Thanks so much Ryan. Great advice and definitely feel all of the above. Glad you were able to reset and hope you can do it more often.
One thing that has really helped me is working with young student organizers across the country. A year ago, after 10 years of doing canvassing, phone-banking, text-banking, post-carding, fundraising, endless social media posts of facts, my GenZ daughter and I decided there had to be a better way to reach young voters.
🍩🗳️ So we launched a program called Donuts + Democracy across the US to mobilize young voters. In one month, we hosted 200+ events across more than 20 states and 75+ college campuses, engaging 55,000+ students with our youth GOTV partners. We accomplished this with no staff, no website and no social media. We repeated the success with the Wisconsin Supreme Ct election in April 2025.
After the election though, we weren’t sure we wanted to keep going, but what we heard from student organizers changed our minds: our support increased their voter engagement by 10X on average and they all immediately went back to work - committed as every to mobilizing young voters! So we could not abandon them.
💫 For anyone needs inspiration and hope - check out our latest newsletter with links to our website, socials and house party recording! (We hosted our first house party last Sunday with Rep. Jamie Raskin and three of our amazing student organizers and we were flooded with "This is the first time I've felt hopeful and inspired in 9 months!)
Good point. I find myself distracted and then come back to the fascist reality and instantly I feel my serotonin depleting. This is a marathon, and the stakes are extremely high, so stress is normal. But Trump doesn't sleep and his minions are tireless as well, so we must recover our strength at time, and fight like hell at other times.
I, too, have learned this valuable lesson. Detach for as long as you need. Doom scrolling is a thing. Stop it before you lose yourself. Come back refreshed.
Thank you, I followed your advice before I ever read it this morning. Started my on line with a post on FB from a physician who told of learning to reframe his approach to patients and it made me happy and I got up and went out on my front porch (a precarious action for me as I ambulate with a rollator due to being a high fall risk person) and sat and embraced the morning for awhile. My depression lifted and I went back to the computer and "shared" the pertinent emails to my fellow believers in Democracy and felt I was at least doing something for the cause. I admire your work and became a paid subscriber so I could write this thank you not to you
From what I have read of wartime combat, commanders know they must pull even elite troops off the frontline periodically for rest and recuperation, lest they become ineffective in battle. We are (figuratively) in a war and are (figuratively) our own commanders, so we must be able to order ourselves off the frontline periodically to make sure that we too can stay in the fight for the long term.
Thank you. When I started reading I nearly stopped. It was very depressing. I kept going and I am glad I did. We all need our oxygen masks. It is difficult to walk away but you showed how and why we all need to do it. I am grateful.
Thank you for demonstrating the importance of self care in order to stay in the fight against facism. I use to tell mothers to take care of themselves in order to take care of their children..It’s the same with all of us, fight, rest, fight, rest and keep going as we are in this together.
People hunger for justice, and to see the right thing being done. “Let the right be seen to be done.”
When we are so often being starved of justice, as we are now, reactions like yours are actually a sign of health and conscience.
Conscience itself also leads us to the clarion call of Dag Hammarskjöld to say “yes” in community, and to love by deeply listening to each other’s soul and heart messages — in community.
This listening is the beginning of how we care for each other in a cyanide toxic culture, one that has produced the most widespread mental health crisis I have ever seen.
Cultures encouraging collective pathological lying become like those of Russia, past and present; where psychopathia and delusion are taken as the every day, conversational norm.
Where life and breath itself are taken as a pall of fear.
Madness celebrated: as in Mikhail Bulgakov’s “The Master and Margarita” — where rubles are transforming into insects, bureaucrats have been replaced by animate suits, and entire offices have been cursed to break into song against their will. Yes, cursed.
There is a way out.
Having at least a little bit of touch with nature every day, grounding ourselves, earthing ourselves, in kindness, compassion, and mercy.
Here — in this reality, in faith, hope, and love —here it is that we don the spiritual armor of the fierce battle.
Then, under shade, gentle breeze, blue sky, lying by the cooling waters of an ever-flowing river — we rest, rest again, repair — and prepare.
Thanks for this article. I get so tired of hearing one horrible thing after another!cardiologist recommended that I not take my blood pressure while reading the news, and when my husband rants about the clowns in power it spikes up to ER levels. We support you guys and appreciate the hard work and smart analysis you provide.
YES. YES. YES. Thank you for your clear, honest scream of resistance that acknowledges we need to breathe clean air to keep going on. In August I spent seven days at an Astronomy Camp for Grown Ups (https://astronomyretreat.com/) and found that a focus on the cosmos for a week literally took me out of this world and helped me gain perspective. I too came back, rejuvenated for the long haul. I will not roll over and let these fools destroy a culture that at least aspires to social justice and a sustainable planet. The fools we fight aspire to nothing more than a fantasy of 'winning' a zero sum game that comes out of those cowboy myths that killed even the Marlboro Man. Go Ryan. "We are in this together," as Joyce Vance keeps telling us:). Richard Reeves, author of Of Boys and Men, puts it another way: "In families there is no room for zero sum games. We must rise together." The same is true for communities and countries. Why IS that so hard to see??? E Pluribus Unum.
Thanks so much Ryan. Great advice and definitely feel all of the above. Glad you were able to reset and hope you can do it more often.
One thing that has really helped me is working with young student organizers across the country. A year ago, after 10 years of doing canvassing, phone-banking, text-banking, post-carding, fundraising, endless social media posts of facts, my GenZ daughter and I decided there had to be a better way to reach young voters.
🍩🗳️ So we launched a program called Donuts + Democracy across the US to mobilize young voters. In one month, we hosted 200+ events across more than 20 states and 75+ college campuses, engaging 55,000+ students with our youth GOTV partners. We accomplished this with no staff, no website and no social media. We repeated the success with the Wisconsin Supreme Ct election in April 2025.
After the election though, we weren’t sure we wanted to keep going, but what we heard from student organizers changed our minds: our support increased their voter engagement by 10X on average and they all immediately went back to work - committed as every to mobilizing young voters! So we could not abandon them.
💫 For anyone needs inspiration and hope - check out our latest newsletter with links to our website, socials and house party recording! (We hosted our first house party last Sunday with Rep. Jamie Raskin and three of our amazing student organizers and we were flooded with "This is the first time I've felt hopeful and inspired in 9 months!)
https://donutsanddemocracy.substack.com/p/stop-fearing-the-apocalypse-start
I've cut down on podcasts, I had to, I had so many. Also more walks outside now, Sept weather is wonderful.
Good point. I find myself distracted and then come back to the fascist reality and instantly I feel my serotonin depleting. This is a marathon, and the stakes are extremely high, so stress is normal. But Trump doesn't sleep and his minions are tireless as well, so we must recover our strength at time, and fight like hell at other times.
Sometimes winning is just outliving your enemy. We can do this.
I, too, have learned this valuable lesson. Detach for as long as you need. Doom scrolling is a thing. Stop it before you lose yourself. Come back refreshed.
Thank you, I followed your advice before I ever read it this morning. Started my on line with a post on FB from a physician who told of learning to reframe his approach to patients and it made me happy and I got up and went out on my front porch (a precarious action for me as I ambulate with a rollator due to being a high fall risk person) and sat and embraced the morning for awhile. My depression lifted and I went back to the computer and "shared" the pertinent emails to my fellow believers in Democracy and felt I was at least doing something for the cause. I admire your work and became a paid subscriber so I could write this thank you not to you
From what I have read of wartime combat, commanders know they must pull even elite troops off the frontline periodically for rest and recuperation, lest they become ineffective in battle. We are (figuratively) in a war and are (figuratively) our own commanders, so we must be able to order ourselves off the frontline periodically to make sure that we too can stay in the fight for the long term.
Thank you. When I started reading I nearly stopped. It was very depressing. I kept going and I am glad I did. We all need our oxygen masks. It is difficult to walk away but you showed how and why we all need to do it. I am grateful.
Thank you for demonstrating the importance of self care in order to stay in the fight against facism. I use to tell mothers to take care of themselves in order to take care of their children..It’s the same with all of us, fight, rest, fight, rest and keep going as we are in this together.
Many of us are not doing well, Ryan. At all.
People hunger for justice, and to see the right thing being done. “Let the right be seen to be done.”
When we are so often being starved of justice, as we are now, reactions like yours are actually a sign of health and conscience.
Conscience itself also leads us to the clarion call of Dag Hammarskjöld to say “yes” in community, and to love by deeply listening to each other’s soul and heart messages — in community.
This listening is the beginning of how we care for each other in a cyanide toxic culture, one that has produced the most widespread mental health crisis I have ever seen.
Cultures encouraging collective pathological lying become like those of Russia, past and present; where psychopathia and delusion are taken as the every day, conversational norm.
Where life and breath itself are taken as a pall of fear.
Madness celebrated: as in Mikhail Bulgakov’s “The Master and Margarita” — where rubles are transforming into insects, bureaucrats have been replaced by animate suits, and entire offices have been cursed to break into song against their will. Yes, cursed.
There is a way out.
Having at least a little bit of touch with nature every day, grounding ourselves, earthing ourselves, in kindness, compassion, and mercy.
Here — in this reality, in faith, hope, and love —here it is that we don the spiritual armor of the fierce battle.
Then, under shade, gentle breeze, blue sky, lying by the cooling waters of an ever-flowing river — we rest, rest again, repair — and prepare.
Thanks for this article. I get so tired of hearing one horrible thing after another!cardiologist recommended that I not take my blood pressure while reading the news, and when my husband rants about the clowns in power it spikes up to ER levels. We support you guys and appreciate the hard work and smart analysis you provide.
This is a critical message. I wrote about this too on my Substack. Self-care is necessary if we are going to be in the good fight - They Utley Post
YES. YES. YES. Thank you for your clear, honest scream of resistance that acknowledges we need to breathe clean air to keep going on. In August I spent seven days at an Astronomy Camp for Grown Ups (https://astronomyretreat.com/) and found that a focus on the cosmos for a week literally took me out of this world and helped me gain perspective. I too came back, rejuvenated for the long haul. I will not roll over and let these fools destroy a culture that at least aspires to social justice and a sustainable planet. The fools we fight aspire to nothing more than a fantasy of 'winning' a zero sum game that comes out of those cowboy myths that killed even the Marlboro Man. Go Ryan. "We are in this together," as Joyce Vance keeps telling us:). Richard Reeves, author of Of Boys and Men, puts it another way: "In families there is no room for zero sum games. We must rise together." The same is true for communities and countries. Why IS that so hard to see??? E Pluribus Unum.