Live Stream Today + Shutdown Messaging!

Good morning, lovely people! I’ll be back to you later this week with a long-form piece I’m really excited about, but I wanted to send out a few quick updates this morning.

First and foremost: this afternoon, I’ll be joining a live stream for a dear friend of mine, who is fundraising for her wonderful family to be able to leave the country. Check out the stacked lineup!

Join us here: https://www.youtube.com/@celestial-navigation

My session will be at 4EST/1PST, but if you can’t join me, I highly encourage you to join for Rabbi Daniel Bogard, who helped me understand that Judaism and fighting for a better world can and must be fundamentally linked. The rest of the presenters also look absolutely fantastic! If you’re not free today, You can read more about their story and how to contribute here:

Fleeing . . . again

Second: If you’re in need of some good news, check out this week’s post on Chop Wood, Carry Water, which includes a Sunday roundup of all the good news (queer and otherwise) going on each week! It’s truly packed.

Extra! Extra! 10/26 🎈🎈

Third: as the government shutdown continues to break records on length, many of our community members are beginning to really feel the burn. Especially now that government employees are missing full paychecks and snap benefits are not going out, we need to put our empathy muscles to use. If we want Democrats to be able to continue holding the line, they need to know the people are able to take care of each other. If you have room in your wallet or in your week, consider putting some extra time and love into your community.

I know it might be easy or even tempting to brush off, poor, or rural, or otherwise disenfranchised voters who are “getting what they voted for“ but beyond giving you a moment of juicy vindication, that attitude will only take us further from where we’re trying to go.

Does my neighbor deserve to starve just because a failing education system and a multi billion dollar misinformation and rage industry shaped him into an angry person?

When we talk about the shutdown, because in many ways, this is a dual war of messaging and of a community’s ability to care for each other through our systems failing, we need to do our best to lead with care and show all our neighbors that we care about their healthcare, about their benefits, about a government that works for all of us and listens to all of us, and that their party or their elected officials are the ones betraying them.

I know we are tired. I know we are angry. I know the past year has bought heartbreak after heartbreak and more fear than the human body should be able to hold. AND, I know this sounds silly, but it bears repeating: Donald Trump voters are not Donald Trump. Donald Trump supporters are not Donald Trump. We cannot just assume they love, understand, or even know about all the policies making our lives harder right now. Even if they do, this is a complex human being with their own traumas and fears and baggage and complexities and problems. This is a regular person who does not deserve to starve or lose access to healthcare (even if they might not have the same level of empathy for us, or for their other neighbors).

Central to my belief system is the concept of pragmatic utopianism. I’m dreaming of a radically better future and I’m hyper realistic about where we are right now. There is no future that does not include what we have currently labeled “the other guys” or “the bad guys“. There is no easy map to split or alien abduction machine to sort us into those who are worthy of a better future and not.

That means I’m not just thinking about the better future for me and my friends, but also about the science of persuasion, about a human being’s fundamental worthiness of care, about how we heal as a society and as a community.

Consider donating or getting involved with a food pantry or food bank this week. Consider trying out phone banking or deep canvassing. If you don’t have the bandwidth for any extra actions, that’s OK! Consider at least taking time to reshape the way you’re thinking about things and start to make some extra room for nuance and connection here.