doing. The dozens of GoFundMes I see every time I open social media. All of the bands and artists who are donating merch sales to wildfire relief. The amazing work being done by Pasadena Humane and others. [Each of these links go somewhere different and are a small representation of how much support there is]. And an extra shoutout to the people who are constantly flooding the timeline with vital information to resources like abortion funds, pro bono immigration lawyers, and groups supporting the LGBTQ+ community.
This is what I need to be filling my heart with right now. I can’t focus only on the negativity, I need to be part of the positive action that will help us endure. One of the best things about launching this project is seeing the development of a community here in the comments section, so I thought I’d ask if our readers could list some of the organizations they think need our support right now. Maybe some more links to GoFundMes. We just want to hear where you’re finding some solace right now.
It all gets very real tomorrow, let’s do all we can to help each other get through it all.
I am super curious how many of you are doing the lights out Meta thing where we all log off all Meta platforms for a week. Are any of you? I'll come back here and put a link if you don't know what the hell I'm talking about.
Second question is that we are launching a program in the next week or so involving giving our profits to a couple of causes. I've isolated two that I think are in need of support and are strongly aligned with what we care about and want to change. But these gifts are from all of us, our whole AJPT community, so I would love for you all to weigh in here and elsewhere, telling me which causes you would like us to be supporting, financially and otherwise, starting after this inauguration (which Charlie managed to be so much more upbeat about here than I've been - thanks, Charlie!).
Who's logging off meta?
Causes you want AJPT specifically to donate to? Let me know if you like. Thank you!
"Empathy is no longer in power." It's not at the highest level of power right now, but your article highlights all the ways we can keep empathy in power across the masses. 💜