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Hi Friends,
This is what my days have looked like recently: Wake up, check my calendar. Check the news, and feel my pulse race. Drive to a doctor’s appointment. Think about how health care premiums are skyrocketing this year to the point where millions of people won’t be able to afford medical care. Put on a mask to pick up milk at the grocery store because the flu is rampant here. Feel my frustration spike at RFK Jr, and his anti-vax campaign. FaceTime with my granddaughter. Worry about her father, a US-born surgeon of Mexican-American descent who is in the active military, who now carries his passport everywhere he goes. FaceTime with my grandson. Worry about his parents, who are gay, and if this is the month SCOTUS will arbitrarily decide to overturn gay marriage. Talk to my UK publisher about an upcoming book tour. Wonder if, by the time I go, a person with a US passport will be welcome there. Buy a pair of ski pants for a vacation to the Arctic Circle. Google how far away the Arctic Circle is from Greenland. Hear my husband turn on the news in the other room. Walk away and close the door, because I do not have the bandwidth to hear anything else about my country, and how powerless I feel in the wake of decisions that this administration is making that make me vibrate with anger. Is it any wonder we are all so completely emotionally exhausted? We are barely into 2026, and if possible, I would demand a refund.
Renee Good and Alex Pretti and Keith Porter probably had days much like the ones I’ve described, above, before they were shot and killed by ICE.
These are dark days. I know that not all my readers agree with my politics, and in the past, it hasn’t bothered me. God knows I’ve heard from plenty of readers who are angry at the fact that I’ve written newsletters decrying the current administration (and those who, inexplicably, were mad at me for stating truthfully in Wish You Were Here that Trump was president during COVID). These people threaten to never read my books again — or even to burn them. (I mean, okay, you do you.) But even if you are someone who went into the past election truly believing the lies that were being spoon fed to you, surely there has to be a line in sand where you think: enough is enough. This is not what I signed up for. Wanting cheaper prices for eggs and violent criminals sent away is understandable. Turning your back when American citizens who are exercising their Constitutional rights to protest peacefully, and being killed for it, however, is a very different story. Not to mention the fact that, thanks to all these trained legal observers who are filming in Minnesota, we can literally see what happened with our own eyes — even as the Department of Homeland Security and Stephen Miller immediately rewrite the narrative, telling us these people are “domestic terrrorists” and came with the “intent to kill federal officers.” The government, telling us not to believe our eyes and ears…well, George Orwell warned us about that long ago. If you are one of those people who voted for this, and wish you hadn’t? I see you. I feel your anguish. And it’s never too late.
Being part of “the resistance” doesn’t mean being “the enemy of the state.” It means drawing a moral line between what is right and what is wrong; it means recognizing that sometimes, the people in power can’t see that line clearly because they’ve been corrupted by the very power they hold.
I know I’m not the only person who feels disenfranchised and voiceless. I know I’m not the only one who’s called my reps so often they probably know me by my caller ID. I know I’m not the only one feeling whiplash in the face of such cognitive dissonance. It’s hard to think about promoting a book when we are a breath away from America — once the ideal of democracy and rational thought — effectively destroying both itself and the world order. I can remember when the biggest question I had to posit was what to defrost for dinner, not whether today is the day democracy falls. I wish the Democrats in Congress would stop posting on social media about impeaching Kristi Noem, and actually do it. I wish they’d charter a plane and go to Minneapolis and fight beside the citizens who are putting their own breakable bodies between ICE and the people whose biggest crime is having skin color that isn’t white. But I’m not a politician, and doomscrolling never solved anything. So what is a citizen to do?
Whatever you can. That’s different things for different people. It may mean you only have enough spoons to get through your day. It may mean working at a shelter or a food bank or sending a donation to those places. It may mean filing your candidacy for local office. It may mean getting to know your neighbors, so that if something fishy happens you are there to record it. For me, it is writing.
In 2015, the great Toni Morrison wrote in The Nation, “This is precisely the time when artists go to work—not when everything is fine, but in times of dread.” (If you haven’t read this piece, please do: https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/no-place-self-pity-no-room-fear/tnamp/) God knows that there have been plenty of artists who have created their work in prisons and concentration camps and under dictatorial rule. They’ve been executed for speaking the truth, when administrations did not want the public to hear it. Words matter, and words have power. Why do you think the President constantly disparages the media, late night talk show hosts, SNL? Because they use their writing and their message to wake the nation from complacency and ignorance. What despots deride as being “woke” is a euphemism for their fear of an awakened, alert, discontented populace.
A decade ago Morrison wrote: “Forcing a nation to use force is easy when the citizenry is rife with discontent, experiencing feelings of a powerlessness that can be easily soothed by violence. And when the political discourse is shredded by an unreason and hatred so deep that vulgar abuse seems normal, disaffection rules.” She might as well have been discussing yesterday, this week, tomorrow. It is not enough to pretend that we can just go about our lives as if everything is normal in America— because it’s not. To pretend — to stay silent — is to be complicit.
I may not be a politician, so I cannot speak out on a national stage against the greedy toddler mentality of America’s foreign policy. But I AM a citizen with a vote, and a voice to compel others to open their eyes to the way America has become a laughingstock to the rest of the world. I may not be a Minnesotan, so I cannot use my body to form a physical barrier against ICE. But I CAN donate to groups like the Minnesota Immigrant Rights Action Committee, the Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota, and Community Aid Networks Minnesota; or I can get involved with my own community — meet my neighbors to see who needs errands run if they are afraid to leave their house; get trained as a legal observer, get on an encrypted chat with others in the community who want to be part of a response if ICE shows up. (For local resources, I highly recommend joining up with indivisible.org or https://www.aclu.org/campaigns-initiatives/people-power.) I may not be a soldier, so I cannot side with the Constitution and turn down the orders of a President driven by hate and bullying instead of empathy and respect. But I CAN wield a pen, instead of a gun.
Remember how Mr. Rogers told us that when things are bad, we should look for the helpers? If the past week has made anything clear, it’s that no one is coming to save us. We are the ones we’ve been looking for. Which means it’s time to stop saying “they can’t do this!” or “it’s not legal!” or “someone has to end this!” You are that someone. So, roll up your sleeves, and instead of wringing your hands over what isn’t being done, and ask yourself, what can I do?
Because all good stories deserve a sequel. And that includes the story of America.
XO,
Jodi
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