Democracy Out Loud: today

Eight years ago tomorrow, some of us marched in front of the Federal Building in Raleigh protesting Trump’s first Cabinet nominees, never suspecting that we would keep meeting on the street and later on zoom every single week from then on.

We were fueled by outrage, yet a surprising thing happened. We learned that by coming together we are uplifted and our outlook expands. The cruelty which continued to unfold during those first four years served to help us see how much we need one another, and witnessing one another’s strength gave us strength.

There are many dark roads we could go down today, but let’s not. Let’s pursue whatever gives us joy and inspiration and resolve to continue to do that.

In the last issue of this newsletter, there were suggestions about how to spend this day. Karen B just sent another one, below, and the link to Rebecca Solnit’s YouTube channel.

Attacks on undocumented and trans people are already underway. I hope you will watch the 15-minute film about Zooey Zephyr, the Montana legislator, which was short-listed for an Oscar. Read about her at this link, and follow her partner Erin Reed’s spectacular reporting of anti-trans bills on Substack. You can read more about attacks on transpeople in The Hill, “Christopher Street Project Wants to Hold Democrats Accountable for Anti-Trans Votes.”

Leigh sent an essay, How to Pay Attention which might help us focus and contains this advice: “Authoritarianism thrives on despair. Trump aims to grind down critics by throwing so much at the media, civil society, and his political opponents that they can’t keep up. Every moment we collectively spend chasing outrages that don’t really matter makes it more likely that we lose heart or focus, and then some threat that truly matters slips through.”

Deportation of undocumented people will escalate this week, and the strategy of the incoming administration is to escalate a feeling of fear. The National Immigrant Justice Center is a resource, and I hope we can all focus on what we can do.

We will have to discern how we can participate in campaigns of harm reduction, and we have a great opportunity coming up this week (see below).

Everyone is invited to join us every Tuesday at 11:30 am on zoom and every Thursday at 10 am for a guided meditation. If you need the zoom link, email Jewel at DemocracyOutLoud@gmail.com.

Representative Zephyr’s advice to transpeople feels important for us all on this particular day: “It is resoundingly important that we plant the flag of joy, of our own personal joy, and that we do not let these efforts to erase and exclude stop us from making decisions that give our lives meaning. As trans people, we are no stranger to the way in which we come alive when we get to be ourselves. And in the same vein, we must chase the things that are full of love and that bring our hearts joy. And that's the work. And it feels weird to say that that is the work, but that is as radical as any piece of legislation we could bring.”

It is going to take tremendous discipline to “keep our eyes on the prize” as the floodgates of bad news opens. One thing we can do is to focus on North Carolina, and this Thursday January 23, there will be North Carolina virtual town hall about the GOP efforts to overturn the election of Supreme Court Justice Alison Riggs. You can register at this link.

I just wanted to reach out to you on the precipice of a whole new challenge and send a bit of a virtual hug and say thank you for being you. Thank you for all the way that you bring your courage and compassion into the world. Thank you for all the ways that you fight the good fight. We will have to pass through a lot of chaos now, and I know we will come out on the other side.

love, Karen

“Courage breeds creative self-affirmation; cowardice breeds destructive self-abnegation. Courage faces fear and thereby masters it; cowardice represses fear and is thereby mastered by it. So we must constantly build dykes of courage to ward off the flood of fear.” - Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. at age 28

“You are afraid all the time. But you don’t let that deter you.” - Zooey Zephyr, Seat 31