In defense of hope

There are no quick fixes. There is only community.

When I was 17, I went through a series of typical adolescent traumas. I felt alone, isolated, and ill-equipped to dig myself out of my depressive hole.

My grandmother, by that time, had buried most of her family, including a sister who died by suicide in my grandmother’s bedroom. She had lived the usual lifetime of trauma women in her generation experienced, and yet she remained committed to carving out some goodness in her little corner of the world.

I remember her grabbing me by the shoulders, looking me in the eyes, and telling me: I forbid you from giving up.

That admonition has carried me through many dark times—the death of my baby as my mother lay dying too, the first Trump term, endless political defeats over a lifetime of activism.

I have grown to understand that hope is the single most important weapon we carry in our arsenal. Because hope is what keeps us trying. It’s what keeps us planting seeds of change.

Hope is what kept far-right zealots moving toward total control over women’s bodies, for over 50 years, steadily making slow changes until they finally attained the end of Roe v. Wade.

It’s what will help us, slowly and steadily, claw back what has been lost, what remains to be lost.

Today, I don’t feel very hopeful. That scares me, because I know that authoritarianism can only reach its full power when activists are demoralized.

So today I am leaning on something other than hope. Maybe it will help you, too.

My husband is a civil rights attorney, which puts him on the frontlines of some of our most horrifying battles. He sees the ceaseless horror well before it makes its way to the news. The trauma of death, abuse, violence, and stunning indifference to it all is his daily existence.

He says it doesn’t matter if we have hope. It doesn’t matter how we feel. Because all of us have an obligation to do what we can with what we have. It’s all we can ever do, and it is all that has ever worked.

“What if I can’t feel hopeful?” I’ve asked him over and over.

“It doesn’t matter. You’re doing the work anyway. Do it.” Over and over, the same message.

I don’t know what happens tomorrow or on inauguration day, but I know that today I am still here, and so are you, which means we can still fight. I know also that sometimes just continuing to breathe is an act of resistance. If that’s all you can muster, that’s okay.

It’s fainter, now, but I still hear my grandmother’s voice, and I want you to hear it, too.

I forbid you from giving up.

We need you.

I’ll still be here, fighting for as long as I have breath, and I want you to stay here with me, too.

We owe it to our ancestors, who fought to successfully end so much horror.

We owe it to our children, who will inherit the fruits of our labor.

No matter who won this election, there would be massive work to do. Those of you reading this know all to well that, if you’re seeking to leave an abusive marriage or protect your children or stop the bombs dropping across the globe killing other mothers’ children, it matters very little who is in power.

The United States was built on a genocide, and oppression has defined our entire history. This is not new. All that is good in this country flows not from the government or the laws, but from centuries of resistance.

And resistance grows in community. We can find strength in community, and we must celebrate our communal impulses and nurture them so we can survive and build something better.

Please remember a few things:

• All of the people who worked to stop this, in whatever way they could, still exist. They are still here. This election does not cancel them or end their work. It’s merely a sign the work must continue.

• In almost every state where abortion was on the ballot, voters voted to keep it, even when they voted to elect Trump. I’m not sure what this means, exactly, but it certainly signals the importance of voter education.

• This is one of many, many dark moments in human history. This is not the worst it has been. This is not the end of progress.

I have received so many emails today from terrified women. It’s an especially scary day for those of you in abusive relationships, knowing how much society hates women and seeing another potential avenue for escape close.

I don’t have many answers or solutions, but I know that giving up is not it. I have learned a few things over the years about activism, about change, and about preserving your mental health amid trauma. This is what I can offer:

Join the people already doing the work

If you’re new to politics, or to activism, creating something new diverts resources away from the folks already doing the work. Those people are the experts. Find them. Listen to them. Learn from them.

Your fear will not protect you—and you should not nurture it

I’m an anxious person. I have PTSD. One of the most important tools I’ve found for controlling my anxiety has been understanding that my anxiety never protects me; it only harms me.

Living in anxiety about the future forces me to deal with the emotions I would feel for something that might never happen. Anxiety means constantly tricking your brain into thinking something bad has already happened.

You must do whatever is necessary to keep anxiety from disabling your ability to resist whatever is to come.

Ruminating on what might happen does not prevent it from happening.

More importantly, fear is a potent tool of oppression. It’s what causes people to turn against friends and neighbors, intensifying the power of authoritarian regimes.

Fear causes people to overreact to threats—to undermine the safety of others even when doing so does not preserve their own safety.

Be mindful of all the ways this administration will attempt to weaponize your fear.

Be clear about your role and risk

Trump is going to target people who are already being targeted—the very most vulnerable. It’s going to look like more mass incarceration, more abuse of immigrants, more police brutality, more constraints on women’s ability to control their lives after they get married and have babies.

The vast majority of people with privilege will continue, at least for now, to enjoy their privilege. If you are one of them, you have a moral obligation to weaponize that privilege against the system that granted it to you. Consider who has the right to be most fearful, and turn your own fear into rage on their behalf.

Kindness really does matter, and we can do better this time

The cruelest person I have ever met was in an anti-Trump resistance group. Our political choices carry great moral weight, but they are not the sum total of our morality.

How we treat each other matters. It matters because all that is left after we are gone is how we have affected one another.

We must treat one another with dignity and kindness. We must not yet again fall into in-group out-group politics. We must join with anyone who wants to do good and welcome them.

This doesn’t mean not holding people accountable. It does mean honoring the humanity and value of anyone who wants to try. I write a little bit more about this here and here.

There is no benefit to giving up hope

For years, I’ve seen activists try to convince everyone how terrible things are, and how much more terrible things will get. I’m already seeing pieces about all the awful things Trump is going to do.

We must be educated about how power works and what it does, but we should not try to rob ourselves of hope. We certainly should not try to rob others of hope.

Vow today that you’re not going to participate in conversations that have no effect other than making everyone feel more despondent.

Mobilization depends on hope.

Consuming more media won’t help

In 2018, I stopped reading most news sites, and watching television and radio news. I stopped participating in political debates that I knew would not sway people.

The result is that I am more informed, less reactive, and have much more time to do activism that actually works. I also feel much less panicked. I’m able to slow down, and observe that nothing has changed for the little spider in the corner of my office, or the geckos I raise as friends and family members. I can see more stillness and safety in the world, freeing space in my brain to think about where my talents are best spent.

It’s no coincidence that I built this Substack, this community, this movement, in the time since I stopped spending so much time in political shouting matches.

Consume less media. For-profit media has a vested interest in keeping you uninformed. They pretend things are uncertain when they are not as a way of getting clicks. The media also has a strong incentive to maintain a cycle of outrage rather than offering depth and education, because outrage keeps people clicking, scrolling, and fighting.

Stop letting a for profit outrage incentive hijack your brain. Spend that time running for office, or writing letters to prisoners, or volunteering, or donating money, or doing any of the literally hundreds of other things you can do to make the world a better and more just place.

Do what you can in your little corner

Resist the distraction of the demand of the moment.

Each of us has something to contribute. I am an expert on feminism, violence, and building just relationships. I am not an expert on climate change. So I devote my effort to the areas where I have expertise, donate money to the experts doing work in other areas, and trust that each of us will do the best work we can.

Find a corner of the world. Make it better. Move on to the next corner. Rinse and repeat.

You do not have to do everything. You do not have to know or be good at everything. Find one thing and do that.

Joy is revolutionary

There have always been weddings and births in death camps. There have always been gardens and sex and parties and birthdays amid wars and oppressive regimes.

We get one life, and many of us will spend some portion of that life in terror. We owe it to ourselves to spend as much of it as we can in joy.

Wednesday is the day I water my orchids. This morning, I didn’t want to water them. I felt too despondent, and it felt like such a trivial act in the face of such terror.

If I don’t water my orchids, they will die. I will feel worse. My orchids needs water. Wednesday is the day I water my orchids, and so I watered them. And I feel a little joy knowing that they’re here and I took care of them. That little bit of joy is what helped me summon the energy to write this piece.

Joy is not a distraction. It’s one of the goals of life, and should always be the ultimate goal of activism—more safe joy for everyone. Joy and pleasure are self-care that can fortify your spirit and your resolve for dark times. I talk more about that with Desiree Stephens here. Please follow Desiree; she is an amazing source of inspiration and will hold your hand through this.

Focus on local politics

Local politics tend to have a much more pronounced effect on daily life. Local judges, for example, determine whether women get restraining orders against abusers, or get judicial bypasses to have needed abortions. School boards largely determine how safe your child is at school.

A strong leftist community is a powerful wall that can block out many aspects of an oppressive regime. Work on building what you can close to home. It’s also easier to win local elections. Many states have grassroots organizations devoted to getting women elected at the local and state level. Join them.

This is what I have today. I’m not going to stop doing this work, because this is what I do best, and what I can contribute. I’ll still be here in your inbox, serving as a voice—one of many. I’m not going to stop fighting for us, talking about feminism and motherhood, just because of the terror of this moment. I will not shut up.

I wish there were some magic combination of words I could offer to heal us all, but this is all I have for now.

I’m still here to listen.

I’m not going away.

We’re not going away.

Readers: I am interested in links to ways, small and large, people can help today. Please share them.

Please use this space to share whatever you need to, and to offer whatever support you can, with a few caveats: no infighting or turning on one another, and no attempting to make one another feel more hopeless and demoralized.