Fridays in Trumpland: 3.21.2025
Strangers Even, or No Matter What Comes
There was some good news this week, at least. Temporary restraining orders and preliminary injunctions continue to rack up in the courts, with Trump and DOGE/Musk sustaining loss after loss after loss.
The speed with which they seek to do damage, though, is relentless.
Some, like Alex Winter– one of the co-organizers of the TeslaTakedown movement– have pointed out that the administration is moving so fast because they know what they are doing is despised by most of America, and that speed is a sign of their awareness of their own weakness.
This administration knows that people are enraged at Musk, DOGE, and their destruction of the social safety net. It has seen that outrage expressed at town hall upon town hall for Republican representatives, where reps have been booed and shouted down and cursed at non-stop.
They know that what they’re doing is deeply unpopular, and that there are signs that the rage is growing.
And so, this week, in a brutal acceleration, Trump’s people began disappearing whole planeloads of human beings, many of whom have never been accused of any crime, to a slave labor concentration camp in El Salvador, beyond the reach of any court of American jurisdiction, without any form of due process whatsoever.
Including folks who were here legally.
Including four young men who came here together seeking a better life and a fresh start.
Including a professional soccer player who ICE claimed was a gang member because of a Real Madrid tattoo.
Including a man who left his country of origin because he’d been put in a prison camp at home and was seeking asylum in the USA.
These people may seem like strangers, but they are not. They are people with whom we share(d) this country as a home— that is, until Trump and ICE decided they were worthy of torture and detention and enslavement at the hands of another dictator in a foreign land, without ever even disclosing their names.
And then there’s the detained Canadian tourist who was moved from one camp to another inside the US over two weeks before being finally released, and the Welsh tourist who was chained and detained for 19 days, and the Brown professor who was deported despite having a valid work visa because she attended a funeral the US government disapproved of, and the Georgetown student disappeared for who knows what.
As Mariame Kaba said this week, it’s “[v]ery important to be clear-eyed and to assess conditions accurately . . . Any and all of us can be disappeared by the regime. I hope that people really understand this. This is the time on the fascist clock we're currently on.”
The question I keep asking myself is this: who we are as a nation if we have no rights, if no one among us, stranger or friend, is free and safe, if our First Amendment rights and our freedoms can be erased entirely at whim?
Because in these conditions, we sure as hell aren’t a democracy. It’s about time we came face-to-face with the reality of that.
I’m not going to pretend that all of this isn’t terrifying. Simultaneously, though, I want to remind you that the terror is by design.
When we are terrified, we shut down. Fear takes over, and we isolate ourselves and hide. That is exactly what this administration wants right now, because it knows that it is weak and vulnerable and despised.
Action is an antidote to despair. It is also an antidote to terror.
This is a good moment to mention that the TeslaTakedown protests have gained momentum. March 29th is a global day of action for this peaceful, nonviolent movement, and I strongly recommend that you get involved if it calls to you.
But I also want to mention something else that really matters right now counterintuitively, and that is joy.
Anand Giridharadas wrote this incredible piece yesterday morning about how living well, and joyfully, is the opposite of fascism. I recommend you read it and keep it close.
Why? Because it’s vitally important that we “live like we’re still alive,” to quote the great Sara Bareilles– that we refuse to forget that we are here to love, and to be in the good company of other human beings, and to laugh, and to create art and music, and to love and to love and to love.
Joy cannot be stolen from us, as long as we keep living. It is the counterbalance to everything Trump stands for. It belongs to each and everyone of us, and it is free. Don’t abandon it, no matter what comes.
No matter what comes.
My whole life has burnt to ashes more than once. In 2015, I started over from scratch not once but twice, on different sides of the country and with a two and three year old in tow, and then I did it again the following year when I left the rubble of a broken and abusive marriage.
Each of those times, I landed somewhere with just a few suitcases and the only things that really mattered in the end: my kids.
You learn certain things about yourself and other people when everything you thought you could count on crumbles to dust.
You learn that you can survive things that you never would have guessed you could survive.
You learn who really has your back when it counts.
You learn that love sustains you and that friendship is everything and that people will come out of the woodwork to support you even when you’re not looking for it, especially when have been lying to yourself that you can handle everything alone.
You learn that sometimes the ways that you have loved people, without regret or hesitation or wanting anything in return, will come back to you through other people— strangers even— and it will look and feel the same as what you yourself have already given.
You learn that others will bless you and keep you, and bring you joy, and even sing to you and hold your hand when you’re crying, and that you will also return the favor when called.
You learn that while humanity contains some awful, broken, vicious beings, it also contains miraculous quantities of truly good people, and that you only need a few of those to make it through the hardest things.
You learn that dancing, and naps, and peals of laughter from children, and shared meals and conversation with friends, and dogs (who could forget dogs!) can make things that are devastating seem a little bit better, and sometimes a whole lot better, simply because you are not in it alone.
These are all good lessons for now, along with mobilizing with people we trust, getting in to mutual aid where we live, and working to protect the most vulnerable, however we can.
Throughout this entire week, and honestly since the snatching of Mahmoud Khalil away from his pregnant wife, I have wanted more than ever before to just tell people that I love them– strangers even.
So this week, let us remember that none of us are strangers, and that what will bind us together even in the worst of this will be remembering our shared humanity, and fighting to keep it, however we can and however we must, in the name of all that cannot be stolen.
Even from the ashes, and no matter what comes, we do not abandon anyone– even strangers.
We live like we’re still alive.
I've always believed we are all connected, one big family. Science discovered that the elements in meteors are in the human body. We are part of the universe.
Thanks Elizabeth for these words and for sharing Anand’s article. Community is so important right now. Friends supporting each other and finding some joys and love in life. Watching a ski race that my 10 year old great granddaughter was in, watching my 14 year old great granddaughter’s solo dance competition and seeing how she is growing into a calm, poised and very graceful young woman. Also reading the glowing words written by a teacher to my 17 year old great grandson. Realizing that your three children have grown into great adults. I hold onto those things for dear life.