1. Unboxed
By Douglas John Imbrogno | theSTORYistheTHING.com | march31.2025
As someone with a small media megaphone and slightly more amplified voice than some other folks, I have been stalled and muddled lately by all the breaking news out of Washington D.C. What do you say and to whom do you say it in the midst of such an avalanche of awfulness? Every day, the Trump-Musk Infantile Axis of Evil runs ever wilder. Ripping down shelves, tearing things off the walls, and peeing and pooping in every corner of the government as they vent their messy, juvenile ids and nasty, angry souls.
In a recent chat, an acquaintance who works with the West Virginia Rivers Coalition, a longtime guardian of the Appalachian ecosphere, brought some clarity about how to move forward. He posed two questions in answer to what to do at this moment in American history for those not utterly lost in Trump cultism. It is worth pondering our own response to these questions because he is offering practical and non-despairing advice:
“What are you good at? What are you passionate about? Do something at the intersection of those two things in response to Trumpism …”
We went on to discuss the easy slide into political despair and the seductive attraction of turning our backs on all the crappy news. Yet withdrawing or retreating just gives the crazies more room to go crazier. They gain even more space to screw with your life, my life and that of our families and communities. Curling up into a ball permits the Project 2025 folks — the real strategic and long-view schemers behind Mad King Trump’s throne of knives — to open the lid even wider on their power-hungry Pandora’s Box, the box which when unleashed, Greek mythology tells us, “releases curses upon mankind …”
These are the odious plotters, after all, who want nothing more than to cancel democratic government in favor of utterly unleashed predatory capitalism and repressive, aggressive oligarchy. That does not mean just those enemies of the state and the rising tide of deportees whom they decree to be un-American or not American. It also might mean you and yours, once they get around to defining and sorting the rest of us. All of this under the glorious reign of their useful idiot and routinely sneering puppet, High King Donald the First — and all he really seems to want is settle the score on his endless grudges and be worshiped. Yet it should be recalled of the Pandora legend that one thing remained inside the box, which the gods gave as a gift to her, Earth’s first woman, after its cursed spirits leapt out to terrorize humanity:
‘It contained all the evils of the world, which were released when Pandora opened the box. However, it also contained hope, which remained inside the box.’
2. Remain in Light
Right now, I should segue into a limp cliche such as ‘Hope springs eternal.’ But that one has been drained of all meaning from overuse, familiarity, and general limpness. Plus, it seems like slim pickings against the admittedly forceful, full-court press and shockingly effective political anschluss of Trump 2.0. (And, yes, I am fully aware of the implications of using that term from mid-20th century German history and I embrace those implications).
We might, then, turn to Desmond Tutu, the South African Anglican bishop and theologian, who knew more than a few things about dark governments as an anti-apartheid and human rights activist. He acknowledges the daunting specter of the dark, but encourages us to remember the reality of what we call ‘dark,’ since it is always in relation to ‘light‘:
‘Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness.’
Our response to Trumpism, then — at a personal, family, community, national, and even international level — is in how we see things. It matters how we frame our fears and terrors, how we talk about what is being threatened and shaken. It fundamentally matters how we choose to respond when the mouthpieces of the Trump/Musk Axis or the men themselves slither and roar. And, particularly, in how they try to define us. And, significantly, in how they try to brand those who can’t define or defend themselves because they have been ‘legally’ obliterated. Or whisked off to Guantanamo. Or deported without legal recourse, like some banana republic come to nightmare life upon the streets of Boston and Poughkeepsie, Cincinnati and War, W.Va.
3. How to Resist
My friend Kit Thornton published a list to Facebook this week that was so good, so true, so brave and resolute, that I asked to republish it in these pages. I dressed it up a bit with my weekend graphic design skills and now pass it on to you, Dear Reader. If it speaks to you, pass it forward, too, so others may draw inspiration and sustenance from it. Kit’s list is a positive, powerful version of what the French call a cri de coeur or ‘cry from the heart.‘ You can further search out that phrase’s nuances, but here is one that seems apt for the Trump/Musk perversion of all that is good about America: ‘An urgent and strongly felt request for help from someone in a very bad situation’. The United States is certainly in a very bad situation. Who else but you, me, they and them can figure out the response?
4. Linking Up
Yet I never personally answered the questions posed above by my acquaintance, the ones I encouraged you to ponder and answer: ‘What are you good at? What are you passionate about? Do something at the intersection of those two things in response to Trumpism …” Part of my answer is what you are looking at right now. My lifelong passion has been to write and to think aloud. To design pages and publications lifting into view stories worth hearing and lessons worth knowing. Out here in the hinterlands, I try in my own small way to encourage personal and collective thought and action by myself and the smattering of folks who may read what I post or share my site links with someone in Poughkeepsie or War. (‘How’s it going, man, and please introduce yourself and tell me what your life’s like in Poughkeepsie or War?!?’)
I also scour and compare a wide variety of new sources, gathering links and crafting summaries to the most worthy of them. It’s an old newspaperman’s habit — diving into complex, confusing political and cultural moments so as to understand what is really going on behind the ‘BREAKING NEWS’ onslaught. There lies madness, to be sure, if you’re not careful. I have scores of links banked since Trump oozed into office, with beaucoup more added daily as the cries from the heart in this country reach crescendo after crescendo. More on that in future posts in this ‘AMERICAN APOCALYPTICS’ series. (Free subscribe for email notice of fresh posts.) And speaking of linkage, may as many of us as possible link together in collective action on a ‘National Day of Action’ called ‘HANDS OFF!’ this Saturday, April 5. Click this link to find an event near you or go to the homepage of the event for more information.
It is only right here, right now, where we can ever make real change happen.
Thanks to Sue MacDonald for her editing feedback on this piece.
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