I feel sick. I know what my country is facing. I know what is happening in my home, my homeland, my America. I see this administration wielding the truncheon of “law and order” eagerly, craving any response that will let the insecure and desperate men at the top (and all the way down) feel like big fucking heroes as they club down their fellow Americans for daring to disagree. I see them chasing those who aren’t white, who aren’t Christian, claiming that they’re chasing those who aren’t “American” while they draw an ever smaller circle around what it means to be American. 

My family comes from all over. Most of them are American citizens. I know that won’t matter when the administration’s circle slips a little tighter again, like a noose around our country’s neck. They’re going to go after my family, sooner rather than later.

I need to push back. I feel that, urgently. I need to use the skills and knowledge I have to push back against the slide of my home into authoritarian and fascist rule.

My imagination supplies moments of me peacefully protesting against ICE or DHS, against troops, against cops, by laying down or sitting down in their way and smiling at them as they come to beat me. But I think that part of me is suicidal, a hero-worshipping little boy with no sense of my value to my loved ones. That little boy inside me wants to do something right and wants to help, but doesn’t understand or resonate with anything past the most direct route. He’s a little boy who learned pacifism but never kicked the drug of heroic self-sacrifice that our culture fed to young me as the only meaningful contribution a man could make. I don’t want to let that little boy inside me steer me. I don’t want to leave my son.

That urge toward self-sacrifice is part of what worries me about engaging in protest. I know the value of peaceful protest. I know intellectually that peaceful protests need not be sacrificial, I’ve participated in them before. If you need examples, the protestors in Portland with their inflatable costumes are pretty great. Here’s a frog protesting peacefully. Though YouTube’s algorithm seems to have buried it, there was also video of the frog, a dinosaur, and an Among Us crewmate dancing together. So I know that my internal narrative of self-sacrifice is my own struggle… and it still makes me wary.

If I want to make full use of my skills, what then of my ability to write, to craft words? Is my bodily sacrifice really worth more than any other contribution I can make? How could that be true?

If I want to use my skills, how can I, and where? I feel as though I’m screaming into a void. I do not trust that my words will carry far enough to matter to anyone, let alone help in this moment. I don’t know where to put my words, to whom to give my words, how to spread my thoughts to others in any way that “matters.”

But what “matters,” really? That word is a hint that I’m doubting myself again. That’s me doubting that I could do anything, that I could contribute anything.

My self-judgment here is pointless. I do not know what effect I can have, I do not know that anything matters, or that even the least thing doesn’t matter. Who am I to judge? How am I to know which straw breaks the camel’s back?

So here. I’ll do what I know how to do.

First, you can learn more about some of what’s going on in our country right now. Second, protest nonviolently. Document your nonviolence with video. Share how ridiculous and insecure and abusive those opposing the protests are.

One thing that’s happened? Trump signed National Security Policy Memo #7 (you can find that at whitehouse dot gov /presidential-actions/2025/09/countering-domestic-terrorism-and-organized-political-violence/, sorry, I don’t feel like making a proper link here). 

This memo reads like a custom-built fig leaf for using the national security apparatus to go after those Trump (and Trump’s followers) views as his (their) enemies. It was signed shortly before his dramatic (and erratic) speech to the gathering of high-ranking military officers. While NSPM-7 specifies that it will only target “the violent,” Trump’s pardon of the violent protestors who joined in on Jan. 6^th and his descriptions of those who (peacefully) protest against him as “violent” makes it pretty clear that violence is not the actual key in this policy. Further, NSPM-7 reads like a piece of propaganda, misleading the reader by focusing entirely on violence against Republicans, corporate officials, and right-wing influencers while ignoring political violence against any other people (e.g. the murders of Democratic Minnesotan politicians and their family members, or the planned kidnapping of Michigan’s Democratic Governor).

That leaves it pretty clear where the focus of this memo lies, and what it’s intended to justify. I do recommend reading the other analysis of NSPM-7 from Ken Klippenstein and Slate. I have no idea what course this will take. I have no doubt that it will cause more harm for Americans (and others, as it already has).

Other things that are happening? This memo comes alongside continued attempts to deploy ever more militarized forces to cities which don’t want (or need) them, in order to enforce laws that aren’t being broken beyond local law enforcement’s ability to handle and to protect property that doesn’t appear to be under significant threat. For reference, see U.S. District Judge Karin Immergut’s ruling temporarily barring the deployment of National Guard soldiers to Portland, OR, in which she wrote “The President’s determination was simply untethered to the facts.” When Trump’s administration attempted to deploy troops from elsewhere, those too were barred.

It looks like an attempt to find a fight that will justify martial law. It looks like an attempt to justify the use of the powers that NSPM-7 expanded, to go after anyone opposed to Trumpism. Heather Cox Richardson has a useful recent overview, placing many of these pieces in a larger context. She also digs into who within the administration appears to be heading up each different initiative.

I’m struggling to hold any thoughts in my head, let alone take care of my baby. I’m out for now. Good luck.