100 days in, it might as well be 1,000

a very different type of 100 days article

Ok, so it’s bad, like bad bad, but we have each other right? right? It’s complicated. The obvious answer is that we’re a divided country and everyone is in their silos so what’s the point of speaking up?

If the past 100 days has taught us anything it’s that things are much more complicated and intertwined that we ever thought possible.

Take these tariffs for example, each company that’s affected by these tariffs is an entire community of people with families, health care needs, children in schools whose taxes are dependant on people having well paying jobs. One domino falls the rest teeter (at best) or fall as well.

His most recent comments where he says “kids may get ‘2 dolls instead of 30” (Source: AP News) was particularly rich coming from a man who has a gold toilet and famously had the toilets swapped when he first moved into the White House in 2021. Here, in case you forgot

According to New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman's new book, Trump would invite certain White House visitors into the bathroom for a peek, claiming that he remodeled the space, including the toilet.

"You understand what I'm talking about?" Trump told one visitor, per the book, which they took as a racist jab at Obama, the outlet reported. Source: Business Insider

The Trump tariffs aren’t a medicine for an American problem, but rather the poison pill that will decimate many businesses and bank accounts. This crosses party lines and demographics, and sadly it might turn out to be what unites us, if we don’t turn on one another first. It’s really hard not to be angry at voters who chose this man over the extremely qualified Kamala Harris (silent scream) who wanted to lift up new parents, small businesses and those looking to buy their first home, it’s hard not to say “I told you so” but that satisfaction is only momentary. Then what? Where do we go from there?

Listen, I don’t have all the answers, what I do have is some perspective watching this community grow from a few people on instagram when I started Still We Rise in 2017 to the over 400K this community is today. I’m a gatherer, a connector and I try to speak to the emotional turmoil of us all.

When I started this community in the weeks after Trump took office the first time (ooof that’s hard to type, the first time) there wasn’t online communities to connect over politics, there was legacy media social media pages and personal accounts of the people engaging in politics, but there wasn’t a community. The first thing I noticed was the immense hunger for connection, for learning and doing things for the greater good. Still We Rise was born from a desire to take that journey, to learn, mess up sometimes, learn again, connect online and in real life, work together and on our own for a more just world. 8 years later I’m faced with the question again, what do we do to keep the fire going?

Here’s a few things I’ve learned as we’ve weathered tough times together that might help as we move into the next 100 days.

1. Authenticity is key. “be yourself” is something you’ve heard your whole life but I’m here to tell you, it’s true. Lean into what you love, who you love, what you care about and focus on what matters most to you. There are a lot of things to be stressed about, educate yourself on, follow up on etc. We all can’t do everything, and that’s okay. Be authentic

2. If you’re feeling overwhelmed with despair, do something. I lean into this quote I heard somewhere, “do for one person what you wish you could do for all people” sign up to volunteer in your community, at the library, local food bank, animal shelter, offer to help a neighbor who is older or needs help, basically GET OUT OF THE HOUSE and connect with people, find new community, I promise you’ll feel better about things.

3. Clean up your social media (even a little bit) invest in this process as it could take some time. Stop following accounts that don’t feel good and please stop hate following people. Follow news sources and people that you trust, ditch the ones that are only doing click bait posts. Follow your local elected officials and reps in Washington. You can also create a private account with a very curated follow list, you can check in for the days news and keep your personal account for other things. This is up to you of course, but I often hear social media getting a bad wrap, but I don’t often hear about people taking the time to cull their feeds. I do it regularly and it’s been extremely helpful.

4. Donate what you can, $5 even to an org you love and set up recurring payments, this helps the orgs, newspapers and mutual aids be more stable. You can become a paid subscriber to this Substack if you’d like :)

5. Read. For pleasure and for education. Get off your computers and phones and read, or listen to audio books.

6. Take care of yourself, but no, really take care of yourself. If that means tuning out for a few days to resent, do it. Don’t let yourself feel guilty about it. Take walks if you can, cook if you love to cook. Find out what gives you pleasure in these rough times and do that as much as you can.

7. Don’t give up, throwing in the towel can’t be an option. I have never once thought about giving up hope as hopeless as I’ve felt, the ember has always been lit, because I won’t let myself go there, I simply don’t even entertain it. Easier said than done I know.

Xx, Lindsay