It’s likely in the last few weeks, you’ve avoided reading the news, watching network reports or listening to public radio because of fear where the Trump 2.0 show is taking us. Maybe you stayed current with celebrity news such as the Blake Lively-Justin Baldoni lawsuits or nostalgically revisited episodes of “The West Wing.”
Now, you need to opt back in because many legitimate media options are threatened. Also, our democracy is burning.
As President Donald Trump doubles down on those he believes harmed him — by holding him accountable — he’s attacking media and former leaders. He’s targeting diversity initiatives, LBGTQ+ health programs, cancer research, immigrant protection and climate change action. Grants are frozen and humanitarian aid dismantled.
The convicted felon pardoned Jan. 6 insurrectionists and wants retribution against FBI employees who investigated them. He fired Justice Department officials who worked on criminal investigations into him.
He gave unlimited power to henchman Elon Musk who bought his position as head of the Department of Government Efficiency with nearly $290 million in donations to Trump and other Republican candidates. Musk and his band of young henchettes are working their way through dozens of government agencies with the aim of cutting programs, firing civil servants and meddling in the Treasury Department’s computer systems.
Oh, and Trump wants to rid Gaza of its 2 million Palestinians and rebuild it as a “Riviera of the Middle East,” perhaps envisioning it with a hotel and golf course featuring the Trump name.
Meanwhile the clueless Democrats announce they will find a strategy to rebuild. U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar said the Democratic Party will be “coming back,” and in the meantime they are looking at “finding common ground” because that’s what Americans want.
But does common ground exist in America? Things have fallen apart so completely; the center has collapsed, to paraphrase Irish poet William Butler Yeats.
The world has wept before. Yeats wrote about the chaos and near-apocalyptic destruction after World War I in “The Second Coming”: “Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;/ Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.”
Then around 50 years later, American writer Joan Didion referred to Yeats’ poem in her collection of essays “Slouching Towards Bethlehem.” Yeats used that phrase to describe the rebirth of a “rough beast” intent on destroying civilization. Writing about the 1960s in Haight-Ashbury, Didion suggested the polarization of the culture during the Vietnam War effectively ended innocence and proved “that things fall apart.”
Almost 60 years since then, each day brings an announcement of something else falling apart. It’s as if Trump sat at Mar-A-Lago during Joe Biden’s presidency making a list of enemies whose security details he could revoke. Republicans stand in solidarity, voting for incompetent Cabinet picks, while Democrats are barred from entering the U.S. Agency for International Development building, which Musk shut down.
We’re witnessing the dismissal of the Constitution and the dismantling of our democracy. You’re either for Trump or against him. There’s no middle.
Still, the resistance is coming. During the inaugural prayer service, Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde urged a stony-faced Trump to show mercy to immigrants, LGBTQ+ people and transgender children. The FBI’s top agent in New York, James Dennehy, is “digging a foxhole” to protect his employees.
A federal judge blocked Elon Musk’s DOGE from accessing federal payment systems while another judge blocked Trump’s birthright citizenship order that would eliminate citizenship for children born here to undocumented immigrants. Other lawsuits seeking to stop Trump emerge hourly.
Here in Illinois, Gov. JB Pritzker says he’s going to make the state a “firewall against Donald Trump’s assaults on our democracy.” He blocked Jan. 6 rioters from jobs in the state and called Trump “unfit to lead” after the president blamed diversity policies for the plane crash in Washington. Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul and others in 14 states assert they will continue providing gender-affirming care.
What can an individual do when there’s so little hope while facing a chaotic four years ahead?
Stand up and be heard.
Call or write letters to legislators holding them accountable for their votes and their lack of action. Support organizations that support the disenfranchised. Help embattled social service and health agencies such as Planned Parenthood, which recently announced it was closing four clinics across Illinois because of lack of funds.
Don’t rely on social media for information; get a digital subscription to a legitimate news source such as the Chicago Tribune. Avoid Lara Trump.
Finally, do not stand in the circle of those spewing racism, sexism, antisemitism, Islamophobia, homophobia and their cousin — ignorance. Confront without rage.
If you stay busy fighting for the soul of this country, your own soul may find some much-needed solace.
Christine Ledbetter is a former senior arts editor at The Washington Post who lives in Illinois, where she writes about culture and politics.
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