Must-Reads and Why Everything Feels Harder Right Now
"Don't lose your heart,” says Sarah Kendzior.
Greetings friends,
I am back at work and incredibly grateful to everyone who supported me while I took some time off. I wish I could say I was healed, but hey, at least I’m still here. If you came for the must-reads, you can start at the top. If you want my beleaguered final thoughts for the week, scroll down.
Must-Reads
Here are some of the most important articles I read while I was on medical leave and since I’ve got back.
- Democrats Are Struggling to Block Trump’s Texas Power Grab by Mike Ludwig. “Trump has demanded Texas Republicans draw a new congressional map. ‘Just a very simple redrawing, we pick up five seats,’ the president told reporters in July.”
- 'Alligator Alcatraz' Detainees on Hunger Strike for 10th Day, Protesting Conditions by Jamie Guirola. "One of the detainees, Pedro Hernández, was hospitalized during the strike but continues to refuse food. His wife, Daimarys Hernández, said she’s terrified for his health and fears he could die in custody, or be deported back to Cuba, alone."
- Google’s AI Is Destroying Search, the Internet, and Your Brain by Emanuel Maiberg. “It is entirely possible and maybe predictable that we’ll continue to knowingly march towards an internet where drawing the line between what is and isn’t real is not profitable “at scale” and therefore not a consideration for most internet companies and users.”
- Bush Lawyers’ Legal Arguments for Guantánamo Bay Paved the Way for CECOT by Razan Bayan. “The combination of expansive presidential emergency power, securitization of certain classes of people, and the denial of their human rights is a powerful force in the hands of a leader who wants to imprison people without interference. It is exactly the power that Bush’s lawyers helped put in his hands, and now, Trump has seized it as well.”
- Needed Training Upgrade or ‘Cop City’? Here’s Why Pittsburgh Put an $84M Plan on Pause by Ember Duke. “‘This idea that a city would build a facility to train its police in urban warfare is reprehensible. … So how do we prevent that is the question,’ Councilor Deborah Gross said during an interview.”
- Israeli Forces Killed Young Boy After He Kissed Hand of GHF Contractor, He Says by Sharon Zhang. “Aguilar shared pictures of Amir with news outlets. The young boy is small and skinny, his bare feet covered in dust. He looks no older than 10 or 12.”
- Regulating AI Isn’t Enough. Let’s Dismantle the Logic That Put It in Schools by Jesse Hagopian. “AI in schools isn’t progress — it’s a sign of much deeper underlying problems with U.S. schooling that reveal how far we’ve strayed from the purpose of education.”
- The U.S. Faces More Frequent Extreme Weather Events, but Attitudes and Actions Aren't Keeping Up (AP). “People and governments are generally living in the past and haven’t embraced that extreme weather is now the norm, to say nothing about preparing for the nastier future that’s in store, experts in meteorology, disasters and health told The Associated Press.”
- The F.B.I. Is Using Polygraphs to Test Officials’ Loyalty by Adam Goldman. “Since Kash Patel took office as the director of the F.B.I., the bureau has significantly stepped up the use of the lie-detector test, at times subjecting personnel to a question as specific as whether they have cast aspersions on Mr. Patel himself.”
- DHS Tells Police That Common Protest Activities Are ‘Violent Tactics’ by Dell Cameron. “Experimental research suggests that support for the use of coercive tactics hinges less on what protesters actually do than on how they’re portrayed—by officials, the media, and through racial and ideological frames.”
- Prisons, Prose & Protest - #29 by Mariame Kaba. “During the 1950s, the United States stripped passports from leading Black freedom and civil rights activists and other leftists in retaliation for speech the government considered dangerous or ‘un-American’.”
- The Little-Noted Trump-DOJ Move That Should Scare the Hell Out of You by Harry Litman. “What makes this latest maneuver so dangerous is that it aims not just to relitigate 2024 but to pre-rig 2028.”
ICYMI
This week, I wrote about Jeffrey Epstein, so-called “distractions,” and the moral rot that’s killing us.
Resources
If you’re looking for ways to take action, This Month in Criminalization has you covered. This month’s calls to action include support for Gaza and unhoused people, and building community crisis response teams.
Final Thoughts
Well, ready or not, I’m back. As it happens, I’m not ready. While our political situation continues to deteriorate, my body is attempting to match that energy, and I hate it. I am no stranger to bodily betrayals or the medical rollercoaster of disability, but damn, doesn’t everything feel harder right now? From a disagreement with a friend or partner to a summer cold or an economic setback, everything feels more drastic right now, because the world we’ve known is being pulled apart by fascists, and so many things are falling apart.
As my friend Sarah Kendzior recently told me, “It's very, very bleak. I know that every time I talk to you, I say it's much worse than the last time we spoke. But that's simply the truth of it.” Sarah’s expertise in authoritarianism and her extensive coverage of Trump’s corrupt business and political life have shaped her insights about this moment. “The last time I talked to you, there wasn't a concentration camp being built in the Everglades,” she said. “We're dealing with a series of horrors that are vicious, and they're spiritually exhausting and difficult to combat in law. They take a tremendous toll, obviously, on the individuals targeted, first and foremost, but I think on everyone, because they show how clearly our institutions have failed us. Authoritarianism is here in America, and it's sadistic.”
Sarah noted that the path to this moment was paved, in part, during the Biden administration. “We now have this warp speed version of Trump that was helped greatly by a lot of the policies that Biden implemented during his tenure, and by the rise of Cop Cities, the increased abuse of immigrants and migrants, and so many vulnerable people.” Sarah believes that a backlash against social movements flourished under Biden, and that a public acceptance of mass death due to COVID contributed to the public’s acceptance of the mass murder of Palestinians. “All of these different issues build on each other,” she said.
The unraveling of institutions that Sarah spoke of continued this week.
On Friday, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the federal support system for NPR and PBS, announced that it would begin winding down its operations, following the passage of a $9 billion rescissions package that Trump signed into law. The measure clawed back $1.1 billion in funding for public broadcasting.
Meanwhile, Trump announced on social media that he was firing the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, following an embarrassingly weak jobs report. Trump claimed that the “Economy is BOOMING under ‘TRUMP’” and that the jobs report had been “manipulated for political purposes.”
This is a deeply upsetting and aggravating time. When it comes to Trumpism, some people use language like “when this is over,” as though an exit ramp were guaranteed. Meanwhile, Trump is attempting to orchestrate a gerrymander of a gerrymander in Texas that could set the stage for a permanently rigged electoral game. Not that the Democrats are positioned to win, even on fair terms, at present. As horrid as the current regime may be, the Democratic Party’s image has not been improved by contrast. In a recent poll, the Democrats had a disapproval rating of 60%.
This is not surprising. In a moment that calls for moral clarity and fierce resistance, the Democratic Party continues to flounder. Scandal-plagued has-beens like Rahm Emanuel and Andrew Cuomo are making power plays while the party’s leadership rejects and punishes fresh young leadership and the revitalization it could bring. With some Democrats eager to throw trans people, immigrants, and our unhoused neighbors under the bus, it’s not surprising that the party has none of the momentum it would need to unseat Trump, or to even begin to turn this situation around.
Directing her ire at the so-called opposition in Washington D.C., Sarah complained, “There is no one trying to stop [authoritarianism] in a serious way.” She lamented the “many missed opportunities” to stop Trump over the last decade, but stressed the need to live in the moment. “Now, our obligation is to try to fight for those who are in the line of fire, for those most likely to be hurt, and for those who are being hurt right now,” she said. “I hope people hold on to that obligation. I hope they don't throw their hands in the air and say it's too much. It's a lot. But that's why I encourage people to focus on what you care about, what you know, where you might be useful, where you might be helpful, and just don't lose your heart,” she said. “Don't lose your sense of compassion for other people. That's the only way that I see a definitive defeat is if people surrender their compassion. If people still have that, there's always a fighting chance.”
I agree that, as ugly as things may be, there is hope. I find it every day in the willingness of determined people to take action where they can. Recently, I found hope in the woods, alongside my friend Eman Abdelhadi and my partner, as we ventured out for a walk, despite the chance of rain. As a downpour began, the tree canopy of the forest sheltered us, with only scattered drops breaking through. On that walk, I counted the ways root structures, water, and shade were protecting us from storms and extreme heat. Those trees, the river we walked along, and the waterfalls we touched are family to me, just as Eman and my partner are family to me. As we wandered together, I was reminded that I have relatives everywhere—living and enduring, in spite of so much fuckery—and that all of that connection is worth living and fighting for.
I also found hope in a workshop I organized recently where Chicago activists learned from Denzel Caldwell, an organizer with the Black Nashville Assembly, about how to create a People’s Movement Assembly. I have long felt that one of the problems with asking people to “fight for democracy” is that many people don’t have a meaningful relationship with or experience of democracy. Giving people the chance to construct a democratic experience, at the community level, can be transformative. The workshop went well, and we’re talking about scheduling a virtual part two, where participants can learn more about facilitation techniques. If you weren’t with us in Chicago for that workshop, but you are interested in learning about People’s Movement Assemblies, tune into Movement Memos this week. I was so moved by the training that I decided to build a podcast episode around the ideas we discussed that day, so that more of you could engage with them—and possibly join the follow-up facilitation training when that’s scheduled.
This is a time to build relationships, power, and momentum. We know the politicians and systems many people have historically relied on are buckling and collapsing. Capitulation is the norm. Refusing to accept fascist escalations, or sacrifice our neighbors, will be countercultural in these times. So let’s build that counterculture. Yes, it’s distressing that not everyone will immediately agree with us, or take up the cause, but remember: our enemies are not constrained by public opinion, because they understand that the world we inhabit can be rewritten. While they would reshape reality by burying us in lies, mockery, and brutality, we can build a movement of movements, working in defense of our bodily autonomy, dignity, and shared humanity. We can rally to save the earth we inhabit. The politicians who are ready to incarcerate unhoused people, and “compromise” on trans rights and on the safety of our immigrant neighbors, have helped deliver us to this moment. They will not save us. So we’re going to have to make our own hope. That work is going to take many shapes, but there is a role for everyone. If you need me, I will be over here, limping along and trying to do my part.
Much love,
Kelly
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