Out of about 150 posts here in the last 2+ years, I’ve written about politics around 5 times, and I really don’t want this to become a primary space for that, if only for my own sanity, but also because I want readers to be able to take a break from the constant barrage of negativity and, as of late, the horror, the horror. But it does seem like the apocalypse is nigh, and I want to do something, anything—and so if I write about politics I’ll tag it as such and you can skip it if it’s not your thing. Or, you can leave a comment here berating me.
Recently I wrote a commentary for Minnesota’s Star Tribune as a response to the chaos caused by the new administration. I’ve pasted it below (it’s funnier than what follows here).
In order to think through things, and to get through things emotionally, it helps for me to write about them. Half or more of my writing, I think, is just me giving me a pep talk and trying to work out a solution to some angst or another (A blank white screen, for me, has always been the best therapist).
If you’ve been watching the news since Jan. 20, depending on your politics, it probably feels like the world is 1) finally burning 2) unnecessarily burning with the aid of a powerful accelerant. If 1), you’re probably part of the America that felt like a fire was necessary. If 2), you’re probably changing your underwear more often.
This divide is not new, and the demonizing of one party by the other has been accelerating for years. The difference now is that the current president is really, really good at the technique the seediest of people have been using for a long, long time: Divide in order to conquer. And in this case, it’s divide and conquer, turn people against each other, let them eat each other, and they will pay no attention to the billionaires and power mongers behind the curtain.
This might not be a popular opinion, but I actually don’t think Trump even believes a lot of what he’s pushing. Does he care about so-called DEI, “wokeness,” transgender issues, “freedoms,” etc.? I’m not so sure. I think they’re just tools, levers he can use to get people worked up and get him where he wants to be. His main goal is to experience the thrill that comes from the exercise of power for its own sake—whether just or unjust doesn’t matter—and to get more money. After all, in 2001 his party affiliation was Democrat. In 2009, it was Republican. In 2011, he was an independent. In 2012, he changed it to Republican. Republicans once hated this sort of thing (see “Jumpin’ Jim Jeffords,” flip-floppers, and a billion other examples).
Good people
I’ve never met a Canadian I didn’t like (I know many). I’ve never met a National Park I didn’t love. I think as long as there are good people willing to get their hands dirty to help people in need, we, as a society, ought to give them the resources they need to do it, so cuts to programs like USAID (Here are 20 projects that have closed because of cuts to USAID, including treating tens of thousands of malnourished children in the Congo, supplying food assistance for more than 1 million people in Ethiopia, etc., etc., etc.) under the cover of “fraud” is mind-blowing to me. Is this “America First?”
Because I don’t want to participate in “America First” if that means using our economic might to bully and pinch every penny from our neighbors and allies, to treat every human relationship as though it is a transaction. To me, we are not “America first” when, as the wealthiest nation in the world by far, we aspire (evidently) to be the last to come to the aid of other humans in need. We are not America first when we demand 3-piece suits and prime-time public thank you’s from the leader of a country in shambles that has lost hundreds of thousands of its people (thank you) to a murderous dictator.
So what can we do? That’s partly what my commentary in the Star Tribune addresses, but I’m not entirely naive. Will donating to charity stop the bleeding? No. Is a Costco membership or an NPR membership gonna save us? No. But is cynicism? Definitely also no.
Lately I’ve heard that consumer confidence is falling. The stock market is down. But in my mind, it’s not consumer confidence that is falling. It’s confidence that any decision we now make with our money—perhaps foremost—is aiding cowardly corporations that have jumped on and now off supporting the rights of the underrepresented and disadvantaged as easily as the wind changes direction, whose so called leaders shirk all moral and ethical responsibility under the cover of “responsibility to the shareholder.” Any decision we make with our money now has the potential to tacitly support the foundations of an administration that is gleefully eating us alive. Personally, I’m seeking ways to actively disengage from this economy.
But it’s important, too, to remember: We are the shareholder. We are the consumer. We are the people, and we are tired of these sycophantic CEOs and politicians who eagerly prostrate themselves and bow down for a share in their sad idea of what power is, of what it means to be powerful.
So where are the people who believe in more than money and power? Who believe in some kind of … kindness? I want to be one of those people. Because if you’ve ever been really, truly kind to someone, you’ve felt real power.
After my commentary, a number of people reached out to me. One was the executive director of The Patient Revolution, a global organization that is working to reconceptualize healthcare from an industrial activity into a deeply human one. We had a long phone conversation about writing, marketing, charity, and a project that I talk about in my editorial, which The Patient Revolution is now adopting (and improving) for its own needs called the “100 Ways to Care Campaign.” They write, “The goal of 100 Ways to Care is to give energy to our global movement of care by eroding the forces of industrialization and dehumanization through our everyday kindness. Don’t be shy or humble about caring. Tell us about your acts of care so we can share with others … It is by sharing and celebrating 1000s of individual actions that we will create collective impact.”
In the meantime, some international charities I like that will help to fill the vacuum left by the disbandment of USAID are the International Rescue Committee, Save the Children, and the United Nations Foundation.
Or, we could, you know, keep giving our world away to the billionaires behind the curtain.
Here’s that editorial:
Time to make yourself uncomfortable
The first time Donald Trump was elected president, I freaked out. I coped by starting a short-term blog called “100 Days of Good,” where for 100 days straight, I’d try to do something positive with my time or money and write about it.
For 100 days I delivered food to people in need, or donated blood and plasma, or chopped invasive plants out of parks—all kinds of things. When I was too busy to do, I gave. I also created a pledge drive along with it, asking others to do the same, and in the end something like 5,000 people signed up and pledged around 10,000 hours and I don’t know how many thousands of dollars in acts of kindness.
Jana Shortal, then with Minnesota’s “Bring me the News” program, interviewed me about it on TV, and I completely froze up and bombed, just like I did one other time 20 years ago when I was asked to be on a live radio show to talk about something funny I’d written about squirrels. During that radio show, I couldn’t think of a single funny thing to say about squirrels—urban nature’s comedians—and the show had to awkwardly cut to a commercial while the host hung up on me because I ruined his segment.
After the squirrel radio debacle, I vowed never again to do “talky stuff,” but the “100 Days of Good” project seemed like something where I needed to put my fears aside and make myself uncomfortable in the hopes of doing something.
And so now here we are again, but to me it feels much worse. Many people are anxious (though many are celebrating) and wondering what to do. And the truth is that I have no idea. I don’t feel like I have it in me to start another 100 Days of Good.
A lot of people, many of my friends included, are dropping out of the news cycle, shutting down social media, and trying to tune out the chaos, because it’s all just too much. I get that, but if you have the luxury of tuning out what’s happening, then it’s probably not happening to you. And so I’d suggest that it’s time to tune back in, if only for those who don’t have the option to tune out.
My mom, a Trump voter who I love dearly, is always trying to get me to do “Big Brothers Big Sisters” stuff, where I have some kind of mentoring relationship with a kid who needs a positive role model. I always tell her that I’m no role model, that I can barely keep myself alive and that I have no idea, really, how to live. My best advice would be to tell the kid to maybe follow me around for a while at a safe distance, and to not do anything that I do, and maybe to carry a fire extinguisher so that if I start on fire he can put me out, but overall, to consider my life a warning for what he might someday become if he doesn’t get right.
And so my advice during these times would be to do whatever you can that best suits who you are, where you’re at. I’ve decided the best way for me to move forward is to pay attention to all these organizations that fill a need around Minnesota, the nation, and the world that are facing severe budget cuts and even elimination and find an alternative charity or service that can help fill this need and give them my money.
I don’t want to tell people who or what to donate to, but there are hundreds of quality local charities at GiveMN.org, many of which have received potentially catastrophic funding cuts. And maybe it’s not charity at all—maybe you donate to your locally targeted public and private universities, or to news organizations who are doing an increasingly difficult service.
I want to do this so that the people who know what to do, and who are willing to do it, have the resources that they need to get it done. My plan is to give enough to make me uncomfortable. Because a lot of people in need who were already desperately uncomfortable are about to become much, much more so.
This can’t wait until the end of the year. A tax write-off as a last minute afterthought isn’t what’s needed. And so maybe you make yourself a promise: I’ll increase my charitable contributions by 10% over last year, or 20%, or 50%. And maybe you have a favorite charity, but you reconsider the balance of that favoritism in light of new, perhaps more urgent needs. My own plan is to more than double what I gave last year, because that’s the amount that will make me uncomfortable.
But like I said, I don’t have the answers, and I’m under no illusion that this is a long-term solution, but it might just be an uncomfortable bridge we can start crossing now to get through to the other side.
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