Time to put down the phones and lean into community.

Checking in at the end of a week that was not good.

Photo by Rémi Walle on Unsplash

Welp, guess my song didn’t break through to enough voters.

Ha.

Hello and good evening at the end of this surreal and shitty week. Hope you’re processing the news however you need to and feeling whatever you’re feeling. 

I’m finding it to be a very different kind of shock than in 2016. That was a collective bubble-puncturing moment I’d never experienced in my life up to that point. But since then we’ve had our preconceptions of reality bent and shifted so regularly—through Trump’s first term, through the pandemic, through the Moonlight/La La Land debacle, through the ever-worsening effects of climate change, which have brought us everything from orange, unbreathable air to floods so intense they total your Honda Civic (RIP, buddy) to a once-in-a-century NYC/NJ month-plus drought that just led to a 2-alarm brush fire in Prospect Park Friday night. What used to seem impossible just…isn’t quite as shocking.

So here we are. Reality has bent again.

I’m not saying it feels fine. It doesn’t. It feels terrifying on so many levels, especially thinking of the most vulnerable people among us—the undocumented immigrants, the trans folks, the trans kids, the entire LGBTQ+ community.  I mean, I wrote that song for a reason.

But, just as Trump learned a lot from his first term and so will be better prepared to enact his goals, we have all learned a lot too. And it’s possible we’ll be better prepared to resist. To protect one another. To find ways to stay grounded and joyful and engaged even amidst the chaos.

My memories of the 2016 election aftermath and the first term heavily involve being on Twitter, trying to catch every twist and turn of the Administration in some misguided attempt at maintaining control. Like if I knew every little thing that was happening and I shared it with others, I was playing my part to try and keep America afloat. I tried to process my anger through tweets like this one, after Trump yelled at the cast of Hamilton: 

Kind of funny to read now—I’ve since let go of publicly commanding others to feel things—but I get that I was doing my best to make sense of this new reality, like we all were. Trying to process that someone who quite obviously was unfit to lead and couldn’t even fake having good intentions was about to be the one in charge. And I’m sure there was some benefit to many of us working through it in this way.

But I won’t be doing it like that this time. I’ve been mostly off Twitter since it shifted ownership, and I have now officially deactivated.

I encourage you to say #GoodBye as well if you haven’t yet. Beside the obvious benefits of keeping you from doom-scrolling that cesspool, I don’t think you want all your data in Musk’s hands. So to speak. 

Instead of being panic-glued to my phone, my instinct right now is that I want to be guided in the coming years by the word community. We’re all going to need each other, and I think processing these things in person, in actual phone calls and Facetimes, in group hang-outs and organizing meetings, is going to be essential.

It’s clear from this election result that America is very ill. People are angry right now, feeling so helpless. And there are many reasons for that, but I don’t doubt that these phones are a contributing factor. They create the illusion of connection without the sustaining benefits of actual human connection. People are lonely.

You’ve probably heard about the many google searches for “did Biden drop out” on Election Day; I actually heard a real-life anecdote from a friend—he talked to someone who didn’t know Biden had dropped out until Wednesday. If you’ve been following every detail of political news like I have, this seems absolutely insane.

But then you realize the information ecosystem is so broken that, if you’re not actively seeking out political news, you can actually go more than three months and all of Election Day without encountering this piece of info. This also means these people were never exposed to this info in a casual conversation with a friend or co-worker or anyone. They never heard someone say, “Harris really destroyed Trump in that debate last night” or “Do you think Harris will be able to beat Trump?” or “I’m trying to figure out how to pronounce Kamala’s name now that she’s the candidate” or anything like that. This massive news just missed them entirely.

Which, sure, again speaks to this isolated societal moment where we’re all in our phones, getting the very specific information we seek and nothing else, as well as speaking to the broader lack of a civic education in our public schools, but ALSO:

I think it shows we’re doing way less close interacting with real-life people than we did before the smartphone came along.

So, in these early days of thinking about Trump 2: Garbage Man Returns, I keep coming back to community. Less time in my phone, more time with real people. Katie. My kids. Friends. Family. Connecting. Experiencing joy. Taking action instead of throwing away hours spiraling on the news cycle.

I want to get involved with a mutual aid organization.

I want to make my activism a more regular practice so it isn’t just a response to emergencies or elections.

I want to know more neighbors so that when shit goes down, we can more quickly be ready to help one another.

I want to focus more on local and state politics, since city and state governments are going to be protective barriers for people under this administration. Katie and I have been involved with the States Project since its inception in 2017—it’s a smart and very effective organization working to flip state legislatures blue. During this red wave election, Democrats were just barely able to keep their majority in the Pennsylvania State House, in no small part due to the support of the States Project and the deep canvassing efforts they’ve funded. This is really remarkable and heartening and means the state legislature can serve as a bulwark for the people of PA against many of the worst abuses of the coming administration.

Even though the media focus is always on the national races, you’d be surprised how many hugely important decisions get made at the state and local level. As the States Project always says, this is where the power is. I’ll be talking about them more in the future, but for starters, check out their website and listen to this podcast interview with Melissa Walker.

Also, if you’re in NYC, good to remember that the primary for mayor is coming up this June, and what a wonderful moment this could be to have someone leading the city who is not corrupt and ineffective. Katie just signed up to knock doors for Jessica Ramos. (I likely will too, Ramos seems terrific, just haven’t shifted my thinking to that election yet.)  

Going forward, I also want to keep making things. And reading lots of books to steady my brain and my heart rate. And doing fun things. And making jokes.

All of that is going to be vital too, no matter how dark it gets.

Which is what I’ll continue doing here! I’m sure politics are going to creep in to some of these posts, but the focus is still going to be on creativity and writing and finding ways to use our devices mindfully as tools instead of letting them spin us around, distract us from living our lives, and pull us away from taking more productive action to make the world better.  

I apologize if all of this action-oriented focus is not where your mind is yet. Feel free to ignore. But I share it here to give you hope and maybe a sense of orientation during a disorienting moment.

Either way, I’m not going to tell you what to feel. I don’t do that anymore.

One parting T-Rec: All this week—even before Election Day—I’ve been listening to Chappell Roan’s “Good Luck, Babe!” I know it came out in the spring, and I’m late to the party, but I really love this song. And even though I know it’s about a woman singing to another woman who she used to hook up with who is now married to a man, I think it (very loosely) also works as a song sung to all of those voters who chose Trump. Voters who will soon learn that this was a very bad choice. It’s a stretch, I know. But hearing Chappell wail, “You know I hate to say it, but I told you so!” has been very helpful for me.

Big love as always. Breathe deep. Be where you are. Take it slow. Comment if you want to vent here. I welcome that. I also welcome not commenting and instead venting to someone in person. See you next week!