It’s only been three-ish weeks since the White House transitioned power. A destructive wake has produced a deluge of round-the-clock designed chaos that will take months to years to assess. Crafted from the pages of the conservative political playbook (regardless of country), the purpose is to enrich the already wealthy, while overwhelming the hoi poloi with so many distractions any collective response is spread thin. It’s working. Americans are witnessing the real-time destruction of public infrastructure ranging from health, to education, to the economy. Canada will be next with a conservative federal government (already happening in provinces with far-right leadership.)
If you’re feeling like you’re barely holding on, treading water as wave after wave of nonsense hits, know you’re not alone. Feeling abject despair should be the normal response to anybody not presently enriching themselves at the feet of empire, or worried about pronouns in email signatures.
Here’s the thing, the political right seeks to bring enough chaos into your life that you become stuck in place, tired, and depleted. Yet if you’re in the camp of, “I can’t believe what’s happening,” you are aware enough to see cascading injustices around you. Now comes the resistance.
Resisting malformed power structures, and the people who champion them, doesn’t happen overnight. Whether you’re someone who is largely disconnected from politics, civics, or activism, or someone who knows in their bones what resistance looks like, we must resist together.
Countering designed chaos for eventual collective liberation needs to land small and within your realm of either expertise or locale. Here are some thoughts to consider moving forward towards, and within, movements of resistance.
- Find 1 or 2 causes or issues that you know a little bit about. Bonus if you have expertise in a specific area. If you have the bandwidth, seek out one very specific local expression, and then one wider (perhaps national) cause to support. Going small means you don’t stretch too thin holding together your day-to-day.
- Simple ways to find local initiatives:
- Your city or town will have different programs listed that are already underway (and some perhaps on the docket to be cut.
- Support your local library.
- Support your local food bank or food access organization.
- Get connected to your local neighborhood association.
- Seek out the civic or provincial (state) representatives you agree with.
- See out local neighborhood initiatives already on the ground serving. Remember scale doesn’t really matter here. Just find things to be a part of.
- As you stretch wider, find what you’re already interested in and start looking for organizations already engaged in resistance. Including organizations involved in:
- Healthcare access;
- Women’s rights;
- Increasing food access;
- Fighting climate change;
- Intersections of disability justice;
- Anti-racism initiatives;
- Queer and trans rights;
- Engaging with a federal political party. You don’t have to become a member, but start following the news.
- Simple ways to find local initiatives:
The trick here is to find organizations or groups so you can find your people. As you pick 1 or 2 places to commit energy, it also means committing to the people in that space. Let’s be real, if we’re going to get through this, we need to find community and dig into collaboration. Plus, walking these mean streets alone is exhausting. Find friends who are already engaged with things you’re interested in and join. There’s no shortage of factors/orgs already doing good work that you can support.
You might want to start with talking with friends or community first and then deciding where to land in resistance. Either way, one way forward in the mess is to find 1-2 causes/orgs to join along with some friends who believe in the same.