The Best Use of My Time

Thanks to everyone who reached out with their thoughts about the election and the wisdom they were leaning on to make sense of it all. Everyone I talk to is vacillating between anger and dissociation, and I’ve tended toward the latter category. I’ve been ignoring the news and trying to not react to every stupid cabinet appointment Trump makes. That’s the “detachment” I was talking about last week.

Speaking of those cabinet appointments: it’s incredible to me that some of these people aren’t saying to themselves, “maybe Secretary of Defense, when I’ve only risen to the rank of major and am a weekend Fox anchor, is a bigger job than I am prepared for.” I have more than 25 years of experience in my field and I would still beg off a related Cabinet position on the basis that I am not the best candidate. I realized that only incompetent idiots actually lack the imposter syndrome that those of us with expertise suffer from. They are too stupid to realize they can’t do the job. The smart ones even understand that not being able to do the job is the point of getting the job. Chaos that shreds the gears of government is the political philosophy of MAGA.

And that’s why I am not reacting to this Trump presidency the way I did the first time around. I am no longer credulous. I don’t think a women’s march on January 18, 2025, will have any effect whatsoever except to use up the time, energy, and organizational resources we will need for the longer, slower battle of fighting the chaos and rebuilding our governmental institutions.

Before the election, Eric at Rangelife wrote about our Crisis Era and what it portended for the country over the next couple of decades. Although he nominally predicted that Harris would win, his broader point was more predictive of a Trump win.

This era kicked off with the financial collapse of 2008, and then Big Tech supplanting major institutions, loss of trust in nearly everything, fake news, cyber warfare, pandemic, consolidation of wealth, Brexit, Trump, Elon, January 6, and the breakdown of the post-war order. We’ve got another 5-to-8 years of this, during which things could get bad.

When I read it, I thought Eric was laying it on a bit thick, but now I agree with him. Our best case scenario is for ONLY 5-8 years of chaos. The upside is, there will be an upside. Especially if we want one, and we work for it.

Colorado governor Jared Polis is (rightfully) getting all kinds of shit for saying that he welcomes the appointment of RFK Jr. but he added a caveat that I think is worth noting (from this NBC News article):

“I hope he leans into personal choice on vaccines rather than bans (which I think are terrible, just like mandates) but what I’m most optimistic about is taking on big pharma and the corporate ag oligopoly to improve our health.” Polis picked out quotes from Kennedy that he agreed with, including quotes saying “entire departments” of HHS should be eliminated, calling for a cap on drug prices and for getting off “pesticide-intensive agriculture.”

Experts cited in that article note that RFK Jr.’s ideas are actually terrible and would not improve health outcomes. But I think Gov. Polis has a larger point, which is that we shouldn’t be defending government institutions as they are, we should be building them as they should be. The fossil fuel industry, Big Pharma, and Big Ag benefit from the way that current way that the government is structured. We are the lucky beneficiaries of the clean water, safe drugs, and seamless food supply that our institutions created but other interests are now even greater beneficiaries of our institutions. When RFK Jr. destroys them, we need to have plans in place for what comes after, not just go to the barricades for the status quo.

The Trump administration is going to do a lot of harm to a lot of people through the destruction of our norms and institutions. Outrage is very easy, but it’s also a recipe for burnout. Our time needs to be spent not in protesting and reactive outrage but in community building and collective imagination about the future we want.

What does that look like in practice? I am not sure we know yet, on a national or professional level. At my other blog about labor arbitration, Champions of Conflict, I wrote about the impact of Project 2025 on collective bargaining and arbitration. We all need to know the pressure points in our own areas of expertise and how they might be exploited so we can protect them. At the same time, we need to reimagine our practices so they are more beneficial and transparent in the future. One friend who is General Counsel at a major non-profit that expects to be scrutinized by a Trump administration (again) is thinking about how to share her knowledge with more vulnerable organizations who don’t have the resources to weather the audits and investigations that will be conducted. An article I read noted that cities need to identify areas, like arenas and stadiums (ahem, Oakland), that could be used to detain undocumented immigrants in the mass deportation that starts January 21, and pass laws now that prevent their use for that purpose.

Those are examples of the defensive strategies we need to build. We also need to rebuild our personal lives. We need to get out more. Like seriously. We need to get off our phones and start going to movies and book readings and community events. We need to start hosting parties just for fun and not just to write letters to voters in swing states. We need to get to know our neighbors and enrich our minds, deepen our friendships and expand our horizons. Check out art galleries in your town, see what’s happening at the library, send a handwritten letter to a friend, travel somewhere new, even if it’s just in the next county over. Go out for beers with co-workers (and start a union), volunteer to hand out water at a race, take a wreath making class.

In other words, stop worrying about Trump and get to know yourself and the people in your community. It’s real small ball shit, but it is what will make the difference when MAGA tries to dehumanize our neighbors, ask us to snitch, and appeals to our angriest base instincts by trolling us constantly with insane political appointments and policies.

The other thing we need to do is stop supporting the institutions that are actually destroying our country stealthily. Normally, I am a top-down systems person, and think individuals shouldn’t be held responsible for the catastrophic problems we face. For example, I tried to be “zero waste” for a while, but actually manufacturers need to be held responsible for their plastic/fossil fuel dependency. Individuals will not turn the tide alone. However, I think the current situation calls for more individual changes.

My very smart friend Audra recently posted a comment calling for more plant-based/vegan diets to counteract the energy-dependent actions of ten major companies. I noted, “Not disputing the plant-based eating but making individuals responsible, rather than those 10 companies, is why we’re in the trouble we’re in. I know you know this. Sorry.”

She responded, “Yeah totally but also let’s do everything bc now we can’t count on anyone but ourselves.”

I think she’s half right. We can count on ourselves and we can count on our friends and communities. And we can take individual actions and pressure bad actors to do right. Example: 250,000 + subscribers left the Washington Post when Bezos refused to endorse Harris, including me. But that only hurts the Washington Post. If we want to hurt Bezos, we need to stop using Amazon. Drop our Prime subscriptions. Worried about Elon Musk? Get off Twitter, don’t buy Tesla, and tell your House representative that you don’t want defense dollars going to his companies.

As with choosing the library over doom-scrolling, making small economic choices together can add up to bigger changes. Honor picket lines and boycotts. Stay informed but don’t get overwhelmed or let yourself be manipulated into anger.

I guess this is a pretty Pollyanna post. This way of thinking is helping me more than the dissociation and anger were, and I hope they help you too. Take care of yourselves out there! I love you!