What Do We Do Now?

Besides feeling helpless.

I feel a disconcerting disconnect. There’s my life in the bubble, and there’s what I read in the news. I’ve been letting the cabinet appointments just roll over me like Muzak in an elevator. Of course he’s going to pick the worst people possible. That’s Trump. He’s going to drill baby drill while the fires burn in LA. He’s got the Senate, the House and the Supreme Court. He’s got all the oligarchs in his pocket. Mark Zuckerberg doesn’t dare fact check the lies.

Tell me something new.

The last time Trump was in power, I read the news obsessively. I went from outrage to outrage. Four years and especially in 2020, during the pandemic, when he not only flouted science but used the crisis to further polarize us.

And then, like most of my friends, I was simply exhausted. Since November, whenever the topic of politics comes up, people hold up their hands and say, “No. Let’s not talk about it.” I get it. Talking about Trump can really harsh your mellow.

I too am burned out. And I want to talk about it.

The other day, on NPR, I heard Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) talk about his new book, It Takes Chutzpah: How to Fight Fearlessly for Progressive Change. I downloaded it and started reading it last night. It’s about fighting the good fight on the local level and fighting to keep the country from “falling into the abyss of fascism, what George Orwell called ‘a boot stomping on a human face, forever.’”

It’s tapping into something I haven’t felt in years: idealism. I know it’s there, way down deep under the scar tissue of cynicism that’s built up over decades.

Yeah, hokey. And yes, I’d prefer to just crochet and make art and go to dinner parties and talk about what’s great on Netflix too. (And I will continue to do so.) My socialist kids will probably say he’s not progressive enough.

What do we do now? Besides shrug our shoulders? I don’t know. I’m open to suggstions. Meanwhile, I’ll read Wyden’s guidebook to “making purposeful noise.”

Anyone care to read it with me? And then get together to discuss. And maybe find a path of resistance to the mess that starts in earnest next week.