Find Your Way Forward

Find Your Way Forward in 2025. In November, December, and January, the holidays provided a welcome distraction from the terrible ups and downs I experienced following the election. Since that day, I have been depressed (if not despondent); angry at the MAGA fools who would choose the whining criminal misogynist Florida man over a good hearted, intelligent, and experienced candidate who happened to be a woman; and completely confused by all the people looking for someone to blame like the Democratic Party and VP Harris for either not sharing her policies, not having any policies, not having good policies, or not having policies that would help working people (Gimme a break!).

Then the hits kept coming as the Florida man filled his creepy clown car with ridiculously horrible appointees to important Departments, created a new government department to please his billionaire oligarch buddies, and pushed for spectacularly heinous policies like raising the debt ceiling so his administration can spend whatever his oligarchs demand including reducing their taxes even more than he did during his 2017-21 administration.

Now the Florida man is sitting at the resolute desk in the oval office signing horrendous executive orders such as the one to eliminate equal employment opportunity, freeing violent criminals who committed sedition and terrorized members of Congress while trying to keep him in power, and firing the people in our government who are charged with preventing abuse and fraud in government. The previous are only the tip of the iceberg and it’s a big f*ing iceberg.

More than anything else, I am filled with fear. Fear for the people I love, like my mixed-race grandson who has a learning disability (in Florida), my transgender great nephew, and my grown son who recently came out to me as being a part of the LGBTQIA+ community; fear for immigrants who are trying to make decent lives for themselves and their children while others cheer for them to be removed from our society; fear for people of color who will face more egregious challenges than they already do while systemic racism becomes systemic hate.

Any and all of our feelings, depression, anger, fear, and even the desire to blame, are understandable and acceptable for this tremendously scary and confusing time. These feelings may persist for a long time but there must come a time when we let go of those feelings and replace them with resolve to “DO SOMETHING!” (Thank you Michele Obama!)

If you’re ready to do something, I have some ideas I want to share. These are the things I’m doing, trying to do, or planning to do. I hope you will try too!

1. Educate yourself.

· Sign up for Substack – a social media site where you can learn from experts like Thom Hartmann, Paul Krugman, and Robert Reich. They will teach you how we came to be in our current predicament.

· Read books that teach the truth of our history like:

The 1619 Project contains a series of essays by contributors to The New York Times Magazine about the importance of slavery in our nation.

Minority Rule by Ari Berman tells the history of voter suppression in the US beginning with the Constitutional Convention to our current times.

Caste: The Origins of Our Discontent by Isabel Wilkerson tells the true story of inequality and it’s origins.

Any book that exposes the truths that are in direct opposition to the things that are happening right now. Follow authors like Thom Hartmann, Isabel Wilkerson, Ari Berman, Ta-Nehisi Coates, James Baldwin, Jacob Soboroff, etc.

· Watch documentaries that help us understand the things that are happening now:

Bad Faith – on Peacock

God and Country – on Peacock

Vigilantes Inc.: America's New Vote Suppression Hitmen – on YouTube

The 1619 Project – on Hulu

There are plenty more.

2. Educate others. Help others to find the truth by sharing your knowledge and your resources for finding the truth.

3. Find allies in the fight. Here are a few that I’m engaging with:

· Indivisible National and its local chapters - https://indivisible.org/ Our democracy is under threat. But we will not yield to fascism. We will stand together and we'll fight back in defense of our rights, our communities, and our values. Join us.

· American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) – https://www.aclu.org/ Defend the rights of all people nationwide.

· Working Families Party - https://workingfamilies.org/ Making Our Nation
Work for the Many, Not the Few.

· People Power United – https://www.peoplepowerunited.org/ We are a group of people who believe in the possibility of change and work to make it happen.

· Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ) – https://surj.org/ When we fight racism, we all win.

· Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) – https://eji.org/ Committed to ending mass incarceration and excessive punishment in the United States, to challenging racial and economic injustice, and to protecting basic human rights for the most vulnerable people in American society.

· There are many more – engage with as many as you can – both locally and nationally.

4. Donate. If you are able, choose the organizations that best fit your values. I donate small amounts monthly to Mother Jones (for news), VoteVets, The Trevor Project, The Innocence Project, Georgia Innocence Project, and Inequality Media, plus others when I can.

5. Social media. Dump Facebook (if you can. I can’t because I am an administrator for two pages for a nonpartisan organization), X/Twitter (for sure!), Truth Social (of course!), and any other platform that allows blatantly false info without question.

6. Boycott, inform, and thank. Let your dollars speak for you. I know it’s not easy, but it’s essential to hit the supporters of the current evil in their pocketbooks. It’s also very important, when possible, to let the company know why you are no longer buying their products and services. And, one more thing – Thank the companies that are resisting the current evil.

· Boycott:

Companies that have reduced or eliminated DEI programs: Amazon, Target, McDonalds, Walmart, and more. Check out this Time Magazine article - https://time.com/7209960/companies-rolling-back-dei/.

Companies that sponsor/advertise on Fox News, Twitter, and other serious purveyors of lies and misinformation, such as Balance of Nature, LifeLock, Consumer Cellular (this one hurts because they are half the cost of Verizon), Liberty Mutual, and more. Here’s a good link that, in spite of focusing on Fox News Network sponsors, includes whether they also sponsor Twitter or Facebook – https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/these-are-fox-news-leading-advertisers.

· Inform the companies, when possible, your reasons for boycotting their products and services.

· Thank companies that are standing up pressure to comply such as Costco and Apple who have refused to change their DEI policies. Here’s a link from National Campaign for Justice – https://actionnetwork.org/letters/costco-apple-standing-up-for-dei/?link_id=0&can_id=71ebe7ae13b7e71f0994afb5533470a5&source=email-costco-refuses-to-back-down-on-dei-thank-them-now&email_referrer=email_2603789&email_subject=costco-refuses-to-back-down-on-dei-thank-them-now.

*******

Thank you for listening! Please, please, join me in resisting. Unfortunately, “times-a-wastin’!”

Your Friend (I hope),

Angela

As a reward for listening, here’s one of my favorite Eagles songs: