I’m astounded by the extreme level of anger I feel toward the American government and all of the voters duped into allowing it to form. At the time of posting, the United States is provoking a trade war with its neighbors and closest allies and has declared its intent to invade the Gaza Strip, and Elon Musk, an unelected, unconfirmed private citizen without security clearance or clear intent has quite literally forced his way the federal government’s payment systems. I feel like I did playing pretend as a kid when I imagine scenarios under which men in power meet immediate and unceremonious deaths. They are not gods who decide who has any value in this world, and they do not set the standards for who deserves to live or die. No matter how many words I write in attempt to argue similar judgments, I am also not a god. I can controversially applaud acts of violence or twists of fate and cheer alongside these events as if they serve comeuppance, but I don’t choose who is unworthy in or of life; that level of authority will never exist. If I believed in God or karma or “The Universe” or any spiritual scale of balance or justice, I would be saying any prayers or casting any spells I could while I wait, my spirituality as my crutch, for anything to happen indicating that this (please imagine me saying “this” while gesturing wildly to “everything”) will stop any day now. Unfortunately, I believe in none of those, and must instead reconcile the limited things that are within my power to do about it, which are most likely on the community level where we always have the greatest impact, and a wholly secular belief that shit happens. This isn’t to dismiss the rise of fascism in America as just shit that just happens nor as something to which anyone should submit. My understanding of human nature leads me to believe that most of us strive to be happy and a better version of themselves than they were yesterday. I can’t be happy while feeding an unregulated rage. It is a lot harder to be the best version of myself while the inevitable regret that violence in any and all of its various forms eats me from the inside like a brain worm. Shit happens, and further doomscrolling and bruising my knuckles on something won’t fix it. Continuing to exist as much as we can outside of “shit” as opposed to simply resigning to it is the best thing that most of us can do on any given day, and the ways in which we can/should push against it to maintain our space in this world will make themselves apparent when their time comes. In the meantime, we must make our humanity and all its inherent value apparent to the rest of the world. In demonstrating against fascism we must demonstrate our humanity by showing the world a better, more resolute, sincere version of us; the most powerful act to demonstration I can perform today is to prove to myself and others that I am who I say I want to be.