I bet you’re worried about Project 2025. I bet what you saw today, on Inauguration Day, made you feel even worse. So I’m here remind you about the other Project 2025 - your Project 2025.
This isn’t toxic positivity, I swear.
What I want is for us to remember that we have agency in the days, weeks, and months ahead.
We deserve to fight for our fulfillment and live the best lives we can even when others are trying to burn it all down.
The plan for after you get punched in the face
In the immortal words of Mike Tyson, everyone has a plan till they get punched in the face. During the first Trump administration, I remember feeling a sensation similar to getting punched in the face every time I looked at the New York Times front page on my phone. At its worst, it could make me feel stupid all day, and I only occasionally escaped to find my own concentration again.
But this time around, we know that’s going to happen. We know we are going to start each day getting punched in the face. So what’s our plan for after the punch?
I would love for you to identify one part of your life or work that you would like to change for the better this year. It could be big or small, personal to you or visible to your whole family, company, or community. This is what I am nicknaming your own Project 2025.
It could take the form of political action, for which I would recommend the Working Families Party, Indivisible, and Vote Save America.
It could take the form of investing in your own local community, for which I recommend finding your closest mutual aid society, or even just introducing yourself to your neighbors if you don’t know them already.
Or maybe you decide to go smaller and more personal - perhaps this is the year to write your first song.
Maybe this is the year to declutter - or at least to find ways to work around and through clutter.
Maybe this is the year intentionally to do less - perhaps with the goal of reducing your environmental impact, or perhaps just to “build a small fire and stay close,” as my dad sometimes advises.
I’ll write more tomorrow about how to zero in on your own personal Project 2025. For tonight I would just love for you to feel a tiny sense of possibility that something good can exist on the other side of that punch in the face.
More counterprogramming before the sun goes down on today
An old friend sent me this and said it was the only speech he wanted to hear today.
Heather Cox Richardson also posted about Dr. King yesterday. She explicitly explains the links between his life & mission and the circumstances we now find ourselves in. It’s like an extra-high-stakes version of Mr. Rogers’ “Look for the helpers”:
Finally, the mighty pen of Sherrilyn Ifill may be one of the strongest weapons we have right now. Her Titanic analogy is scary but clarifying. This is indeed it.
In closing, remember the immortal words of Michelle Obama
Or, okay, let’s adapt the First Lady’s recommendation based on what we saw today.
“When they flood the zone with sh*t, we become sanitation engineers.”
Let’s pick one problem at a time and do our best to make it better.
We’ve got each other to get us through this.
Don’t go it alone,
Genevieve