You don’t have to go looking for articles or videos about the emotional and mental fatigue engendered by the 2020s. Anyone who doesn’t have a friend or family member afflicted by one or both is rare. Count yourself lucky if you don’t have some symptoms yourself. COVID-19 may not yet be endemic, but 10 kinds of misery from two years of facing the pandemic and all its societal collateral damage certainly is.
More than 6 million deaths worldwide, a million of them here in the U.S., have filled our capacity for grief to overflowing. The coronavirus stopped being “novel” a long time ago. It’s upended life as we know it. Forever. Our livelihoods, our educations, where we work and for whom, even our family interactions are all undergoing permanent changes with outcomes that are profoundly unclear. The impacts of the virus exposed in higher resolution than usual the many inequities about the way and for whom things are run, and about how people are treated. Addressing those inequities is tough, often very emotionally draining work.
In a nation in crisis that ought to have been united against a common enemy, we’ve had a battlefield. And of course a malignant, chaotic early response enhanced by the ignorance of the guy occupying the White House, an ignorance spread to the masses through Rush Limbaugh clones and anti-social media.
If we have an accurate gauge for the emotional toll this has inflicted on us, I am unaware of it. I go by what I hear from acquaintances, friends, and political allies. Gotta say, I don’t know a single one who isn’t hurting in at least one way or another. Me too. Isolation has been rough. Plus one more thing: We’re scared. What’s next? Because besides the Grim Reaper’s tally, there’s been all that other stuff.
Like the spread of hate, the spread of violence, the normalization of neo-Nazis, approval of another titanic Pentagon budget, the latest U.N. climate report, the destruction by puppets and shills of a moderate response to the crisis told in that report, the dreadful invasion of Ukraine, the apparent unwillingness to hold prominent lawbreakers accountable, and the lack of even the slightest whiff of nuance in what passes for analysis in too much of the media—all adding to our personal and collective distress over the virus. Just how much more of this can we effing take? Did I mention apparent long-term brain impacts of COVID-19?
And, of course, the Six Supremes are on the cusp of making rulings on abortion, guns, environmental regulation, and affirmative action that are likely to be the opposite of what anybody reading this wants them to be. Given the reversals of precedent that already are on the court’s docket, who knows where these extremists might take us.
Finally, there’s the prognosis from the media, pollsters, history, and some prominent worried Democrats that we could be headed for a congressional bloodbath in the mid-term elections.
What a dismal list, eh? Under the circumstances, despair can be tempting. Understandably. So what I’m going to suggest as an antidote to the despair and depression and compassion fatigue isn’t meant to apply to everyone. I’m not about to tell anyone I understand their personal situation better than they do. Nor am I offering some quackery claiming activism cures all that ails you. But after nearly 60 years working side by side with activists in the streets, in elections, in prison, and in the media, I firmly believe activism can undermine personal and political malaise. Okay, call it half an antidote. But that’s a start, right?
Let me be clear: I’ve believed since I first became politically involved six decades ago that grassroots education and action “in the streets” are at the core of all reform initiatives and that elections are essential to getting those reforms confirmed. Both are needed. Whether altering police powers, confronting fascists, fighting environmental injustices, or putting rational, diverse people on school boards, it matters. The states are places needing far more activists, in particular state legislatures. So here’s my recommendation to help cope with the never-ending emotional and political baggage of the past two years:
Help build a stronger and more progressive Democratic Party bench by “adopting” and volunteering in the campaign of a state legislative candidate in your or a nearby district.
One thing about the electoral battles for the House of Representatives, the Senate, the presidency, and governorships is they never lack for attention or volunteers or paid campaign staff.
However, state legislatures are a crucial electoral battlefield that gets all too little attention from the media, from the national party, from donors, and from most grassroots activists who focus their attention on those candidates further up the ballot. State legislatures. You know, the bodies that, with a few exceptions, redraw the boundaries of political districts, often with outrageous gerrymanders, pass laws about drugs, abortion, health care, guns, transportation, energy, law enforcement, environment, education, and a multitude of other matters that affect citizens on a daily basis.
Despite the impact they have, for most people the challengers and incumbents in state legislatures are just downballot names that they may be encountering for the first time and know nothing about. In most states, most activists don’t pay much mind to these actual and would-be legislators. This hurts.