What Can We Do?

      I’ve signed up to go to my first protest demonstration on Monday. I’ll stand on a corner waving a sign. Earlier this week, I made my first financial donation to a Trump-fighting group. I’ve started regularly calling the office of my (cowardly Republican) senator.

      I’m beginning to try to answer the question, at least for me, of what can we do?

      Of course, for these last four weeks, it’s been easier to say, what can we do? How can we possibly deal with the onslaught that seems never-ending? With the accumulating day-to-day nightmarish realities? The zone indeed has been flooded, and we have felt overwhelmed. Recent national surveys report that nearly half of those who identify as Democrats say they feel “exhausted.”

      So, it’s been easy to tune out, which I have done. It’s been easy to feel buried alive, which I have felt. It’s been easy to feel hopeless.

      We feel that way even if we know that is exactly what this administration is trying for. They want to crush our spirit and induce a state of passivity among the general public. For the most part, they have succeeded.

      Instead of heeding a call to mass in the streets—and there has been no such call—we have tried to heed endless suggestions that we can fight the power by being kind to each other. We can combat the growing tyranny with small acts of grace.  While being bludgeoned, we can respond with compassion and generosity. We can reach out to our circles and draw them closer.

      And all of that is good, but is it enough?

      Of course, if you are white, financially stable, heterosexual, maybe retired, living in blue pockets, maybe it is. All the craziness, all the executive orders, aren’t affecting us that directly, we think. Well, until they do.

      Plus, we know that our time to lead the march has passed. We’re waiting for younger generations to take the lead.

      Maybe we should stop waiting.

      I’m not really sure what that means. Now that I’ve started tuning in rather than out, I don’t know what else I’m going to do.

      I’m pretty sure I’ll make some more donations (Indivisible would be good; so would Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s fund) and it’s easy enough to keep contacting my (cowardly Republican) senator. I’ve signed up for a couple of organizing zooms, maybe because that seems easy enough.

      I think I’m ready to march in the streets.

      Maybe someone else—someone younger, more energetic, more engaged and enraged—will take the lead. I’m pretty sure I’ll follow.