How do we fight back?

      The blizzard of vengeful executive actions, the horrible spending freeze, the cruel deportation roundups, the purges of the DOJ and the FBI, all coming one after the other after the other, seemed to just overwhelm us. Then the DC plane crash happened.

      Somehow, that touched a new nerve. I got a call the day after the crash from a good friend. No specific reason for the call, except he clearly just had to vent. Despite probably knowing better, he had just watched the televised news conference the president had given after the crash and he had to talk to someone and spew.

      My friend was so angry, so upset, he could barely get the words out.

      “This is the worst,” he managed to say. “This is the absolute worst. I’ve never seen such a horrible, evil, terrible performance. What an evil bastard. What kind of man, what kind of president, acts like that?”

      My friend is a historian, trained in the long view of things. He is also a southerner and knows about this country’s long trail of injustice and hypocrisy. But the ten minutes or so of TV watching the president of the United States vomit up vile racism and idiocy had almost undone him.

      This president, with absolutely no knowledge—and surely, no grace—essentially had blamed Blacks and women and those with disabilities, those “DEI hires,” for the deaths of 67 people. Of all the things he had done since taking office—and so many have been terrible things—this may have been the worst, the most callous, the most vile and the most viscerally infuriating.

      Which is why I expressly hadn’t watched the press conference, knowing that it would probably have provoked me in much the same way as it had my friend. I told my friend on the call that he shouldn’t have watched it either, but it was really too late for me to say that and of course not particularly helpful.

      So, what is helpful?

      There has been, since January 20, this sense of impotence, particularly for our generation. Realistically, we’re not going to be the first ones demonstrating in the streets, the first to man the barricades. And no, at this age, we’re not moving to Portugal, no matter what we may have once said. We can’t, you know, be so far from the kids and grandkids.  

      Maybe, after others start them, we can join the demonstrations. We can march in the streets, even if we march more slowly. In the meantime, what I told my friend—and what I’m telling myself—is we need to figure out how can we support those who are actually doing the essential work of fighting back. We need to find ways—financial, moral, emotional, logistical—to stand up against the onslaught.     

      What are we to do? The answer, of course, is whatever we can.