Fridays in Trumpland: 1.10.2025

A World On Fire

This has been a week.

It began with the anniversary of the January 6th insurrection— and with all of the grace and dignity of Kamala Harris presiding over her own (and our) loss as the electoral college was certified. It proceeded through many layers of litigation concerning Jack Smith’s impending report on Trump’s unaddressed crimes and Trump’s looming criminal sentencing later on today for those of which he’s been convicted. And in the middle of it all, Jimmy Carter was buried, Meta eliminated any fact-checking from all its platforms, Elon Musk held a Twitter Spaces with the neo-Nazi party of Germany, and Los Angeles, devastatingly, went up in flames.

In short, the world is burning, literally and figuratively.

In the interregnum of this, I have found myself questioning relentlessly what matters most.

In the early hours of every morning, while my children sleep, I rise to position myself in a big cushy chair to write– longhand, through pages and pages of a journal in the bare light of dawn– about what it takes to live through this, and what it will take to survive it.

On Wednesday, as wildfires ravaged Los Angeles and thousands lost their homes, Brittany Packnett Cunningham wrote “Days like today are reminders that there is no substitute for community.”

She is right. Over and over again, what I have come back to this week is how much community matters for where we are now and for what’s coming.

Community is the difference between having a place to stay when your home goes up in smoke, or having to turn to a shelter or the street.

Community is the difference between collective grieving, and suffering loss alone.

Community is the difference between disruption that moves the needle when injustice reigns, and having to hang on to survival by the skin of our teeth in isolation.

Community is everything.

We still don’t know exactly what is coming next. It’s ten days from Trump’s inauguration, and there is no question that shock and awe will reign for at least the following two weeks (and likely far beyond that) as raids are carried out and Congress passes shocking legislation and threats that have been promised are brought to fruition.

How we respond will depend entirely on how well we are stitched together.

---

---

My grandmother, Virginia, lived to be 100. She smoked until her early seventies, and she had a wicked sense of humor. Even when she began to lose her memory, she could be counted on to drink as many glasses of white zinfandel as she could get her hands on, and to crack jokes that made everyone laugh with her trademark chest-shaking giggle.

In her quieter moments, though, my grandmother liked to crochet.

And by the time I went to college, she had gifted me two huge afghans– crocheted blankets, one the shade of coffee and the other a seventies-style flaming multicolored concoction– that remained folded on the foot of my extra-long twin during my first year, reminding me of from whence and whom I came.

Somewhere in the summer before my senior year, though, they were lost. My best recollection is that I took them to a friend’s house for storage when I left to study abroad, and never managed to retrieve them.

I still feel regret– a haunting regret, a betrayal of her, almost– at the loss of those handmade blankets. She’s gone now, and I will never get them, or her, back.

Now, in my head, I multiply what it must feel like to lose everything in an instant– every tangible representation of memory, every cherished gift, every legacy passed down through generations– and to thereby lose the fabric of your own life, as it all goes up in smoke.

When we lose what binds us to history– both individually and collectively– we lose a critical connection to our shared humanity.

And it is not fair to any of us to have to live through that. It is not fair.

---

---

History burns right now, too. The hagiography of the January 6th insurrection continues, as Trump reinvents reality, and as his people prepare to reclaim power and pardon all those who engaged in that destruction on his own behalf. Everything is lies, and it is so familiar and so disturbing at the same time.

And yet, there are some things I know to be true.

I know that I have people I can count on in times of crisis. I hope you do too.

I know that I have a community where I live that shows up for me and for each other, and would do whatever it takes to keep others alive. I hope you do too.

I know that I have done the work, and continue to do the work, of figuring out how to help those without a safety net– those dropped stitches in the blanket that must be pulled back into our shared design if the entire piece is to remain intact. I hope you have too.

Come what may, we can’t forget that we are all bound together in the story of this nation– past, present and future. No one can be left out. No one can be abandoned. No one can be left standing alone— even if it all burns to the ground.

We must refuse, absolutely refuse, the notion that our collective destiny can be unwound, broken, cut apart like scissors taken to the fragile threads of so much irreplaceable handiwork– whether by state, or by identity, by any demarcation through which that man and his people seek to drive a blade– and choose instead to strengthen our bonds to those we love and to those who need us most.

We must stitch ourselves together in community stronger than we ever have before, across all lines that power has drawn upon us, and with a ferocious commitment to keeping the whole blanket sound, and every stitch gently and carefully interwoven.

We are all in this together, come what may. We are all in this together.

And if we can only find a way to bind ourselves to one another with love, with caretaking, with a common understanding that it is us, now, that must save us, we will find that this, in fact, is what matters most.

---

Interested in learning how to build community where you live?

The re-election of Donald Trump was a devastating blow to democracy, to our safety and security, and to our emotional well-being. He has openly promised violence, retribution, and the erosion of rights—and his track record tells us he will deliver on those threats.

For many of us, this moment is marked by profound grief, rage, and loss. Loss of trust in institutions, in our neighbors, and even in loved ones who have fallen into the cult of Trumpism. It’s a heavy burden to carry.

But even as we grieve, the urgency to act has never been clearer. Lives are at stake. Our ability to resist, disrupt, and build resilient, supportive communities for survival depends on what we do next.

That’s why we created The Dual Power Accelerator—a ten-week training program designed to help you navigate these challenging times with tools for community building, survival, disruption, solidarity, and resilience.

Registration is now open for our second cohort, starting February 4th. Join us.

---