This is a moment of tragedy and turmoil for our movements. A fascist game show host has seized the reins of government, again, and is now poised to enforce a Christian Nationalist agenda. J.D. Vance, a product of Silicon Valley, who subscribes to the techno-fascist views of Curtis Yarvin, will soon be an unreliable heartbeat away from the presidency. Last month, I warned of a revolution “slouching towards Bethlehem,” one that wasn’t ours. Now, that right-wing revolution is here. In the coming days, many will write about what to expect and how to resist. My biggest concern, however, is that many people of conscience aren’t ready to put up a fight—at least, not one aimed at our true enemies.
Even before Trump’s devastating victory, many activists and organizers were exhausted, isolated, and disheartened. Our world was already mired in injustice—from the genocide in Palestine to the countless premature deaths manufactured by poverty, incarceration, war-making, and the violence of borders. For some, the wave of violence we’re about to face merely blurs into the violence they have already witnessed or experienced. But for many of us, this moment of escalation–which could include the obstruction of any future democratic intervention–is chilling. I’ve already spoken with two friends, one of whom is a disabled trans person, who are both experiencing suicidality in the wake of this election. This is a devastating time, and I’m deeply concerned about how people are processing what’s happening. So far, I see two dominant reactions: outrage and despair.
For friends in despair, I offer empathy and support, promising that I and others will fight for them. Some of us will come together to defend life-sustaining care, including gender-affirming care. We will sharpen our skills, break laws, build alliances, and take care of each other. We will find ways to defy and obstruct Trump’s regime, and work to mitigate its harms. I know this work will happen.
However, I worry about how many of us will take up this fight and how many who consider themselves good and decent will, instead, keep fighting each other.
Many people are justifiably angry. They’re angry about threats to healthcare, abortion access, and the potential for mass deportations. They are angry about the looming threats that trans people, migrants, Black people, Muslims, scientists, teachers, librarians, and many others are now facing. Scapegoated groups Trump has demonized will face both legal and extralegal assaults. The president-elect has pledged to abolish the Department of Education, and Project 2025’s blueprint for change—including plans to privatize FEMA and slash environmental protections—is the stuff of nightmares. Anger over the pending loss of so many rights and lives is exploding in all directions. Many people are lashing out at anyone whose words, actions, or inactions have disappointed them, casting blame and deeming any perspective but their own incomprehensible and irredeemable. It feels as though a lot of people have given up on each other—and that scares me.
When an election ends badly, there’s always a blame game; that’s nothing new. But in this moment, our movements, and many who claim to care about trans lives, abortion access, migrants, and the planet, were already fractured. Leftists are profoundly alienated and siloed, warped by trauma and disillusionment. Some are bitterly disappointed by allies they feel have failed to adequately support Palestinian survival and liberation. Others are furious with leftists who didn’t support Harris or rally movements behind her as they did for Biden in 2020. Everyone has opinions on who failed, and how. I believe there’s plenty of blame to go around.
Our movements have made serious missteps. Organizers have made moral compromises—sometimes the wrong ones. Many people feel disregarded or wrongly vilified, and many of these grievances are grounded in reality.
Our dependence on social media, which has intensified in harmful ways during the pandemic, has only worsened these divides. While these platforms hold some utility for our movements, we were never meant to live the bulk of our political lives in these realms. Social media has damaged our ability to communicate across difference, rewarding acrimony, sanctimony, and excommunication. Modeling politics has too often replaced the work of doing politics.
At some point, many people of conscience lost the ability to engage in principled disagreement—if they ever bothered to learn. For many, persuasion isn’t even an option anymore. Quite often, political discourse is about categorizing people, dividing us into the morally correct and the morally irredeemable, with no middle ground and no plan to change the math. It’s as though many people believe they can simply disqualify the majority of humanity from political life, thereby saving the world.
As an organizer, I find this disconcerting, to say the least.
This is the climate in which post-election angst has taken hold. People are lashing out in all directions, solidifying rifts with people they will ultimately need, if they plan to participate in the work of collective survival. I understand why. Anger is easier to inhabit than sadness. It’s easier to be angry than to feel the loneliness of knowing so many people have cosigned your potential destruction. Lashing out at people who disappoint us can also deliver a small dose of satisfaction. Many people are desperate for that sensation right now. We live in a society that wrongly conflates justice with satisfaction, so our efforts to punish the people we disagree with may even feel like the pursuit of justice. As the hope of true justice fades into the distance, the pursuit of a cheap hit of satisfaction becomes all the more appealing.
It’s important to remember that our political aspirations have not been vanquished. We are not on the cusp of positive transformation, but that does not mean that all hope is lost or that we cannot breathe new worlds into being. During my four decades on this earth, I have repeatedly witnessed victories and political transitions that I did not believe were possible. I have also experienced losses that reshaped the political terrain, paving the way for future victories. We should never give up on transformation and material change. We are all worth fighting for, no matter how bleak the situation may be and no matter the odds. Determined, organized people have toppled dictators, ended oppressive institutions, including chattel slavery, and freed each other from the clutches of carceral systems. In dark times, people have always found ways to make their own light. That work is now upon us.
To undertake it, many of us must face feelings we’d rather avoid. People who cannot self-regulate emotionally or engage in principled disagreement will not create stable, sustainable movements. You can’t organize people you hold in contempt. As I write these words, I can already hear some people justifying their anger. I will not argue with your litany of grievances against your potential allies. I have a lot of justified anger, too. But I try to be selective about expressing it because my political goals matter more to me than the temporary satisfaction of lashing out. If you believe the whole world is at stake, as I do, ask yourself: How much discomfort is the whole world worth? How important is your need to lash out? How can you balance your impulses with what you know must be done?
I’m not saying to suppress your anger or hold it inside. It’s important to have outlets. This is a good time to vent the fury we need to express in group chats, with trusted friends, and in therapy. Be intentional about where you put these feelings. If you need to break something, then break something—as safely as you can. Rage rituals are a legitimate form of self-expression. (As Fiona Apple said, “Better that I break the window / Than him or her or me.”)
To everyone hurting right now: please make space for your grief. Don’t let anger shield you from sadness or bury your pain in escapism. Let your heart break over what’s ahead. Accept that, no matter how hard we fight, there are harms we will not halt. If that awareness brings tears to your eyes, then weep. Spend time with your grief, share it, and find comfort in your loved ones. Engage with the land and water, and feel your connection to the biosphere we must defend. Immerse yourself in art, music, and all that remains beautiful in this world. Humanity is flawed, but our capacity for kindness, connection, and transformation is real, too. Take solace in decency—it’s still there.
Our capacity to do good can be nurtured. It can grow and flourish, but that cultivation is collective work. We cannot change the world alone. We must learn how to be flawed and human and messy together. We must learn how to forgive and how to do the work of collective survival with people we don’t like or understand. We must recognize that, while principled critiques are often necessary, we have to communicate like people who still need each other–because we do.
A lot of people out there are not going to be ready to do the work I’m describing until they make space for their grief and pain and for the grief and pain of others.
If you are hurting right now, remember that the pain you are feeling is a natural consequence of your decency. Don’t try to bury that. Nurture the tender parts of yourself. Your capacity to feel other people’s pain is inextricably linked to your potential to change the world. Your grief is bound up in your understanding that an injury to one is an injury to all and that all of our fates are connected. Evading your grief will only compound your angst and isolation, or even increase your tolerance for injustice. We cannot afford to let that happen.
Author’s note: I have worked on an arc of podcast episodes that I think might be helpful to people grappling with feelings of grief and overwhelm right now. If you need some accompaniment, I recommend checking these out:
To Transform Our Trauma, We Must Nurture Movements for Change
From the Ashes: How Grief Shapes Our Struggles
Keeping Each Other Alive: Mental Health and Collective Survival
To Stay in the Fight, We Must Navigate Trauma and Find the Healing We Need
Truthout Is Preparing to Meet Trump’s Agenda With Resistance at Every Turn
Dear Truthout Community,
If you feel rage, despondency, confusion and deep fear today, you are not alone. We’re feeling it too. We are heartsick. Facing down Trump’s fascist agenda, we are desperately worried about the most vulnerable people among us, including our loved ones and everyone in the Truthout community, and our minds are racing a million miles a minute to try to map out all that needs to be done.
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