There is just sheer exhaustion in being an American right now.
Every day, there is another barrage of confusing, inexplicable, deeply hurtful news.
Deportation without due process. The indiscriminate gutting of essential services like monitoring food safety, cancer research, and weather monitoring. Erasing Black American history and women’s history. Threatening judges and law firms. Employing economic tactics that experts around the globe agree are hurting Americans and people all over the world. Turning our backs on Ukraine. Insulting and breaking ties with our allies of over 80 years. Dehumanizing and trying to strip away the rights and liberties of our LGBTQ friends and families.
It goes on and on and on.
I can’t (no one really can) keep up. And it’s never been the point to keep up. The point has always been to exhaust us. To work faster than the courts can stop them. To confuse, break down, and quiet us. It’s too difficult to keep up with each new headline.
But it’s not hard to see the throughline; to get our heads just above water to see the horizon and re-orient ourselves. And when we do, we see the themes. And it’s much easier to understand and rally around them.
I see dehumanization, “othering” people; strong tendencies towards racism and misogyny; Christian Nationalism; anti-science rhetoric; and the overwhelming desire for wealth and power, concentrated in the hands of but a few. I see an Executive Branch dominating and threatening the Legislative and Judicial branches. That’s how fascism works.
What I also see is grief. And a mourning over the loss of trust. In just 100 days, Trump and his henchmen have gutted generations of progress in America. In humanitarian aid and soft power; breakthrough research for cancer and all other manner of chronic diseases (including firearm violence, which yes indeed is an epidemic); advances in education, rights, and honor for people of color and women. In the loss of trust with our global trade and military partners. Why would any other nation want to partner with the US when we break promises, threaten economic ruin, and insinuate a hostile takeover of their sovereign land? Why would any corporation want to invest in the US when the economic consequences (or benefits) can’t be known more than one day at a time? Why would good people, with critical skills needed by our nation, want to work for the Federal Government, only to be fired at the whim of a non-elected oligarch? People no longer want to come to the US to study or vacation. The good faith and trust we have built since our Grandfathers and Great-grandfathers won WWII have all but evaporated in 100 short days.
And if we reverse course tomorrow, it will be too late.
It takes a lot of time, hard work, and goodwill to build trust. It can be shattered in a minute and take years and years (if ever) to recover. Labs don’t magically restart when the funding reappears. Hiring of new federal workers will be a slow, expensive, and tentative process. Families were shattered when people lost their jobs. You don’t just turn the spigot on again. We will pay the price in the currency of lives—preventable deaths from vaccine-preventable diseases, environmentally driven diseases (like asthma), foodborne illnesses, firearm injuries, maternal death, and suicide.
In 100 days, we have watched our democracy crumble before our eyes. We are witness to the cruelest, narcissistic, authoritarian tendencies of an old man.
Our standing in the world will never be the same. I know I will never be the same.
Disclaimer: My viewpoints are not necessarily reflective of my employer, or any local, regional or national organization that I belong to. As a matter of fact, I pretty much just speak for myself. Please keep that in mind.
