Where do we go from here

My ramblings in this time of darkness

This voiceover was done in one take with all imperfections included - so you may hear some background noise or me stumbling over my words.

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Hello. I hope you’re doing okay. Last week was tough. This week is tough. And I’m sure the weeks to come will be tough.

Tough, tough, tough.

I wanted to write something to process my thoughts from what I’ve been feeling and what I’ve been seeing. If you are sick of seeing post-election thoughts and takes, feel free to click out of this one and skip it - no hard feelings.

Do what you need to take care of yourself today, tomorrow, this week. Please be kind to yourself.

Regardless of which stage of grief you’re at (personally I’m stuck in the anger stage and will maybe be there for the foreseeable future), I just want you to know that there is hope. There’s not a lot, but there is some.

And I’m not going to say “we made it through the first 4 years, we’ll make it through these” because not everyone made it through the first 4 and this time is different. But we can do our best to persist and resist.

There is a lot out of our control. The election happened. The result is what it is. But there are things in our state of control today, tomorrow, even months and years from now.

These are my rambling thoughts on what we can do with that time. For ourselves. For each other. For our community. For the future.

I am in no way an expert on this topic. I am just a person trying to navigate these, dare I say, unprecedented times. I’ve let the words from those I respect help guide me and a lot of what they have said is reflected here, weaved in with my own thoughts.

The best thing I can do right now is to channel my anger, frustrations, and disgust into this post and hope that what I write helps someone else. And helps myself.

What I’m writing is just as much a reminder for myself as for anybody else. I’m truly not an authority on this topic. Just navigating it the best I can.

Do something for yourself

Before we do anything, we must take care of ourselves. We cannot pour from an empty cup. We cannot help others while lighting ourselves on fire. The best thing you can do each day is something to bring you joy, peace, and calm.

Put your phone down. Turn off your computer.

Go outside. Walk through a park. Take a hike in nature. Go to a coffee shop and talk to your favorite barista.

Move your body. Lift weights. Blast your favorite upbeat music and pretend you’re throwing a concert in your living room.

Make yourself a cup of tea. Curl up with a good book to escape your current reality. Turn on your favorite show and craft, crochet, or eat crème brûlée.

Whatever you can find a pocket of joy in, do that. Being joyful in a hate filled world is rebellion in my book. They want you to despair. And it’s okay to despair a little bit. But then indulge in joy.

Find your community

None of us can do this alone. We need support systems and we need to have each other’s backs.

Identify the safe people in your life. This can be people who don’t live near you but it’s also important to have a support system geographically close to you, if possible.

Talk to your neighbors. Get together with your friends and family. Cook dinner together. Watch silly videos. Play games. Be present in the moment.

Just be together.

But also let them know you’re there for them. If they need something, if shit starts to get really real, make sure you all know you have each other’s backs.

Build your community of safe people as much as you can. Reach out to people you haven’t talked to in awhile but would otherwise love to reconnect with. Send texts to loved ones you don’t see often enough and check in to see if they’re okay.

We all need each other.

And do it anyway even if it feels silly to you. There is nothing silly about caring for another person. If they ignore you, that’s on them. But think about how you would feel if you got a message saying, “Hey! I know it’s been awhile but just wanted to check in and see how things were going. Let me know if you want to grab a coffee and catch up!”

I bet a lot of us would love to receive a message like that. Spread the love.

Get involved in your local community

As a stepping stone out of your safe bubble of people, sometimes getting a bit uncomfy is needed.

We do not have much control over the federal level of government, but we can make a difference locally. In our neighborhoods, our cities, our counties, even our states.

This goes beyond politics, although political groups are going to be important, too. Here in Wisconsin, we have a state supreme court race coming up in the spring. This is vital to giving our state a chance to fight back against whatever is happening at the federal level.

I know midterms are in 2026 but plenty is happening before then. And it’s not like Trump can implement everything day 1 so if he does in fact go after free and fair elections, he most likely will not have time to stop the ones happening in the next year, especially not local elections.

Look up your next races. Volunteer for a campaign. Make calls. Knock doors. Do something.

Look into your local school board meetings or neighborhood association meetings. See if your health department holds any kind of meetings. Research other organizations in your community that are trying to make a positive change.

Stuff can also be as simple as volunteering at your local library, a nature reserve, wherever you feel called to volunteer, just get out in the community and build connections. Don’t be a stranger.

If you’re feeling really feisty and up for the commitment, run for a local office. Or encourage someone you know to run. We need community members to be engaged.

And if any of this sounds terrifying to you, just know I’m right there with you. I struggle with social anxiety, I’m an introvert, I’m honestly a pretty awkward person. But I’m so angry and fed up that I’m going to do what I can.

Take a friend or 10 with you. We can make positive changes and we must.

Say your biggest fears out loud

Whatever your biggest fear is, say it out loud to whoever will listen.

Some fears are truly horrendous and there won’t be much we can do about them. Others we can.

One that might be popping up for a lot of sustainability-minded folks is: The climate crisis is not going to be solved.

And I want to unpack that a little bit because I think it’s a very real concern.

My very real opinion and feelings on the matter are that we likely weren’t going to stop the Earth from hitting the no going back point in warming no matter who was elected. As long as the Democrats are cozied up to the elites and promoting capitalism as a system, there was not going to be enough done to move the needle.

Would it have taken longer to get there? Sure. Would Kamala have still been better for a million different reasons? Absolutely. But here we are.

We will see devastating effects from the climate crisis. We already are. The best way to combat this is to also find community and do what you can locally. Have each other’s backs. Don’t be strangers.

It’s also okay to just say “wow, this shit sucks.” Because that’s really what it is. The climate crisis sucks. It’s terrifying. People are dying from its effects already. It’s so heart breaking and just plain awful. Grieve how you need to but then do something positive to help, no matter how small it might feel.

We can make our local communities safer and more insulated from climate disasters (at least to a certain extent).

We can help make sure people have clean and safe drinking water.

We can protect wildlife and our little patches of nature.

Even if it feels hopeless, there are still pockets of light to cling to.

For any other fears you have (I have plenty, so if you have A LOT, don’t feel like you’re the only one), please talk them out. Don’t sit all alone with your own thoughts. Reach out.

If you have no one you feel as if you can speak them out to, feel free to reach out to me. Please reach out to me if the alternative is stewing in your own thoughts alone.

Be an ally and protect yourself

If you have privilege and are not in a marginalized group, please, please, please be an ally to those who are in the most danger.

Stand up for trans rights.

Stand up for the right to marry whoever you want.

Stand up for people of color.

Stand up for bodily autonomy.

Stand up for immigrants.

Stand up because we are all human and we all deserve kindness and the right to live our lives.

If you are in a marginalized community, do what you have to in order to protect yourself.

Personally, I’ve been looking into getting my tubes tied because I do not want kids and if abortion becomes federally banned, I do not want to risk anything.

I’ve seen people recommend getting a gun. I personally do not feel as if that is the right choice for me, but I might carry pepper spray with me to feel safer. Hate and violence will go up because of Trump’s rhetoric and I’d rather look like a crazed dooms day prepper than be caught unprepared and in danger.

Other things I’m doing to protect myself:

• Scraping bumper stickers off our cars because I’m scared someone will become violent over it

• Blocking sites so I do not feel compelled to doomscroll or stay up on the news 24/7

• Not checking the news every day. You can be just as informed by checking once a week. If something goes really terribly wrong, your support system will reach out to you (and you should reach out to others if something huge happens and they need to do something to stay safe)

If there’s anything you’re doing to feel a bit safer or grounded, please drop it in the comments or reply! We all need all the positive things we can get.

And whatever you do, do it because you feel it’s the right move to make for yourself. Trust yourself. Protect yourself. What’s right for someone else may not be right for you.

I want to add a side note to this section, and what I’m about to say might be controversial, but I’m going to say it anyway.

If things start getting bad and people that voted for Trump start reaching out and repenting for their sins, I don’t think we should push them away.

I don’t even know if we should fully push them away before they realize what they did was bad. Isolation just doesn’t seem like a good solution to me for positive change.

Now, if it is not safe for you to talk to Trump supporters whether current or former, do not talk to them. This section is for those who feel they are able to do so (mentally, emotionally, physically) and where they feel their safety is not in danger.

Here’s why we need to bring them in if they start to turn their backs on the man and the movement they voted for or even try to engage with them before then:

• Not all of them are filled with hate. Yes, I personally want to call their ethics into question because I don’t know how you can vote for a sexist, racist, rapist, felon, etc. But the voters themselves are not the problem and we need to understand them.

• A lot of people voted for him because they were scared and the propaganda seemed to give them solutions to their problems. Fascism doesn’t rise out of a good society, it thrives on fear and people were scared. The Dems did not out-message the Republicans; they lost that battle. And messaging matters more than who is factually correct.

• There is more that we have in common than that divides us. We all want to have a roof over our head. Food on our table. Clean water. Good friends and family. People were swindled. At the end of the day, we all have more in common with each other than we do with the billionaires that are about to run this country.

• We need numbers. Not everyone is in a safe enough place to outwardly and vocally resist whatever is about to happen. The more of us we have, the better the chance we have.

If all we do is push out those who disagree with us and never engage with them, we will never make change. Yes, some people are fully lost and will not be brought back from conspiracy theory land but many are not. And whether we like it or not, we need as many people on the side of freedom as we can get.

There are many many many moments over the past decade that I’ve wished I would’ve said something to someone espousing conspiracy theories or brandishing their pitch forks at the wrong person or reason. And I can’t help but wonder if I had said something, would I have changed anyone’s mind? It’s hard to say. But regardless, I can’t change the past, all I can do is move forward and learn.

It might feel good and righteous to call everyone who voted for Trump racist or sexist or whatever. But that’s not a solution. Every single one of us have had internalized misogyny or racism or homophobia in us at some point in our lives. A lot of us have done work to unlearn that and that’s truly wonderful. But we can’t let that make us feel superior to those that haven’t. Ignorance is just as much of a cause as hate. It doesn’t make bigotry okay by any means, but it’s an easier thing to work with.

And that air of superiority is not welcoming. That was a huge problem with the Democrats’ messaging. Of course people weren’t going to feel welcome into a Democratic campaign when all they’ve done is call not only Trump racist and sexist, but his supporters, too. At least that’s how it came off.

Unfortunately, we have to be the bigger people and deal with the mess in the ways we can. People don’t fall down the alt-right rabbit hole because they feel secure, loved, and like a part of their community. They fall down it because they’re lonely, isolated, and looking for people to lash out at.

You don’t have to agree with me on this. You don’t have to try to engage with anyone you don’t feel safe engaging with. But at some point, we need to bring some of them over to our side by talking to them as if they’re real people. Because they are real people.

There will be incompetency in leadership

Trump and his cronies are all a bunch of narcissistic, greedy, assholes who only care about themselves. They will step over each other. They will fight. They want power for themselves.

This will lead to plenty of incompetence.

They are still dangerous, however. This is not the end all be all. It’s just a sliver of hope that they might fuck up some of their plans by letting their egos get in the way.

Plus, a lot of people that voted for Trump are only loyal to him, not the Republican party. If Trump dies or they invoke the 25th amendment to get him out of office, expect disgruntled Trump supporters.

But we also must remember: Trump is not the problem. Trump is a symptom of the problem.

Someone like Trump can’t rise without a lot of other shit going on. Even if Trump would have been defeated in this election, the threat of fascism would not have been. Even after Trump dies one day, we will still face the same problems. They might not have as “charismatic” a leader to elect, but the threat will exist.

And this brings me back to the point of building community and organizing. Isolation does not inspire faith in each other or in humanity. It does not inspire hope. We need community.

Remember we truly don’t know what’s going to happen

I want to end here because this is incredibly true. We all have an idea of what might happen. We can make predictions all day every day and make bingo cards out of them to see who’s closest. But that doesn’t actually accomplish anything other than raising our cortisol levels.

It’s important to be prepared for certain scenarios we fear might become a reality, but we cannot dwell on them constantly.

We really truly do not know what is going to happen. I mean an asteroid could hit Earth tomorrow and we’d have no more reason or ability to worry. We can take one day at a time.

Some anxiety can be good anxiety. Some anger can be good anger. But some can be bad and unhelpful.

Channel whatever you’re feeling into something positive. Whether that’s going out in your community and volunteering. Making art. Writing poetry or stories or essays. Creating music. Learning a new skill. Picking up litter from natural spaces.

Do something to build a better tomorrow, one day at a time. Do it together, with those you love and care for. Build connections far and wide.

Whatever happens, have each other’s backs.

Thanks so much for venturing into the Blue Raspberry Patch with me! I love exploring all these sustainability and design topics in longer form and sharing little berries of info with you all. I’d be delighted if you’d join me here!