Category: Ruminations

Just hearing HIS dumb name makes me want to crawl back into bed. Is anyone else tired of this trifling wannabe dictator in HIS revenge era? 

HE seeks flattery and commits retribution against perceived enemies. HE’s breaking U.S. institutions with his dishonesty, selling off American prestige to the highest crypto bidders while HE golfs at taxpayer expense. Our country has a huge “For Sale” sign as we become an unreliable ally and an international joke. 

How can we be expected to go on about our lives when THE BIG DUMP is setting the stage for full-fledged fascism? 

Real pushback has been slow to materialize: 

• Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer wrote “a strongly worded letter.” (Thank you, Senator, for that thimble of water you threw at the raging inferno.)
• Columbia University surrendered to THE BIG DUMP’s demands in fear of losing $1.3 billion in federal funding. 
• Paramount paid a bullshit $16 million settlement because they needed a merger to be approved by the government. 
• Countless law firms are doing pro bono work for this administration under looming threats of executive orders. 
• Tech CEOs and media conglomerates are bending the knee, so they, too, can receive favorable treatment. 

Who has the courage to cut off HIS tiny hands while they’re in our government’s cookie jar? 

Fortunately, the response hasn’t all been defeatist. California Governor Gavin Newsom’s team has struck a nerve by mimicking the all-caps childishness of THE BIG DUMP’s Truth Social. (Camille Zapata, the Governor’s social media lead, has been brilliant here.)  

South Park creators Matt Parker and Trey Stone are also having a moment. One of my favorite parts of the show’s season premiere was the artwork around the White House: a Caesar-esque BIG DUMP portrait with a micropenis. One of HIM riding a tank. And others of HIM making love to a military plane, a glory hole, and a sheep. These background elements were masterpieces set in gaudy gold frames.

Because let’s face it: nobody embodies self-serving excess like THE BIG DUMP. Winning at any cost, staying in the spotlight, and denying accountability for wrongdoing are HIS three guiding values. HE has sold tacky branded sneakers, trading cards, watches, crypto, and bibles. HE lies, cheats, and steals without shame to get what HE wants in business, government, and golf. 

And HE’s rarely faced consequences for his bad behavior: If you’re rich, they let you do it. 

In a way, HE’s the perfect American—the dark apotheosis of our culture’s cruelest extremes. Rather than our individualism, we got rapacious greed; instead of our independence, we got isolationism; we traded our directness for bullying aggression; and our proud patriotism has given way to white Christian nationalism. And true to our nation’s roots, HE’s the consummate showman and entertainer who would do absolutely anything to get ahead. 

Imagine if every American behaved as THE BIG DUMP does, with no curiosity or tenderness. No awareness of anyone else’s agency or needs. No compassion or love. Just angry puffery and a win-at-all-costs mindset. Mad Max comes to mind. Avarice reigns and humaneness dies.

I’ve likened THE BIG DUMP’s track record to a white shirt covered in stains—if it were just one scandal, one stain, we wouldn’t be able to avoid looking at it or talking about it. But because HIS crimes have coalesced into a foul, sweeping skid mark, we can no longer unite on a single talking point. The elements of HIS greasy splatter include:

• SEXUAL ASSAULT – Being convicted of sexually abusing E. Jean Carroll, facing over two dozen assault accusations from women, and most definitely having HIS name in the Epstein files.
• ATTEMPTED ELECTION FRAUD – Calling Georgia’s AG to find “11,780 votes” after the 2020 presidential election
• PREFERRING LOYALTY TO COMPETENCE – Packing the government with shady, inexperienced sycophants
• BLATANT CORRUPTION – Accepting a $400 million Qatari jet and offering White House access to people who buy HIS crypto coin
• MILITARIZED RACISM – Using ICE to harass and deport law-abiding brown folks, while allowing in white immigrants from South Africa

These are just a few examples from the top of my head. You can see how all of this overwhelmed the stain-free shirt a long time ago. HE’s a bad hombre who has become the stain, setting an example to others about an ugly new American way: a world in which integrity, honesty, and decency don’t matter. HE displays “leadership” by projecting false strength, bullying, and burying enemies in lawsuits. 

THE BIG DUMP doesn’t have any real friends. HIS third wife recoils at HIS touch. HE’s fundamentally alone, and doesn’t realize HE’s being used by Stephen Miller, JD Vance, the Heritage Foundation (Project 2025), and others to usher in hyper-conservative wet dreams. They made a deal with the devil and it’s paying off—for now.

I know of only one family member who voted for THE BIG DUMP: my dad. We haven’t talked in years and it makes sense why he’d want this administration. He’s a gambler who never paid child support and rarely came around while I was growing up. He’s never taken accountability for his choices, and feels entitled to my attention by virtue of being my biological father. In other words, he demands unearned respect. 

THE BIG DUMP mirrors this type of warped masculinity: one based on selfishness and domineering rather than the hard work of protecting those more vulnerable. I imagine many of the men who voted for HIM have similar stories. I wonder if they feel their lives have improved now that there’s a new tax write-off for private jets. 

Americans are feeling the financial strain from decades of self-serving policies architected by millionaires on both sides of the aisle. In fact, the top 10% of U.S. households owns 67.2% of the wealth, while the bottom half owns only 2.5% (Federal Reserve 2025). 

And rather than rising up at the injustice of our extreme wealth inequality, THE BIG DUMP tells us to blame wokeness, feminism, and immigrants. Women and “diversity hires” aren’t the issue here; greedy individuals and corporations are. HE tells us to direct our pain to the left or the right—anywhere but up. HIS rich backers are getting huge tax breaks while HIS tariff costs trickle down into our grocery stores. HE’s counting on clueless suckers to support HIM.

Deep down, we know that a real man would be helping others rather than seeking to enrich HIMSELF. Be careful, MAGA: future generations of your family will be embarrassed by your allegiance to one of the world’s worst leaders. I know I am.

Sitting down to write this, a dozen other compulsions compete for attention. I adjust my Spotify playlist, blaming the music for throttling my writing mood. I mindlessly refresh my email on my phone. Instagram sings her familiar siren song with the promise of infinite art, hiking, and cat content. 

With easy access to “anything and everything all of the time” (as Bo Burnham put it), my Paleolithic brain struggles to focus. It’s a relatively slow organic machine that predates our modern information, technology, and entertainment landscape. Our tools are quickly outshining our endemic capabilities—and with AI’s imminent takeover of our attention and economy, this will only get worse for us mere mortals.

I’m not blind to the benefits of our current world: I’m still blown away that I have a pocket-sized device serving as my telephone, music player, library of books and magazines, multilingual dictionary, note-taker, ride-hailer, personalized atlas, camera, and so much more.

But it often feels like a Faustian bargain: we reap the benefits of having so many capabilities in one small machine, but we’re forced to ward off the intrusion of time- and dollar-seeking companies who purport to offer their services for “free.” They collect and profit off of observing our behavior. They sell our information to other companies, who use it to power their marketing algorithms or nascent AI technologies. And on social media, influencers do whatever it takes to capture our most precious asset: our attention.

How would our world’s greatest minds have responded to having a smartphone? Would they have been empowered, intoxicated, addicted, or stultified? Is it easier or harder for a genius to emerge in today’s frenetic media landscape? 

I can imagine the favorite apps of some historical figures:

• Ernest Hemingway – X – Rising star in the manosphere and passionate about keeping trans women out of sports
• James Baldwin – Reddit – A top contributor known for destroying racist and homophobic trolls 
• Oscar Wilde – Grindr – Gets busted in Texas under a rarely enforced anti-sodomy law
• Marilyn Monroe – OnlyFans – Makes more money than Elon Musk
• Buffalo Bill Cody and Calamity Jane – TikTok – Their cowboy-core videos promote “The Wild West Show,” which routinely sells out in the country’s largest stadiums
• Abraham Lincoln – Bluesky – Still believes he can create a more perfect union through reasoned discourse
• Julia Child – YouTube – Shows you how to “make that soufflé your bitch” 
• Mark Twain – Facebook – Just trying to keep up with his children and grandchildren between writing sessions
• Eleanor Roosevelt – Instagram – Cats and sapphic art abound while she slips into your wife’s DMs
• JFK – Ashley Madison, Raya, Tinder – DTF wherever and whenever

To harness the power of all of our modern tools, impulse control and self-discipline are paramount. It’s much easier to spiral down an algorithmic rabbit hole—an addictive short video feed tailored to our specific interests—than it is to use apps intentionally for higher purposes. 

Building community, organizing politically, and producing creative work (rather than derivative AI slop) should be the goals. There’s room to zone out and let the social media feed take the wheel, but too much time ceding control to the machines and our brains get flabby. At least that’s how I feel after an Instagram bender. 

Be conscientious about the time you spend online and “go touch grass,” as the kids say: it will feel much better between your fingers than your phone ever will.

“Things are different online, where I feel like I’m fighting a constant war for your attention. I carefully script all of my videos to maximize the addictiveness of each sentence. Beyond the initial hook, I sneak in little micro-hooks to everything I say, making sure to recapture your attention if it does start to drift.” 

Adam Aleksic (Gen Z content creator) in his 2025 book, Algospeak

At Oregon Country Fair this year, I spotted something unusual. A young blonde in daisy dukes and a crop top was sitting on a painted carousel horse. She stuck her butt out and looked coquettishly at a professional camera while a woman snapped dozens of photos from all the angles. This thirsty ingenue seemed plucked straight from Coachella, Burning Man, or Euphoria—not our humble hippie fest in the forest! The influencers had finally invaded.

A 2023 Morning Consult Poll found that 57 percent of Gen Zers want to be influencers. I can take a charitable interpretation: perhaps a desire to be known is part of our American cultural DNA. We invented Hollywood; we’re fanatics for professional sports; we’re world-renowned for our marketing and propaganda. Even our current president is more of a twisted showman than a real leader. Fame has infiltrated all aspects of our lives.

But the path to becoming a public figure is what has changed. Attention used to be a result of someone’s skillfulness. In the 90s, everyone knew who Leonardo DiCaprio, Michael Jordan, Britney Spears, and Tyra Banks were. And say what you want about their careers, but they all had immense talent. Wide recognition of a name or face would follow one’s athletic or artistic performance. It might occur with an assist from some savvy PR, but there was typically substance behind a celebrity’s stardom. 

These days, why spend time developing your talents when you can simply pay for tens of thousands of Instagram followers? And why do the hard work of finding truth when sensational lies and destructive practical jokes are more likely to go viral? 

The primary goal of an influencer is to get your attention. To increase engagement with their content. To amuse, excite, or enrage. To go viral. To gain followers. And to avoid breaking the platform’s rules. In fact, driving engagement is so important that a University of Oxford study found that influencers will minimize their creativity to pander to the algorithm. 

Not all influencers are talentless hacks, of course, but there are quite a few desperate clout-chasers who have no skills beyond self-promotion. It’s not their fault that the algorithm rewards braindead megaphones. They’re conditioned to become thirsty loudmouths with no ears, who shout from the digital rooftops, “LOOK AT ME!!!” 

And don’t get me wrong: there are many popular influencers I enjoy on Instagram—most of them serve content with cats, hiking, or painting (or some combination of the three). I spent an hour sampling videos from popular creators I’d never heard of: Charli D’Amelio, Addison Rae, Emma Chamberlain, Vinnie Hacker, Reagan Yorke, and others. I feel like I have a hangover after a lobotomy. Or perhaps it’s as if I’ve been eating cotton candy all morning: it’s light, fluffy, irresistible, and will give me serious health problems if I don’t stop. Is anyone else allergic to influencer-speak? The constant WORD EMPHASIS and unnatural intonation remind me of how folks talk to toddlers—only much faster. 

I decided it would be less painful to read a book about the phenomena rather than listen to any more of them. Adam Aleksic, a 24-year-old Harvard graduate and “Etymology Nerd” TikTok star, just published an exceptional book called Algospeak. He presents thoughtful reflections on this era and an admirable self-awareness about the bizarre game of algorithmic attention-seeking: “It’s an unfortunate reality that all influencers somehow manipulate your emotions to go viral, since we’re all competing for your attention and we know that your attention is tied to your emotions.” 

As Aleksic illustrates, there are still many influencers from whom we can learn skills, build community, or enjoy a laugh. But we should all be wary of whom we follow. Just as we are what we eat, our brains are what we watch and hear. A recent NYTimes opinion piece stated, “Social media platforms are designed to be addictive, and the sheer volume of material incentivizes cognitive ‘bites’ of discourse calibrated for maximum compulsiveness over nuance or thoughtful reasoning.” There’s been talk of a “post-literate” generation, which isn’t an exaggeration: fewer Americans these days are even capable of finishing a two-hour film let alone a 150-page novel. Short videos can broaden our familiarity with a range of subjects in relatively little time, but deep thinking is absent. The medium is the message, indeed.

In other words, if we spend too much time consuming content from low-rent pranksters and hollow pretty faces, we will, as a people, get much stupider. Choose your influencers wisely because you become who influences you.

What’s happening in global trade right now reminds me of middle school. There were bullies who felt they could harass and intimidate the smaller, smarter students. And for a while, their aggressive tactics worked: the victims coughed up some homework or lunch money. 

But years down the road, what became of these two groups of students? Many of the bullies became criminals and lonely deadbeat parents, while their bookish victims are more likely to have happy families and good jobs. 

On the world stage, Trump’s America is the uneducated bully. He has unilaterally threatened to raise tariffs on our allies and competitors alike, wrongly believing this will “force” other countries to the negotiating table. He’s done this based on a fundamental misunderstanding of what a “trade deficit” is. 

The tl;dr is this: The US has been awash in cheap goods from around the world because 1) we have more money to spend on shit than a lot of other countries , and 2) we have an insatiable consumer culture. For a long time, our trading partners built industries to feed the “American Dream”—and we, in turn, got access to abundant, affordable stuff.

That era may be coming to an end. If we, the bully, continue down this road of trying to strong-arm smaller countries with tariffs, we’ll end up a weak, isolated loser. Other world leaders such as Xi Jinping, Mark Carney, and Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo know better than to capitulate to American aggression. 

Would tanking the US economy finally break the cult leader’s spell? 

Throughout the Trump era, reasonable people on the left and right have assured themselves that the fan-fever would break with each colossal misstep:

• In 2016: There’s no way Americans will vote for a misogynist who bragged about “grabbing women by the pussy.”
• In 2020: There’s no way Americans will support an anti-science moron whose failed Covid-19 leadership contributed to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans.
• In 2021: There’s no way Americans will continue supporting the traitor who fomented a violent insurrection on our Capitol.
• In 2024: There’s no way Americans will re-elect a criminal who was convicted of 34 felony counts.
• In 2025: There’s no way Americans will continue supporting a racist who is detaining and deporting non-white legal US residents (in defiance of the courts) while welcoming white Afrikaner “refugees.”

Misogynist, moron, traitor, convicted criminal, and racist. 

And yet, here we are. None of these failures dented his popularity the way we’d assumed—but his biggest challenge is yet to come. These tariffs are threatening our addiction to material goods.

If we continue on this course, in the next few weeks, Americans will see the prices of nearly everything start to rise. Container ships, normally filled to the brim with all of the shit we’re used to getting on the cheap, have been arriving at our shores empty. We cruised on inventory for a while, but that’s drying up. 

When Trump’s boneheaded tariff policies make everything more expensive and difficult, will he still have support? It’s not the first, second, or eighteenth time we’ve asked ourselves this question. But maybe—just maybe—MAGA will wake up when their wallets are empty and they only have Trump to blame.

Given Trump’s recent waffling and tariff pauses, he may actually recognize the fragility of his fan base. In America, he can be a misogynist, moron, traitor, convicted criminal, and racist—but rising prices on everyday goods are a bridge too far. It’s the economy, stupid. 

The first time I noticed myself becoming an invisible woman was in San Cristobal, Mexico. I was at Café Bar Revolución and watching a reggae trio. After the final set, the fetching young bassist came and took a seat next to me at the bar. He was originally from a small village in Chiapas and had been playing music as long as he could remember. We flirted and cracked jokes for 20 minutes until he asked me, “Cuantos años tienes?” I smiled and shared that I was 37. Without another word, this babyfaced motherfucker maintained eye contact, mouth slightly agape, backed slowly off his barstool, and disappeared into the crowd like Homer Simpson into some leafy hedges. I just laughed and pulled out the book I’d brought. 

This experience gave me a preview of what 40-something Hollywood starlets and my mom had warned: as women age, they tend to become invisible. And it’s true. Women’s main currency throughout history has been their youthful appearance. Strangers’ eyes used to linger much longer on my face and body. I get fewer free drinks, unsolicited conversations, and catcalls compared to when I had teenage acne. Men will argue, “It’s biology and such.”

Do I miss these parts of being younger? Not really. Dating was fun, but the impossible beauty standards of the 90s only led to eating disorders and cosmetics buyers’ remorse. 

I don’t want to bank my life’s prospects on an asset class with constantly diminishing returns. This obsession with women’s appearance centers the perspective of straight men (and self-comparing women). But here’s the thing: as women’s power and role continue to expand, so too are our ways of being seen.

I admit we aren’t living in the Golden Age for women’s progress in the United States. Roe vs. Wade was overturned; DEI initiatives are under assault; trans women are targeted by cruel people and dumb laws; and we have a thrice-married convicted rapist who calls himself the “fertility president” in the White House. Margaret Atwood couldn’t have dreamt up a worse anti-feminist hellscape. 

But this rampant small dick energy is an expression of misogynist fear—a backlash to women’s recent progress. Social conservatives want to return women to the domestic and economic cages of decades past. They want to preserve a world where men control women’s futures. They want us to begin life as pretty faces, grow into being walking wombs, and finally become unpaid caretakers for everyone else. Their twisted vision depends on women’s subservience—they want us to play a supporting role and exist only in relation to others: sister, daughter, wife, mother.

The good news is that they’re losing. In fact, it’s kind of a blowout, like Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese taking on Trump and Vance in a pickup basketball game. What it means to be an American woman has expanded enormously. Our meal ticket is no longer tied to the options of low-wage work, marriage, or motherhood. In theory, we can become whoever we want to: artist, astronaut, doctor, CEO. Undoing this progress would be very difficult and unpopular. Women have grown accustomed to being considered in ways our mothers and grandmothers never were.

For generations, American men have been seen by dint of their power and wealth. There’s the way a room shifts when an influential man walks in. Eyes drift to him. People subtly turn their heads and bodies, smiling or allowing themselves to be interrupted. Crowds part in anticipation of his movements, and a spotlight seems to follow him. It helps if he’s well-dressed or handsome, but appearance is one factor of many. It’s influenced by the way he carries themself, gestures, or speaks. It’s often preceded by his accomplishments and reputation. 

More and more women are getting this type of respect that runs deeper than our skin. We should not fear becoming invisible as we age. We own merit beyond our looks, and our currency has no expiration date. Our visibility is no longer constricted by youth or beauty. We make ourselves undeniable by our actions, just like men.

No matter how much money someone has in America, it turns out you can’t buy a backbone.

There are the good billionaires, such as Warren Buffett, who pledged to give away 99 percent of his fortune and has already distributed tens of billions of dollars to charity. He and many other admirable benefactors have joined The Giving Pledge—a group that has committed to donating most of their wealth in their lifetimes or through their wills. 

There’s also MacKenzie Scott, who has given around $19 billion to more than 2,000 organizations. Her philanthropy has been quiet, without the usual dick-swinging insistence on having statues erected or new buildings named in her honor. 

Her ex-husband, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, has taken a very different path. I’m not just talking about his mega-yachts, his bizarre cowboy cosplay with indoor girl Lauren Sánchez, or his phallocentric space company, Blue Origin. I’m talking about his spineless surrender to the Trump administration.

Rather than using his wealth to amplify his voice or promote his values, he has chosen to kiss the ring of an aspiring dictator. Bezos prevented The Washington Post from endorsing Kamala Harris and later donated $1 million to Trump’s inauguration fund.

But Bezos isn’t the only billionaire to put his greed above his integrity: Mark Zuckerberg also donated $1 million and attended the inauguration with his tail between his legs. He apparently regretted kicking Trump off of Facebook during the violent January 6 Insurrection. Or maybe it was Trump’s threat of prison against the “ZUCKERBUCKS” on Truth Social that made him bend the knee. You’d think that having billions of dollars would protect you from the tweets of an unhinged sack of cinnamon pantyhose.

Then again, Zuck does have a MAGA-like hard-on for restoring the patriarchy. He went on Joe Rogan to bemoan the rise of “culturally neutered” companies that lack “masculine energy.” And nothing screams “I’m a VERY STRONG MAN!” like an anti-feminist dressed in a little black shirt and oversized chain. 

You know what actually makes women ovulate, Zuck? Standing up to a liar and advocating for those more vulnerable than you are. A real man would opt to be a protector—not a tyrant’s little lap boy.

And the list doesn’t stop there:  Salesforce’s Mark Benioff, OpenAI’s Sam Altman, Google’s Sundar Pichai, and many other CEOs have all wined and dined Trump’s thirsty ego. 

So what gives? Are these billionaire sellouts all afraid of Donald Trump? Are they fellating his baby carrot to avoid retaliation against their companies or seeking special treatment? Is it only male CEOs because women have the good sense not to support a convicted rapist?

The only billionaire who really seems to buy what Trump’s selling has lost his mind—the ketamine-addicted, chainsaw-wielding, Nazi-saluting DOGE daddy himself, Elon Musk. Of course he’s gutting agencies with pending investigations against his companies, such as the DOL, CFPB, USAID, DOT, SEC, EPA, and more. In the Art of the Self-Deal, the world’s richest man bought himself a shield from American legal accountability for around $288 million. What a steal! He may be an awkward sociopath, but he’s not stupid.

If the billionaire sellouts want to play dirty to protect their companies and fortunes, fine. 

But here’s the thing, boys: once rural conservatives realize that they’re getting hosed financially by the GOP and progressives stop being so insufferable, these two groups will see that they have more in common than they thought. 

Our enemies aren’t on the Left or the Right—they’re up. The cutthroat billionaires love it when we argue about trans women in sports, immigration, abortion, banned books, school prayer, and critical race theory. It keeps us from blaming the real culprits behind our stalled social mobility. 

It’s not gender, race, or religion that’s keeping us down—it’s the corrupt rich. The Trump administration, Project 2025, and DOGE are feeding this fire of outrage more quickly than most of us had imagined. The current tension between the American haves and have-nots cuts like a guillotine.

With so many of the country’s beloved institutions on the chopping block—the National Parks Service, Medicare, etc.—the people hoarding the nation’s wealth may find themselves at the wrong end of some sharpened pitchforks.

Wiping the gluten-free sadness cake from the corners of our frowns, we liberals have finally accepted our fate. We’re retiring our unopened jars of eco-friendly glitter and adding our Harris-Walz signs to the compost piles. 

Most of us have (rightly) wandered around in a kombucha and cannabis haze during these months since November 5. This familiar pain puts weights on our limbs and drapes everything in a funeral shroud. It’s tempting to withdraw and binge-watch Veep for the eighth time while housing three bags of chickpea crisps. 

We can #RESIST and scream “Not my President!” until we sound like RFK Jr. with strep throat, but didn’t we learn that protests are for suckers? The real way to exact American change is with a shit-ton of money, misinformation campaigns, and anti-democratic brute force—not by making cogent arguments or building coalitions! Why have we been walking the High Road when false Christians will claim moral superiority anyway?

I should be furious about the threat of fascism in the United States, but why would I give MAGA’s savage idiots the satisfaction? They thrive when progressives like me despair. “Owning the libs” with cruelty is the point—their raison d’être. 

Instead, I’m going to do what pisses them off the most: live better, healthier, and happier. Life is too short to agonize over larger forces over which I have no control.

 Plus, while Trump is defying norms—that’s kinda his thing—screwing over the poor and vulnerable isn’t strictly a GOP joint. President Nixon once supported a universal basic income while Clinton got “tough on crime” and dismantled welfare. Generally speaking, both democratic and republican administrations work to service the wealthy men and corporations who donated to their campaigns. That’s the way our system works. 

Does it make me a “bad progressive” if I refuse to be upset for the next four years? Maybe, but I don’t give a shit. I haven’t converted a single person into a liberal with my protesting, political donations, or writing. I will continue to do these things, but I will divorce my feelings from the outcome. 

Here’s a thought that has helped me: On some level, I believe that re-electing Captain Bonespurs may have prevented a Second Civil War. There, I said it. Who knows what MAGA would have done if Kamala Harris were elected president? 

Trump—the world’s sorest loser—has continually lied to his followers and manipulated them into believing the 2020 election was stolen. Acting on that lie, thousands of Americans descended on the Capitol in the violent January 6 Insurrection. That pot was boiling over, and it’s possible that having Trump in office for this second term—as disastrous as it’s proving to be—may have saved us from a more violent historical timeline. 

Rosy hypotheticals aside, take joy and pleasure in what you can control. Try:

• Creating change within smaller communities and helping folks who are within reach
• Tuning out from the anxious drip, drip, drip of the daily news
• Making a delicious meal for people you love 
• Chopping some wood 
• Staring at the colors of sea foam in the sun 
• Combing a stream for cool rocks and making a mosaic
• Being proud for standing on the right side of history
• Taking a shit on the White House lawn

Etc., etc…

One question you need to answer for yourself is what is your uncrossable line? What is your point of no return? Is it when the Trump administration deports peaceful student activists such as Palestinian Mahmoud Khalil? When they lock up journalists or political opponents who have been critical of his administration? When they set up concentration camps for two million immigrants? When they tank the economy with tariffs and more tax cuts for the wealthy? When they dismantle the Department of Education and schools in poor areas are forced to close? When they pass a national abortion ban? When our water sources become so contaminated with industrial waste that we can no longer drink from our taps? When a majority of Project 2025’s reactionary proposals have been enacted? When they defy the Supreme Court or try to disband Congress? 

Now that your heart is racing, take a breath…

These are all possible outcomes, but we can’t treat every transgression against progressive values as a catastrophe. We don’t have the energy. This administration is already notorious for what Steve Bannon calls “flooding the zone.” While you’re raging over the mere suggestion of turning Canada into the 51^st state, annexing Greenland, or removing a handful of trans women from school sports, you end up missing Trump’s primary objective: dismantling the government to deregulate business and give the wealthy large tax breaks. You can’t feel the rain when you’re drowning in an ocean of scandal and absurdity.

You can still be a good progressive without tracing every greasy fingerprint that MAGA leaves in its wake. We need to stop listening to what Trump the Showman says and watch what he does. For example, the administration has already completed 100 of the 300 proposals outlined in Project 2025, and there are another 46 in progress as of March 15, 2025.  USAID, the UN Human Rights Council, the WHO, the National Park Service, the EPA, and many other organizations are getting hosed by DOGE and Trump’s executive actions. I suspect the policy-ignorant president is indifferent about these changes but likes the distraction of our outrage—it provides more cover for business deregulation and his tax cuts for the rich.

Remember: Their favorite lube is liberal tears. Don’t give it to ‘em. These guys deserve to jerk off with sandpaper. 

On the day of my 40^th birthday, I finally conceived. I’d been waiting for many years, saving money, dreaming up names, thinking of everything I would buy for her, and preparing for the day when she would come into my life. She’d arrived! Yes folks, it’s true: a few months ago, I bought a beach house in my favorite place in the world: Yachats, Oregon.

“YA-hots” is a glowing artistic beacon among miles of untamed coastal forests. Eight years ago, this town’s siren song ignited my cultish devotion and my manic scramble to spend as much time here as possible. 

This creative town is known for its culture, whether it’s the La De Da Parade or the iconic Mushroom Festival. Poor in AirBnBs and rich in local community, the stringent laws regulating short-term rentals have protected Yachats from becoming yet another place everyone visits but nobody lives in.  Folks here are woodsy and worldly, many having lived elsewhere and let this town’s hooks sink into our cheeks.

Every Saturday since late May 2020, a group of 8-20 locals gathers on Highway 101 between the C&K Market and the Green Salmon Coffee Shop to demonstrate for racial justice. They’ve been doing this since the murder of George Floyd; they stand on that stretch of road week after week with their signs—rain or shine—when many tourists are cruising that part of the 101. 

Yachats reminds me of what my hometown Laguna Beach, California may have been in the 1950s: a sparsely populated coastal haven that attracts artists and fishermen alike. A big-hearted progressive community that hasn’t let the wealth overwhelm the culture. A friendly small town where residents and visitors can’t help but walk around with huge grins, greeting one another for simply sharing the pleasure of a beautiful place and time.

The Pacific Ocean hits differently up here. In Laguna, the sea served as a calming backdrop in a monotonous series of perfect days—in Oregon, the violent spectacle smashes giant driftwood onto the rocks, shaking you by the lapels, exclaiming, “You silly mortal bitch! You’re gonna die someday! Do something with the time you have left!“ A thick, matcha latte foam makes the rocks slick on the roughest days of the King Tides, and sometimes the air is so cold and wet I want to wear snowboarding goggles. 

In summer, the Oregon coast’s call can be softer, soothing even, but she still refuses to be ignored as a benign background. She never fails to wash my heaviest thoughts away.  I love it here with an intensity historically reserved for my middle school crushes.

The Yachats River flows into the sea through a lushly forested amphitheater. To the south is Cape Perpetua State Park, a magnificent stretch of evergreen buttes, tide pools, and mind-boggling rock formations such as Thor’s Well—a collapsed sea cave roughly 20 feet in diameter, host to the churning tides. To the north is a seven-mile unbroken stretch of beach you could walk all the way to Waldport, the next town up. 

I remember the day when I decided to buy a house here. I was reading a book on the Yachats State Park’s main beach. Suddenly, a bald eagle with a giant fish in her mouth grazed by my blanket, with a hungry (and possibly robbed) seagull in hot pursuit. I’d never been so close to the iconic American bird with its angry eyes and hooked beak. In my journal, I wrote about my intention to buy a house and ultimately start an artist residency for others to share in this slice of sublimity. There was something about that bald eagle that hatched my modest American dream.

However, the story of how I got here isn’t as interesting as what’s to come. Take a breath here because it will be jarring if you aren’t familiar with what’s in store for the Oregon coast.

Breathe in…and out.

One more time…in…and out.

Did you do it? 

Great. You’re ready. 

The fact is that someday, perhaps tomorrow morning or 300 years from now, the Pacific Northwest will be annihilated by a 9.0+ earthquake and drowned in the subsequent tsunami.

Wait…what? 

In 2015, The New Yorker published an article titled “The Really Big One” that spelled out in no uncertain terms the future of my favorite region. According to Kenneth Murphy, the director of FEMA’s Region X, which includes Oregon and Washington, “Our operating assumption is that everything west of Interstate 5 will be toast.” There’s no way to sugarcoat the unstoppable wrath of the Cascadia Subduction Zone—and there’s a one-in-three chance it will happen in the next 50 years. 

You’d think that this seismologic uncertainty would throw some freezing seawater on my obsession, but it hasn’t. There are natural risks living anywhere—wildfires, hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, droughts, avalanches, blizzards, volcanic eruptions. We’re all on the same train, moving at different speeds. How and when we get to our unavoidable destination is a matter of luck and some careful preparation.

Also, the instability of the land is a double-edged sword: it’s formidable and chilling to contemplate but it inspires me to feel gratitude and create art. Seizing the day takes on new urgency with imminent destruction looming on the horizon. It’s terrifying and electric, moving me to act and make my time count. And it’s one of the reasons I want to make an artists’ residency here—whether you’re looking down the barrel of an angry sea or the Cascadia Subduction Zone, mortality is always top-of-mind. The threat is abstract and distant enough to not paralyze me in fear. Rather, it brings to the forefront my creative impetus: I’m pushed to write and paint and hike and dine and dance and dream, and most importantly…to build community. 

Better to have loved and lost it all in a 1,000-year tsunami than to have never loved at all, yes? Or consider this: what if everything goes right? The threat of destruction may keep our creativity burning but the disaster doesn’t come to pass for centuries to come. 

No matter what happens, I’m fortunate to feel such a deep sense of love, purpose, and connection. Everyone, please welcome Casa Roma Simone to the world. She’d love to meet you, and I’d love to have you.

I have two friends: one grew up in a loving, wealthy family with all the opportunities in the world. Another is the son of a serial killer. Which one of these people do you think is “traumatized?” You probably guessed wrong.

Folks can wear their trauma as a shield of armor, a black shroud, a monster mask, a clown costume, a skydiving parachute, or a three-piece business suit. We’ve all got dreadful experiences burrowed into our subconscious. The memories can be triggered by a person’s name, the sound of fireworks, or the smell of a house. Our response varies by how much time has passed and how well we’ve processed our anguish. The recollections can feel like a boiling cauldron, a punch in the gut, or a small cattail in the sock, especially after some time has passed.

America’s Gen Z is our most emotionally expressive generation. They are fluent in setting personal boundaries and continually take stock of their mental health in a way that can feel foreign to older people trained in the ancient School of Suck-it-Up. One of my friends who owns a cannabis company shared that many of her younger employees routinely take days off because they feel “emotionally unprepared” to work. Adolescents speak of “abuse” when they are beset by requests to do simple chores or finish their homework. College students have refused to read books with specific “triggering” language or scenarios. #Traumatok—TikTok’s public forum for trauma-dumping with nearly 420,000 posts—reconstitutes many normal behaviors (e.g., thinking about one’s mortality, overachieving, mindless screen-scrolling) as “trauma responses.”

Look: we should all be grateful that sharing one’s emotions is more common today than in the past—it’s healthy and healing to realize others experience common feelings. I also recognize that there are unique challenges in our time. We’re highly divided as a nation and still processing the collective heartache of the Covid-19 pandemic. Prices are rising for kitchen staples, healthcare, housing, and education. Our government is providing weapons and billions of dollars to Israel that are being used to slaughter Palestinian women and children. Global warming continues to accelerate. Just reading this paragraph makes my blood pressure rise, and yet…

There’s always been scary shit happening in the world. The Great Depression, two World Wars, the threat of nuclear destruction, and the Vietnam draft were all causes for widespread distress. Did earlier generations complain about how much harder everything was for them than their predecessors? I wasn’t there, but I doubt those folks were “triggered” by words in a book or missed work due to being “emotionally unprepared.”

Rather than recognizing with gratitude one’s privileges, many young people are too busy counting everyone else’s blessings through the filters of TikTok or Instagram. There’s a widespread lack of resilience and preparedness for adulthood among teenagers and twenty-somethings. I wonder what role the constant navel-gazing of trauma has played. Why do so many people these days seem to crave feeling damaged, victimized, or oppressed?

The word “trauma” has been overused in recent years, particularly in the wake of the pandemic, which wreaked havoc on our schools and society. I can’t be the arbiter of what anyone else considers to be traumatic, but a tendency to dwell in the worst parts of one’s past can be paralyzing or maladaptive. Engaging in the Martyr Olympics through trauma-dumping can be a total buzzkill in social situations. It might be one of the reasons young people are having less sex.

There have always been forces beyond our control, and there’s only so much we can do to exist happily among so much uncertainty. Life’s routine challenges, such as divorce, imperfect parents, and academic achievement, have created scores of “broken” people. We forget that in the past few centuries, life has improved considerably. Our life expectancies have doubled; infant and maternal mortality have decreased precipitously; far fewer people die violent, agonized deaths in conflict or ravaged by disease; opportunities for education, healthcare, and economic mobility are much more widespread. Almost every realm of life has improved by objective measures. Better isn’t perfect, but it’s still noteworthy.

An individual’s response to violence or tragedy is a choice, at least after one has developed enough knowledge of the world and the self to endure life’s constant churn of crises.

There’s one person I know who’s done this better than anyone: a dear friend of my family, Russ Boston. He was dating my mom for a few years in the 90s and continues to be an important presence in my life. He’s spoken openly about growing up the son of serial killer Silas Boston. After Silas murdered Russ’s mother (which he didn’t find out until later), 12-year-old Russ witnessed the killing of two British tourists in Belize and had his life threatened by his own father. He suffered abuse and was in and out of foster homes. Despite these horrible experiences, he grew into one of the most thoughtful, intelligent people I know. 

When I was a child, Russ always told me, “You’re given life, and everything else is a gift.” He constantly reminded me, “We’ll all be worm food someday,” and encouraged me to seize every moment and be grateful. He always picked up the phone when I was going through any relationship difficulties or breakups, listened patiently, and helped me maintain proper perspective in the face of my mundane problems. 

I wish everyone had a Russ in their lives. He’s taught me so much about staying resilient, kind, and curious no matter what life throws at me. When an incredible person like him can emerge from the most dire, violent circumstances, there’s hope for the rest of us. 

Perhaps part of our pain is the plague of loneliness in American society. We need to increase the volume and duration of our brokenness to feel heard or cared for by others who are consumed by their own struggles. But we don’t have to feel like victims. No matter who or what has injured us, the best revenge is living well and caring for each other.

My first day back in the U.S., a man collapsed on the sidewalk across the street. He’d fallen so suddenly onto his back that his stained sneaker slid into the shoulder of busy W. 11^th Street. A ragtag group surrounded the man, laying down their heavy backpacks and tying up their barking dogs. A woman stopped her truck in traffic, dodged several cars, and began to administer chest compressions. The smoke shop clerk threw open his door and unwrapped a canister of NARCAN nasal spray. He did this with a calmness indicating it wasn’t the first overdose he’d witnessed on that corner, or his second, or his third. His face announced that it was another day in America. 

With that man on the ground, not breathing, sirens roaring in the distance, I froze with tears dripping onto my collar. I was jolted by the contrast of where I’d been 24 hours earlier: sunny, colorful, jubilant. I had just returned after six weeks on my “Sabaticán”—the annual trip I take to Mexico to escape late winter in Eugene, Oregon. Our southern neighbor has plenty of problems, but widespread drug overdoses aren’t among them. The scale of these human tragedies is unique to the U.S., particularly among countries as rich as ours.

Preventable drug overdose deaths have skyrocketed in recent years. In 2019, 62,172 folks died, compared to 100,105 in 2022—a staggering 797 percent increase since 1999. Opiates such as fentanyl account for the vast majority.

I was an addiction specialist at a methadone clinic in San Francisco from 2010 to 2012. Working in addiction broke me—I was too wet behind the ears to realize that my 50 clients wouldn’t benefit from our underfunded clinic’s treatment model or from my experiences. Some of them openly mocked my “fancy degrees” and accorded more respect to the counselors who’d actually struggled with heroin and gotten clean. I get it. In their shoes, I wouldn’t have wanted to hear a damn word from me either. What the hell did I really know about opiates that didn’t come from a book?

More than a decade later, I’ve realized something about American addiction. Sure, it’s related to the easy availability of everything we could desire—food, drugs, gambling, shopping, video games, etc. But why do so many Americans become addicted to anything in the first place? It’s because we suffer from being lonely, status-driven, and fearful of losing what little we have. The social and economic stresses in the U.S.—especially the exorbitant costs of shelter, education, and healthcare—have devastated people. That pressure breeds an addiction to food, alcohol, drugs, consumerism, and easy entertainment. Without the embrace of a community and a guarantee of what our people need, we’ll continue to withdraw and die by our own hands. 

Mexico, by contrast, has strong communities and families, less emphasis on “what someone does” for work, and a constitutional guarantee to healthcare. There, drug overdoses and homelessness are virtually non-existent. 

Further, in our hyper-individualistic country, when someone fails, there is no social safety net to catch them, and we blame the person’s internal nature. Addiction is viewed as a personal failing that elicits little empathy. Instead, it should be considered a sociocultural disease. It’s distressing that our working and middle classes are one medical emergency away from financial ruin while our richest families accumulate obscene fortunes rather than sweating it out like the rest of us.

We should be sharpening our pitchforks at the injustice of it all, but we get dazzled by cheap technology and easy entertainment. We are each a community of one—and how can one person raise a sword or a pen against the tidal wave of a callous culture, wealth inequality, and crumbling public investments? Without the tools of widespread high-quality education, healthcare, infrastructure, childcare, eldercare, housing, and public trust, we’re left to turn inward to our addictions. The luckiest among us stare at a phone screen for several hours a day—the not-so-lucky collapse on public sidewalks.

That man did live, by the way. I believe that the woman who stopped her truck in traffic saved his life and gave him the heartbeats he needed while the NARCAN took effect. There are good people everywhere—folks who, on instinct, would dodge traffic to give an unkempt, unresponsive man chest compressions. 

But better than counting on heroes like her, we need to shift as a people toward more compassionate, communitarian values in our culture, government, and institutions. Individualism does not make sense for an inherently social species; our “everyone for themselves” ethos is the disease. Without this realignment, we’ll continue to witness Americans dying as we go about the individual business of keeping our own heads barely above water.