It couldn’t hurt
Andy Borowitz: Inauguration Forecast Shows Temperature and IQ in the Twenties
Here with the wind chill, it’s like 2 deg outside. And still I think I’ll attend our local MLK peace march and rally (if it’s still on) rather than throw shit at my TV. I need a stiff shot of not-crazy. I just need to remember to leave the TV on tuned to Animal Planet. He’ll lie about his inauguration’s ratings anyway, but what the hell. Make the “blackout” meme trend. It’s like chicken soup….
I know several couples of means who’ve already fled the country. But for the rest of us, Brian Klaas (okay, from England) offers suggestions for surviving the next four years now that tweets about “shooting shoplifters without a trial and executing America’s top general” barely register, and the Saudis can now bribe Trump without needing “to pretend to stay at a Trump hotel.”
Klaas, with a Ph.D. earned in studying authoritarian regimes, knows whereof he speaks. He offers a few suggestions:
Never Doomscroll: Smarter Engagement, Real “Self Care”
Stay informed, but not constantly. Post online—or don’t—but not constantly. Remember that your personal resilience is a proxy for your effectiveness as a citizen. And when you find yourself consumed by the foaming, angry spectacle of politics, step away and go for a walk. Isolated outrage isn’t just individually destructive, it’s also counterproductive in the fight for the common good.
A four-mile walk is how I decompress after doing this for hours every morning. But with unusually cold January temperures lately, I’m not doing it. And I feel it.
Picking Our Battles
Democratic politicians should—to borrow the phrase from Jason Linkins of The New Republic—try to “shove the presidency down Trump’s throat.”
I covered that here. Klaas continues that while clicktivism and posting are not much use, mass protests are most effective only if used sparingly. Yet, because the American opposition was too worn out to take to the streets on January 7th, 2021, it was a lost opportunity to reinforce temporary vertebrates like Lindsay Graham and Mitch McConnell. Without a “mass movement in the streets demanding action,” theirs rapidly evaporated.
Klass offers two tests for whether mass protests are worth doing. January 6th passed both:
- Are we protesting against something that the overwhelming majority of Americans also objects to?
- Are we protesting against something that, if left unchallenged, would result in the permanent erosion of democracy itself?
As we’ve seen with the Liz Cheneys and the Lincoln Project:
And don’t be afraid to make strange bedfellows in politics. The most effective opposition movements to authoritarian populism organize as big tents, not jettisoning their own policy values, but inviting those who disagree with them on policy to make common cause on decency and democracy.
Building power is more effective than outrage:
Smarter Organizing, Supercitizen Communities
Finally, my advice is to think about the political landscape as an aggregation of incentives and disincentives. Only then can you realize where leverage exists, and how to exploit it.
Don’t spend money with Trump enablers. Start now to target “House Republicans in competitive districts for 2026.” But don’t forget that not all politics is federal. Support local and state races. (In case you’ve forgotten, we’re still fighting tooth-and-nail to secure a NC state Supreme Court seat a Democrat won here in November.)
Support your local communities.
Supercitizens—those who volunteer to improve their communities and lift others up—continue to add restorative stitches into our fraying social fabric. The most poetic imaginable response to the return of callousness and cruelty in the White House would be a resurgence of volunteering, community support, and fresh initiatives to help strangers who are our neighbors.
That’s why I donate to these guys:
View on Threads
I’m sure Los Angeles has tons of helper groups that need help to help neighbors.
Spring can’t get here soon enough.