Counteract political climate with personal acts of resistance
Whether you support Trump or not, news of his first week in office has dominated all media platforms and most casual conversations. For some of us, especially those who are astounded at how swiftly he can impose his personal brand of American carnage, it has been too much to bear.
It started with the removal of the Obama administration’s information on civil rights, climate change, LGBT rights, healthcare, immigration and education from the government’s website and continued with a presentation of the alternate facts as to how many people attended the inauguration, talk of waterboarding and secret prisons, executive orders about wall building, deportations, bans on refugees, pipelines and images of a bunch of white men standing around as he signs an order to bar international NGOs that perform or promote abortions from receiving US government funding, the list goes on.
So many people have expressed a desire to stop consuming the news they find so upsetting but you know what they say about train wrecks.
Just when we thought it couldn’t get any worse out there, a news report that Russia is set to partially decriminalize domestic violence (battery that doesn’t inflict bodily harm). Now, this cannot be blamed on Trump but it gives a sense that the United States is not the only country going backwards. You know what they say about hell and hand baskets.
For those who were disappointed by the results of the federal election, this week has certainly been overwhelming.
As Trump was ramping up, millions of people took to the streets in Washington DC and around the world for the Women’s March on Washington and its sister marches, to show their opposition on many levels but especially on this sense of undoing progress that has been made as a civilization, with the acknowledgement that we still had so far to go.
Participants marched ahead as a protest to that sense of going backwards. We envy their experience of being in an ebullient crowd of individuals driven to be there by a collective sullenness. What a wonderful tonic for those feeling helpless to change the current state of affairs.
The marches have left people motivated to do more, to take the next step.
We hope we can find a way to stay informed without bingeing on depressing news about executive orders that dictate how people should live their lives and who is and is not worthy of safety, education and access to freedom and prosperity.
It is irresponsible to turn a blind eye to what is happening but it is unhealthy to dwell on a theme that makes us feel helpless so we must find ways in our lives to rise up and counteract the negativity. We must build each other up, talk to young boys and girls about the themes that dominate the political lexicon and above all, be good role models. These are ways we can triumph.
