by Joe Courter
Well here we go. This paper’s print date was Jan. 20, which means as the presses were running, Donald Trump was being sworn in as president. So much wacko stuff in the news as I write this, and that unfortunately will be the tone of the next couple years at least. Don’t give up, get out and find community as you will … we will need each other and that starts with finding one another.
It has occurred to me that we are living in a time of obvious extremism. It hit me watching the Jimmy Carter memorial service, a powerful review of one man’s life as an exemplary human, not only as president, but as a sensitive, empathetic person committed to doing good works for others for the duration of his post-White House life. And there in the second row was Donald Trump, a man/child of such an extreme opposite in temperament and life work that I can find no words to compare them. I could not even fathom that all those heartfelt words about Carter’s life, his achievements and values, even the lyrics of “Imagine,” were going into Trump’s ears. Is he really that cold and hard-hearted that they had no effect? I fear so, and I fear for this democracy as he moves into command.
Also rather striking, a few weeks earlier there was Luigi Mangionie allegedly performing an extremely bold act, making a statement about the corrupt health insurance industry (see page 13), then a couple weeks later, within hours, two separate events where US military vets used motor vehicles in their own extreme statements of sorts, one a mass attack on revelers in New Orleans, the other a blown-up Tesla at a Trump hotel. Mangionie’s was a calculated direct action of extreme nature. The other two, not so calculated at a direct target, but an extreme general lashing out over perceived grievances and fears about societal direction.
We can’t all live like Jimmy Carter, and we shouldn’t go to the extreme of Luigi Mangione, but the passion to help others and make the world better needs to be in our hearts. The self-centered, cold, reactionary attitude shown by those two miscreants in their vehicles, or with that other miscreant in row two, unfortunately is on the rise. We can see it in their lack of empathy, their fear of immigrants, their utter hostility toward the idea that transgender people exist, that lesbians and gays deserve equal rights, that women should not have control over their own bodies. They are on the rise, and indeed on the rise around the world, as social media allows for multiple versions of truth, and facilitates the power of fear-mongering and scapegoating to infect the functioning of a cooperative forward-thinking society. Humanity is rolling into an extremely dangerous time.
So what can we do? It would not hurt to step back from intense news following, if you are one who is afflicted with that habit. The breathless corporate media channels live to keep you on edge, engaged, and addicted to their endless soap opera. Maybe zero in on a few more reflective sources, as we highlight on pg 20, or by all means find your own if you haven’t already.
Getting out of the house and around other humans for socializing, with music, or just a few beers or coffee; we need to find each other and not worry in isolation. Plug into an organization that is working on an issue you care about. The election happened, it is over. We learned that some of our fellow citizens chose to abdicate their civic responsibility to vote (yeah, all those Democrats who stayed home rather than vote for Harris — see p. 32) or who ignored the Trump track record to give him another shot. And this time, no guardrails, and the shit show has started! Musk vs Bannon; ridiculously unqualified nominees being rammed through as quick as they can; meanwhile, I have not heard the word “transition” once.
So we wait and watch a while, and hope our elected representatives can muster some oppositional roadblocks and encourage the good ones to keep pushing back. Get ready for local defensive action against deportations of our neighbors, of crackdowns on our rights. Beware of sane-washing and normalization. They will keep winning unless enough good-hearted folks can mobilize in whatever ways we can to turn them back. And if we still have elections in 2026, we can begin to turn it around.