If you are watching the news right now, and you are feeling overwhelmed by all of the constant headlines ... first of all, know that you are not alone. Second of all, know that this is exactly what this Administration is trying to get you to feel ... The first order of business is to self-regulate. What authoritarian regimes try to do is that they often try to what is known as "flood the zone"—to do so much at once that you feel overwhelmed and paralyzed. It's important for you to understand that the paralysis and shock that you feel right now is the point. They are trying to induce a state of passivity among the general public, so it is of personal importance for you, and it is also of political importance, to take a breath.
Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, from her 2/3/2025 Instagram Live. The post title also comes from this video.
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The flood is the point. The overwhelm is the point. The message wasn’t in any one executive order or announcement. It was in the cumulative effect of all of them. The sense that this is Trump’s country now. This is his government now. It follows his will. It does what he wants. If Trump tells the state to stop spending money, the money stops. If he says that birthright citizenship is over, it’s over.
Or so he wants you to think. In Trump’s first term, we were told: Don’t normalize him. In his second, the task is different: Don’t believe him.
Ezra Klein, "Don't Believe Him." The New York Times, 2/2/2025.
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Helplessness is a current that drives you hard and tries to drag you under. If you fight it, you will drown. But you can swim with it. And by swimming with it, you can find the little gaps that separate "almost powerless" and "almost nothing" from "powerless" and "nothing." You can focus on those hard, and you can make the absolute most of them.
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Many have described Trump’s repeated policy blows as a “shock and awe” strategy. While the description is apt, it’s important to remember the objective of shock and awe attacks: to overwhelm a target, distort their perception of the battlefield, and destroy their will to fight.
When your enemy wants you disoriented, your ability to focus is an important means of self-defense. What matters to you in this moment? Most of us can meaningfully dedicate ourselves to one or two causes, at the most. What can you commit to doing something about? Where do you get trustworthy information about those subjects? Who do you connect with when deciding what to do about what you’ve learned? Is there an organization whose resources you will employ or whose calls to action you will answer? Do you have a friend group or solidarity network that will formulate a response together? Answering these questions is key to steadying yourself in these times. Remember: Vulnerable people don’t need a sea of reactivity right now. They need caring groups of people who are working together to create as much safety as they can. We need to create a rebellious culture of care. That will take focus and intention. It will take relationships and a whole lot of energy.
Kelly Hayes, "A Brutal Beginning: Orienting Ourselves Amid the Shock and Awe." Organizing My Thoughts, 1/21/2025.
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We’ve seen people rich and powerful enough to stand on principle cave and kiss the ring, seen huge corporations who likewise have the resources to have some integrity knuckle under, seen universities choose to veer right to please the incoming president, seen news organizations soften up outrageous violations and cruelty with bland and evasive language.
They’re cowards. They’ve chosen craven advantage over courageous principle. But they alone cannot legitimize and normalize this regime. What will normalize it is if we all go along with it. Not going along with it, not pretending this is normal, not pretending human rights violations are anything but, not forgetting that the regime is attempting to make epic and unprecedented changes that dismantle our democracy: that’s up to us. Not only with how we organize and act, but how we talk and how boldly we talk.
I learned something new about animal behavior last week, and it seems really timely. A reindeer cyclone is when a herd of reindeer facing a predator put the calves in the center and whirl around fast, making it difficult to impossible for the predator to pick off one reindeer. The more of us who speak up the harder it will be to persecute any single person who says trans rights are human rights or what’s being done to immigrants is terrorism. It’s not the only example from the animals. When threatened, musk oxen likewise circle up, facing outward with their huge horns, calves again in the middle of the ring.
Some say that murmurations—those beautiful flights of thousands of starlings undulating and pulsating as they whirl through the sky together—create flocks that are hard for predators to attack. There’s safety in numbers, which is why a lot of prey animals move in herds and flocks and schools. For those who dissent from what this new administration intends to do, we may sometimes be able to surround an Ice van or march by the thousands, but every time we dissent we make room for others to dissent. Courage, like fear, is contagious. For a lot of us, right now, we get to choose, and what we choose has an impact on what others choose.
Rebecca Solnit, "Fighting for justice doesn't have to be a big dramatic act. It can be small." The Guardian, 2/2/2025.
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