It’s strange to watch your country actively commit suicide before your eyes while also watching presentations on Q1 goals, as you build out frameworks to meet KPIs this fiscal year. We must provide shareholder value even while our citizens are being murdered and our government is lying to our faces.
I grew up with an interest in history. I went to high school before iPads ruined the learning experience, and digitized engagement tracking systems were implemented to keep students “on task.” I paid attention and asked questions, and when we didn’t learn the full story, I went out and learned more. How could you learn it all? It’s a standardized system whose only aim is to get you good standard grades to get into a good standard college, get a good standard job to contribute contribute contribute. I didn’t learn about the LA riots and Rodney King in school; I learned about it from Rage Against the Machine. The Tulsa Massacre, the Trail of Tears, the role of black American regiments in World War II, and the truth about Christopher Columbus were all glossed over, if mentioned at all. I learned about them through library books and movies. Much of America’s history of civil and racial strife I learned about through music.
So when I saw Greg Bovino walking through the streets of Minneapolis in a brass-buttoned, olive green wool coat, it rang alarm bells. It wasn’t lost on me that ICE is being called brownshirts. It made me laugh when ICE agents were falling on literal ice in Minnesota and freezing their tits off because I knew how poorly the Nazi’s faired invading Russia or when the Soviets invaded Finland. The ousting and replacement of heads of government organizations, the arrest and deportation of specific groups of people with no due process, the terminology and the rhetoric that this administration uses, like “dissidents”, “rioters”, “violent criminals”, and deeming anyone who disagrees with them a “domestic terrorist”. The bootlickers in the mass media - what is now without a doubt state media - who puppet whatever this administration says. The attacks on civil liberties that our country’s minorities have fought so hard for and are still fighting for, from women’s rights to voting rights to trans rights. It all rang alarm bells, and the fact that it wasn’t ringing them just for me, but from people who have escaped countries that suffered through fascist regimes?
History does not repeat itself, but it does inform.
We have become numb.
I work with an agency outside of this country that alerts us to breaking news events that might impact any public-facing content, so we can look out for keywords that might get swept up in SEO. Whenever there was a mass shooting, we would delay everything. When George Floyd was murdered, everything was halted for about two weeks. When the war in Gaza began, a company statement was made about how times are hard, and we should be easy on ourselves and look out for our neighbors. It included a list of mental health resources.
There have been so many mass shootings since 2020 that they don’t mention them anywhere. They are part of everyday life in America now. People are being murdered in broad daylight. It’s being captured on camera and circulated for anyone to see. Only one person I know personally talked to me about it. No one else even mentioned it. People have been dying of neglect in ICE detention centers, which anyone with a brain can see are internment camps. You remember what those are. Surely you learned about them in school, one moment in the long list of disgusting periods of history that happened within this very country that no one talks about of late, because no, there’s no way that can happen again, right? Right?
History does not repeat itself, but it does inform.
We’ve become so numb to the whiplash of insane directives coming out of this government that it makes me think about how this might have gone over when I was in high school during the Bush administration. What happened to the “Don’t tread on me” Republicans? The ones who hated government overreach, who just wanted their guns and to know exactly where their hard-earned tax-paying dollars were going? They definitely didn’t want it to go to food stamps or veteran services or any programs that helped people who weren’t them.
Turns out they only want the guns for themselves, they’re fine with their government treading all over the Constitution, and they’ve turned a blind eye to their money funding an out-of-control militia. Just as long as it’s not food stamps, I guess.
Surveillance is changing.
I work in marketing. I unfortunately know the extent to which companies have information on your demographics. Your shopping habits, your click habits, your algorithmic tendencies. The county your IP address is located in, the places you visit on your way home from work, the videos you watch on YouTube, and the content you like and share on social media. Unless you were born yesterday, your data is already out there and being used against you. There is a reason Pam Bondi is trying so hard to get voter data from Minnesota. And recently, the FBI served a search warrant to gather ballots at the election headquarters in Fulton County, Atlanta, from the 2020 election. This use of federal resources to enact personal vengeance is absolutely insane and something you should be keeping an eye on as the administration’s obsession with the mid term elections and claims of past voter fraud ramp up to what? Say it with me: distract.
TikTok transferred to majority American ownership this week, whose owners now include Oracle, a surveillance firm masquerading as a tech firm headed by Larry Ellison, who is in the pocket of Trump, with plans to adjust the algorithm using US user data. I know there are a lot of people who are ride or die TikTok users, but I would keep an eye on this, and I would reconsider keeping that platform on your phone.
Back in October, Apple and Google removed crowd-sourced apps used to track ICE movements. Now the FBI claims it is joining the Signal chats of the citizens of Minnesota who are using them to track ICE movements. Every day, our basic freedoms and privacies are encroached on more and more, while the administration flails to control its narrative that this is all to keep violent illegal immigrants off our streets.
Which brings me to actionable takeaways from all this.
1. Adjust how you stay informed.
There is a difference between staying informed and doomscrolling. Recording atrocities with the camera we all have in our pockets is extremely important in an administration that considers a camera a weapon, as Jon Stewart of The Daily Show so eloquently put it regarding Alex Pretti’s murder. But that doesn’t mean that you have to watch ten different angles of an execution in broad daylight. That does irreparable damage to people who are not reporters trained to intake horrible headlines, photos, and video on a daily basis as part of their job.
You should stay informed. You should understand the truth of what is happening. Know and say their names. Keith Porter Jr. Alex Pretti. Renee Good. Monitor the administration's response to these situations through a trusted news source, one that is not a person screaming at their phone as stories develop, or calling everything “breaking news” before they have all of the facts. Someone calm and educated who explains what is happening in an easily digestible way, which is important, living under an administration that hates education and loves ill-informed, uneducated people.
My suggestion is someone like Heather Cox Richardson, a historian (important that it not be a media personality), who writes Letters from an American daily. There is no reason to have the 24/7 news cycle beamed into your eyes all day, every day. You need a clear head where there is still space for hope and action.
2. Foster offline community.
Volunteer. Meet your neighbors. Join a book club. Go to your local small businesses instead of ordering online. The guy across the street from us plows everyone out when it snows. I give them food when I bake too much. I give away my vegetables when I grow a billion tomatoes. Just get the fuck out and off your phone, and when you do so, don’t advertise every single thing you do online and TURN. OFF. YOUR. LOCATION SERVICES. You’re entitled to a private life, and the people who are trying to track, buy, and sell your data hate to know there are ways you can’t be monitored.
Reconsider why you are on Instagram and Facebook. Is it to keep in touch with relatives? Call them instead. Go see them. Have lunch dates with your friends. Say hi to someone you see in the gym all the time. Introduce yourself to people. Make eye contact. Make conversation with your nail tech, your hairdresser, your barber, don’t just sit there in silence while they do a service for you.
We should look to Minnesotans for inspiration on how to help our neighbors. At the beginning of their occupation, anyone with a 3D printer started making whistles to distribute for free. Neighbors showed up for each other with donations, and they stood on corners as neighborhood watch. People in the suburbs drove from hours away to show up for their city, outraged by what they saw happening online. In person, offline community is going to be extremely important moving forward, as it always has been, though we’ve brushed it aside over the years because we never believed our cities would be occupied by our own government.
I started this Substack to talk about my progress writing and querying my grimdark novel, my ever-expanding garden, and how I stay sane in between with, well, all of the above, and also how aspects of those things are part of resistance built through joy and creation instead of fear and consumption.
I’ve tried since January 1st - and actually a lot of last year - to sit down and consistently write about any of those things, but it felt silly compared to what’s going on in this country. Who wants to hear from me and the tomatoes the fat groundhog in my yard gobbled up?
I acknowledge that joy is resistance. That continuing with aspects of your personal life is important, so you don’t succumb to numb complacency and overwhelming fear like they want you to. I want to start writing here again; it just didn’t feel right yet. Maybe I’ll bring back Things That Got Me Through The Week. I have some important updates about my book. I’ve already started planning my garden for this year. So, we will see.
Until then, stay safe and stay informed, and if you’re anywhere on the East Coast, stay warm. My god, it’s the Arctic up here.
Cover image by Yohan Marion on Unsplash.
Powerful piece. The tension between maintaining normal life and grappling with whats unfolding is something I've felt too. The advice about curating information sources rather than doomscrolling is crucial, and recommending Heather Cox Richardson specifically shows real thoughtfullness. That's practical resistance.