Fridays in Trumpland: 5.23.2025
On Fear
This week, I had a long conversation with a colleague about the nature of fear.
In this era, all of us– or at least all of us who aren’t ostriches or inside the Trump cult– are walking around with a low grade level of fear, all the time.
The basis for our fear depends on many things: whether we are of an identity currently targeted by the administration, whether we have been historically or presently outspoken on Palestine or immigration or this administration and its fascist policies, whether we are Black or brown or indigenous or LBTQIA+ or disabled, whether our respective trauma profiles have left us with PTSD– the list goes on and on.
All but the most uber-privileged among us have reason to be afraid to greater or lesser degrees.
And that’s leaving aside the looming threat of climate collapse, which unfortunately has taken a back burner to rising US fascism.
In this conversation with my colleague, I raised this tape that has been playing in my head about how there are things I somehow think I shouldn’t be afraid of– some because I have this obviously untrue narrative of “I should already be over that trauma, and not afraid of a repeat anymore,” some because I am constantly evaluating threat on the basis of my intersecting identities to make sure I’m not too hypervigilant or creating excuses to not do more in terms of my own activism, and some because I, like many others, just don’t like being afraid and unable to anticipate when and how the next execution on the constant public threats will arrive.
My colleague’s response was interesting. Her words were: “this is the time to make friends with your fear, because fear is a teacher.”
Now, just in case you think that was spiritual bypassing, let me tell you how the conversation unfolded from there: she and I went on to talk for more than an hour about how fear allows you prepare and make decisions that protect you. We also talked about how when you don’t stuff your fear or run from your fear or pretend you’re not afraid, you are able to have a much more rational view of what your fear is telling you, and how to respond to it.
For instance, my fear is not stopping me from regularly attending organizing meetings on a host of issues where I live.
My fear isn’t stopping me from doing the work of mobilizing with others for action and change.
But is it rational to consider how to protect myself, and particularly the most vulnerable, in doing that work? Absolutely.
Is it rational to be afraid of people in my life and/or my community who I know are prone to violence, and to make choices to avoid or minimize interactions with those people, or prepare to deal with returning violence if and when the time comes? Yes.
Is it smart, in every organizing effort, to address fears of retaliation head on, and plan for possible outcomes so that legal and deescalation strategies can be employed if needed? 100 percent.
What is not rational is to be so afraid that I do nothing, or that we do nothing– unless we are truly certain, like those showing up in immigration courts this week, that we are a single moment away from being kidnapped and sent to a gulag because we are a direct target.
The thing many of us seem to be forgetting is that the greatest civil and human rights leaders in history were terrified most of the time.
No one crossed the Edmund Pettus bridge thinking it was a safe walk.
Fear is a friend, an instructor, a warning light— but whether it becomes a prison, in at least some instances in the current moment, is a choice.
This morning, I read this incredible piece in the Guardian on the topic of hypernormalization.
Essentially, the article attacks head-on the sense that many of us have had of how bizarre it is to go about our lives as systems and democracy collapse.
Prior to Trump’s second inaugural, I read a book on the same topic called Secondhand Time, which contains first-hand accounts of what it was like when Yeltsin came to power after the Soviet Union collapsed and set about essentially selling off the country to oligarchs.
Long story short, people literally lost their minds– went crazy from the slow roll of the loss of all that had been promised under Gorbachev, and the end of the hope of democracy, and the bizarre sense of knowing that life would never be the same in Russia as autocracy took hold– at least not for a very long time.
A key point for our times, though, is that social media didn’t exist during the rise of oligarchy in Russia. People were forced to gather in person, and often secretly, as a means of coping with collapse, and that helped to stem the tide of crazy-making times.
As the Guardian piece points out, people now perceive TikTok as community, and Facebook groups as connection, when in fact those mythologies are making matters worse.
To survive hypernormalization, you must get face to face with people who get it. You must, if you are able, leave the house and meet up with people working to stabilize life in your community and make it better for others.
You have to get your hands dirty.
You have to feel the fear and do it anyway.
Every single news day right now contains terrifying events.
A budget bill that, at least as of this writing, cuts all gender affirming care from Medicaid, legalizes the sale of gun silencers to everyday people, and ends enforcement of injunctions by the courts, awaits a vote in the Senate.
Long time US residents, including fathers with three American kids, mothers who have lived here for 25 years, students brought here as babies, are being snatched from the streets and immigration courts and their own front yards, and disappeared.
Diplomatic employees were gunned down in Washington in a hate crime, right after a meeting to try to get humanitarian aid into Gaza, as thousands of babies starve to death in Gaza from the intentional denial of that aid.
Every human life matters. No more, no less, than each of our own. To see any one life lost, let alone intentionally through violence, neglect, hatred and genocide, is awful and terrifying.
Like you, I am afraid a lot of the time— not just for my loved ones, but for all of us.
And yet. And yet. I am making fear my friend.
Last week, I went to see Dr. Ibram X. Kendi, the anti-racism author and professor, speak about his new book on Malcolm X.
In the Q+A, after Dr. Kendi spoke about recent threats to his life and his family and his work, the anti-racist parenting expert Tabitha St. Bernard-Jacobs made a comment that has stuck with me since.
She said, as best I can remember, this:
“Thank you. Thank you for carrying on even when you’re scared. Thank you for continuing the work in spite of what you’ve faced. You have given me the courage to keep going, because you have shown me that it is possible to be afraid and still stand up.”
Fear is a consequential part of radical change.
No change will come without it, and befriending it actually makes the struggle easier.
May we all rise up, even though we are afraid, and in so doing show others how it’s done— so that we are not just a party of one in the face of so much fear, but many together acting in defiance of it.
And may our love for one another always, far more than our fear, light the way.
See you next week.
About fifteen years ago, I knew that I was called to do something bigger than where I found myself in life. I knew that I was here to create societal change on a massive scale, but I didn’t know where to start.
If that’s you, too, I want to invite you to apply for a free strategy call. Our new endeavor, The Ripple Effect Institute, may be exactly what you need to get started.
Apply for a free call today.
For a lot of us, fear has been a shadow since children. I learned to turn fear into a tool when I divorced my narcissist husband. Fear was a crystal ball that allowed me to predict the next five crazy things that could possibly happen next. Fear was a project manager that helped me plan several steps ahead of those crazy things. Fear was a shield that protected my kids.
I love the idea of turning Fear into a friend. That makes me feel less crazy and more informed.
Thanks again ECM for another great thinker.
Also, I think an educational video on Fear would be helpful.