Just want to make it clear to anyone who reads this and then decides not to comment because they're not sure their problems are worth discussing or that they've done enough to need support: that's not what we're about here, not at all.
My goal is to get as many people fired up and engaged and motivated for November as possible, not to decide who is worthy of that kind of support.
I'm an inveterate lurker, but this post has compelled me to join the conversation. I want to say thank you for everything you do - reading your email newsletters & twitter analyses has kept me informed so much better than I would be otherwise, and your care and concern for your community always shines through so clearly. Thank you for how you thoughtfully and deliberately continue to create this space.
What I personally struggle with the most is feeling burned out while simultaneously feeling very certain that I have in no way done anything even approaching sufficient justification for said burnout. My friends reassure me that feeling burned out is still valid, but internally, I feel like I need to be able to point to specific achievements or actions that add up to some unknown quantity that will satisfy myself that I am doing enough - and that it's ok to be tired. I'm sure I'm not the only one who feels like nothing is ever enough; how can those of us who spend our time on things outside activism ever feel like we've done enough? But when I talk to friends about this (and I recognise that this is both a stupid and excellent "problem" to have), they always respond with reassurance that what I'm doing is, in fact, enough. I guess I'm always looking for someone to agree with me that nothing is ever enough, and to affirm that, yes, I could be doing more, and probably *should* be doing more, to try to improve this fucked up world we have.
Anyway, thank you for giving me a place to express this - I guess it doesn't exactly fit your brief unless being affirmed that feeling bad for feeling burned out is correct counts as a thing I'm currently lacking? Hard to know if it would actually help but reassurance and affirmation don't seem to be working for me at the moment.
I have plenty of rage, but I have nowhere to direct it so it’s eating me alive and it’s not helping anyone. I can call my representatives, but the two places I have been since 2016 I’ve been deep red and deep blue, so the process feels pretty futile. When Ted Cruz is your senator, calling his office to ask for Medicare for all feels kind of dumb.
Likewise at this point I have attended several protests, and each one of them has been thoroughly ignored. Permit protests are intentionally kept bottled up where they can disturb the smallest amount of people, and I go home feeling like I haven’t helped anyone. After a little bit I stopped going.
I’m going to vote. So is everyone I know. Protests do nothing. Calling my representatives is pretty futile. I know full well that it’s direct action and organizing that causes real change. But I have no idea how to do that, or who to get involved with, or how to help them. Even the organizations that do this kind of work are not asking for my help in most I’m going to vote. So is everyone I know. Protests do nothing. Calling my representatives is pretty futile. I know full well that it’s direct action and organizing that causes real change. But I have no idea how to do that, or who to get involved with, or how to help them. Even the organizations that do this kind of work like the NAACP and IWW are not asking for my help in most cases, they’re usually asking for my money, and money is short.
I have all this energy, and nowhere to direct it, and it’s driving me crazy. I want to help someone, and I don’t know how.
I don't TALK about it much because I'm not sure what good it would do, so I just keep chugging along and swallowing my rage about the billionaires trying to buy the presidency, hoping that I break through to the other side of this feeling. I'm on the forefront of the Warren campaign in Arkansas and I see how hard we're all working to get people to volunteer and talk to people in their communities (so hard, for so little return, there's just not enough of us) and it feels like we grind and grind and our progress is so slow, but meanwhile a dude is buying up TV ads and convincing people he's great and we don't have the volunteer hands to push back against the depths of his greasy oligarchy fingers because folks are afraid of canvassing and phone banking and text banking and that fear is so encompassing that it's blocking us from the best and most effective type of direct voter contact: asking people to care about what we care about over and over and over until the things we care about sound normal and can't be used as scare tactics.
I'm not American but as someone watching from just across the Canadian border watching the reign of the King in Orange doing things which may have severe repercussions for the world while knowing I have no US representatives to call and no way to vote him out, I've been experiencing some of this kind of burnout too. (The absolute dread I felt after the election that he would use nukes because why have them if you're not gonna use em amirite hasn't *gone away* exactly but it has become less acute, and as you said so well in a Twitter thread, humans can learn to live with anything... Until we can't.)
If posting resources is allowed, I'd like to recommend the Feminist Survival Project 2020 podcast, which is a deep dive in ways to take care of yourself and deal with burnout in ways that let us be more effective when we do decide to take action. Can be found at feministsurvivalproject dot com
Hopeless, angry, frustrated, hanging by a thread, desperately lonely and isolated without the spoons to reach out and make the connections that I know would save us personally as well as politically.
Right now the one thing keeping me going is (I know this is a paraphrase of a quote, but me+google couldn’t source it - if anyone knows, please tell me!!) the idea that when you are oppressed, survival itself is a radical act.
I did a fair amount of fighting at first, marching, postcards to voters, texting out the vote, even co-organized a die in. Then my family needed me to focus on them for a bit, and it felt so good to step away from actively engaging in action that seemed like it wasn’t doing much.
Now I want to find my way back in to working effectively, but that seems really hard. How do I get back in to working for the cause without losing my mind?
This seems especially hard considering that when I do speak out in public I get pushback. “Everyone here already agrees with you, why antagonize them?” “There’s no one out here who really hates POC and Jews that much.” “Can’t we just have services without you injecting politics into it? We do social action in other parts of the synagogue.” It’s demoralizing for sure. My last psychiatrist kept telling me that my voice/words were too inflammatory and that no one would hear me because of that, and maybe that’s true, but it’s not like anyone is listening to “civil discourse” either.
I'm with Lorraine -- I absolutely appreciate your political insights ("Republican party = country" is now my go-to explanation when I'm chatting with other exhausted liberal friends), but it is a rough space to be in. I appreciate that you're looking at how you can help support our community in other ways.
And I think this kind of aid is sorely needed. Like Lorraine and Malgayne, I'm also tired and frustrated and exhausted, and I want to feel more togetherness with other folks who are feeling the same. I want to celebrate whatever victories we can. Whatever we can do to help keep enough morale up to get folks out and voting for Dems (at all levels) in November, I want to be there for that.
In terms of potentially low-cost ways to get involved, particularly in terms of encouraging folks to get out and vote, one of my friends pointed me to https://postcardstovoters.org/ . It's not a good fit for me because of my physical limitations, but maybe other folks might be able to.
Thanks again for all of the care you've been putting into the Erin Endeavor, and I look forward to wherever the next phase goes. <3
My husband is a gay, disabled, trans, Jewish army veteran and last year after the nth synagogue arson attack we felt so demoralized that we began the process of moving to Canada. It has been super hard, because every time there is political news that impacts us along our lines of vulnerable intersectionality it is invariably bad news. But I keep feeling that if we don't honor the lessons learned by our previous generations, which include "don't think it can't happen here", it would be a giant tragedy.
I dunno. I am willing to work towards a blue wave, and I donate towards a blue wave (primarily to anti-voter-suppression causes, because without them we are fucked). But I don't have much hope for a blue wave. The Rs are setting up for outright election theft, and the D establishment doesn't seem to want to do anything to stop them. So we are headed towards being the Hungary of North America—nominally a democracy, but practically an authoritarian kleptocracy.
Yeah. I'm sad I can't be more cheery. But it's j one slog after another and will be for a long while to come.
Just want to make it clear to anyone who reads this and then decides not to comment because they're not sure their problems are worth discussing or that they've done enough to need support: that's not what we're about here, not at all.
My goal is to get as many people fired up and engaged and motivated for November as possible, not to decide who is worthy of that kind of support.
I'm an inveterate lurker, but this post has compelled me to join the conversation. I want to say thank you for everything you do - reading your email newsletters & twitter analyses has kept me informed so much better than I would be otherwise, and your care and concern for your community always shines through so clearly. Thank you for how you thoughtfully and deliberately continue to create this space.
What I personally struggle with the most is feeling burned out while simultaneously feeling very certain that I have in no way done anything even approaching sufficient justification for said burnout. My friends reassure me that feeling burned out is still valid, but internally, I feel like I need to be able to point to specific achievements or actions that add up to some unknown quantity that will satisfy myself that I am doing enough - and that it's ok to be tired. I'm sure I'm not the only one who feels like nothing is ever enough; how can those of us who spend our time on things outside activism ever feel like we've done enough? But when I talk to friends about this (and I recognise that this is both a stupid and excellent "problem" to have), they always respond with reassurance that what I'm doing is, in fact, enough. I guess I'm always looking for someone to agree with me that nothing is ever enough, and to affirm that, yes, I could be doing more, and probably *should* be doing more, to try to improve this fucked up world we have.
Anyway, thank you for giving me a place to express this - I guess it doesn't exactly fit your brief unless being affirmed that feeling bad for feeling burned out is correct counts as a thing I'm currently lacking? Hard to know if it would actually help but reassurance and affirmation don't seem to be working for me at the moment.
I can speak to this one.
I have plenty of rage, but I have nowhere to direct it so it’s eating me alive and it’s not helping anyone. I can call my representatives, but the two places I have been since 2016 I’ve been deep red and deep blue, so the process feels pretty futile. When Ted Cruz is your senator, calling his office to ask for Medicare for all feels kind of dumb.
Likewise at this point I have attended several protests, and each one of them has been thoroughly ignored. Permit protests are intentionally kept bottled up where they can disturb the smallest amount of people, and I go home feeling like I haven’t helped anyone. After a little bit I stopped going.
I’m going to vote. So is everyone I know. Protests do nothing. Calling my representatives is pretty futile. I know full well that it’s direct action and organizing that causes real change. But I have no idea how to do that, or who to get involved with, or how to help them. Even the organizations that do this kind of work are not asking for my help in most I’m going to vote. So is everyone I know. Protests do nothing. Calling my representatives is pretty futile. I know full well that it’s direct action and organizing that causes real change. But I have no idea how to do that, or who to get involved with, or how to help them. Even the organizations that do this kind of work like the NAACP and IWW are not asking for my help in most cases, they’re usually asking for my money, and money is short.
I have all this energy, and nowhere to direct it, and it’s driving me crazy. I want to help someone, and I don’t know how.
I feel hopeless basically all the time now.
I don't TALK about it much because I'm not sure what good it would do, so I just keep chugging along and swallowing my rage about the billionaires trying to buy the presidency, hoping that I break through to the other side of this feeling. I'm on the forefront of the Warren campaign in Arkansas and I see how hard we're all working to get people to volunteer and talk to people in their communities (so hard, for so little return, there's just not enough of us) and it feels like we grind and grind and our progress is so slow, but meanwhile a dude is buying up TV ads and convincing people he's great and we don't have the volunteer hands to push back against the depths of his greasy oligarchy fingers because folks are afraid of canvassing and phone banking and text banking and that fear is so encompassing that it's blocking us from the best and most effective type of direct voter contact: asking people to care about what we care about over and over and over until the things we care about sound normal and can't be used as scare tactics.
It's all a lot.
I'm not American but as someone watching from just across the Canadian border watching the reign of the King in Orange doing things which may have severe repercussions for the world while knowing I have no US representatives to call and no way to vote him out, I've been experiencing some of this kind of burnout too. (The absolute dread I felt after the election that he would use nukes because why have them if you're not gonna use em amirite hasn't *gone away* exactly but it has become less acute, and as you said so well in a Twitter thread, humans can learn to live with anything... Until we can't.)
If posting resources is allowed, I'd like to recommend the Feminist Survival Project 2020 podcast, which is a deep dive in ways to take care of yourself and deal with burnout in ways that let us be more effective when we do decide to take action. Can be found at feministsurvivalproject dot com
...yes?
Hopeless, angry, frustrated, hanging by a thread, desperately lonely and isolated without the spoons to reach out and make the connections that I know would save us personally as well as politically.
Right now the one thing keeping me going is (I know this is a paraphrase of a quote, but me+google couldn’t source it - if anyone knows, please tell me!!) the idea that when you are oppressed, survival itself is a radical act.
And so I am still here. Surviving.
I did a fair amount of fighting at first, marching, postcards to voters, texting out the vote, even co-organized a die in. Then my family needed me to focus on them for a bit, and it felt so good to step away from actively engaging in action that seemed like it wasn’t doing much.
Now I want to find my way back in to working effectively, but that seems really hard. How do I get back in to working for the cause without losing my mind?
This seems especially hard considering that when I do speak out in public I get pushback. “Everyone here already agrees with you, why antagonize them?” “There’s no one out here who really hates POC and Jews that much.” “Can’t we just have services without you injecting politics into it? We do social action in other parts of the synagogue.” It’s demoralizing for sure. My last psychiatrist kept telling me that my voice/words were too inflammatory and that no one would hear me because of that, and maybe that’s true, but it’s not like anyone is listening to “civil discourse” either.
I'm with Lorraine -- I absolutely appreciate your political insights ("Republican party = country" is now my go-to explanation when I'm chatting with other exhausted liberal friends), but it is a rough space to be in. I appreciate that you're looking at how you can help support our community in other ways.
And I think this kind of aid is sorely needed. Like Lorraine and Malgayne, I'm also tired and frustrated and exhausted, and I want to feel more togetherness with other folks who are feeling the same. I want to celebrate whatever victories we can. Whatever we can do to help keep enough morale up to get folks out and voting for Dems (at all levels) in November, I want to be there for that.
In terms of potentially low-cost ways to get involved, particularly in terms of encouraging folks to get out and vote, one of my friends pointed me to https://postcardstovoters.org/ . It's not a good fit for me because of my physical limitations, but maybe other folks might be able to.
Thanks again for all of the care you've been putting into the Erin Endeavor, and I look forward to wherever the next phase goes. <3
My husband is a gay, disabled, trans, Jewish army veteran and last year after the nth synagogue arson attack we felt so demoralized that we began the process of moving to Canada. It has been super hard, because every time there is political news that impacts us along our lines of vulnerable intersectionality it is invariably bad news. But I keep feeling that if we don't honor the lessons learned by our previous generations, which include "don't think it can't happen here", it would be a giant tragedy.
I dunno. I am willing to work towards a blue wave, and I donate towards a blue wave (primarily to anti-voter-suppression causes, because without them we are fucked). But I don't have much hope for a blue wave. The Rs are setting up for outright election theft, and the D establishment doesn't seem to want to do anything to stop them. So we are headed towards being the Hungary of North America—nominally a democracy, but practically an authoritarian kleptocracy.
Yeah. I'm sad I can't be more cheery. But it's j one slog after another and will be for a long while to come.