Feeling those Hostile Government Takeover Feels
So this is what it’s like.
For the first two weeks I avoided the news; I knew what was happening. Trump told us his plan. It was laid out for us in detail in Project 2025. And, I know the moves: the men running our government are masters of chaos. It’s one of their most powerful weapons, alongside fear, drama, intimidation and rampant disinformation. I wanted to just step away, let the initial brush fire burn off, and save my energy for when it was a little more clear how to channel it.
Well, it’s no longer a brushfire. Now, it’s set deeper into the trees of democracy, and begun to gut its structures with surprising speed. And I’m back to reading the news nearly every day, and sometimes I cry, and sometimes I doomspiral into rabbit holes of “what the actual fuck?” because the thing is, even though I knew this is what would happen, I didn’t realize that they’d do it so easily, so fast. So unhindered. I didn’t imagine that we’d have an unelected billionaire making a fascist salute on an inauguration rally stage one day, and dismantling our government the next.
You can know a thing, and you can know a thing. Now, I’m getting to know it. Now, I’m feeling it. Feeling it as clients pull out of contracts, or offer explicit directives as to how we cannot use DEI language and approach even if initially approved. Feeling it as a friend whose cancer research is funded by NIH is now fighting to save her lab, as friends in public health and international aid lose funding and jobs, and a friend working at an already understaffed VA gets a weird letter asking him to resign, as friends working in green energy & climate science lose projects and grants. As planes crash, international alliances dissolve, and the pain of those who relied bodily upon American aid bleeds into our newsfeed. The world did not ask for this.
I have to think that most of those who put Trump in power did not ask for this, certainly not the ones who are now losing jobs or essential services. Then, for those not directly affected, maybe they don’t even know what’s happening. I like to check in on Fox News and other right-wing media occasionally, to see what is being fed to those who voted this administration in. I can’t help but feel that we’re living in two different worlds. For half of America, “Trump, Elon Musk's DOGE team are doing what Democrats promised 'for decades,'” while for the other half, it’s a “hostile government takeover.”
Gotta say, at least we have the groove in this equation.
I’m not sure what it will take to cross the information barrier. Just over half of Americans get most of their news from social media, and we know who’s controlling those algorithms. How many of the folks who are fan-girling for Musk and all the money he’s saving them know that he’s currently making $8 million dollars every day from the US Government? Do they know that he just fired 1000 workers from the Department of Veteran Affairs? Do they know that Musk & his questionable team of techbros are actively trying to access to all their most personal data, from SS# to finances? Do they know that the SAVE Act is back in Congress, which could prevent as many at 69 million American women from voting? Would they even care? I think that it’ll probably just take folks feeling it, and reality is that a lot of them never will.
For those of us who do, it’s a good time to dip into some real self-care. I’m not talking about detox fasts and CBD facials. Real self-care as in values-based self care, not the consumerism-based version that’s sold to us so heavily nowadays. The kind of self-care that considers that we’re part of a larger whole. I’m talking picking up trash at the local park, planting blueberries where the neighborhood kids can pick them, joining a bowling league. And yes, meditating and hugging trees and taking long walks and praying to any and every god you know. I’m talking self-care that nourishes not just ourselves, but all those around us.
We’re in the smoke, our eyes are burning and the landscape is being rearranged. But we can still pick up the phone and spend five minutes calling our congressperson. We can still provide mutual aid to our communities, and work on building stronger local resilience. We can still protest, assemble, organize. We can still keep ourselves informed and healthy, and keep doing the good work, even when it feels like it’s done no good. It has . . . it will. We will get to the other side. I believe in you.
Love,
ag