5 Tools for Staying Steady in Trump's Engineered Chaos

Trump wants you isolated, exhausted, and convinced resistance is futile. These practices help you stay operationally steady, strategically grounded, and connected to what matters most.

I help people stay steady so they can keep showing up without losing their effectiveness or humanity. I draw on decades of organizing, deep expertise in participatory research and problem-solving, and what I’ve learned from tens of thousands of readers in 73 countries navigating authoritarian aggression and systemic manipulation.

Please restack and share this post to help others find these helpful resources in this time of grief, fear, and anger.

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Let’s resist and build something better.

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These past few weeks have been brutal. The murders of Renee Good and Alex Pretti by federal agents and the official gaslighting trying to cast these good people as terrorists. The spreading of ICE terror to other cities. Imperial threats against Venezuela and Greenland while simultaneously saying “fuck you” to longtime NATO allies. Back-to-back acute crises engineered to overwhelm us. And news cycles that monetize our grief, fear, and anger.

Some days you lose hours to doom-scrolling. Other days you go numb—emotionally flat, performing competence while hollowed out. You withdraw, you get quiet, you replay your reactions in shame, and you assume everyone else is handling this better.

They’re not.

And this isn’t personal weakness—it’s authoritarian strategy at work.

Trump’s movement openly describes its goal: traumatize opponents, flood the zone, break people who care. Overwhelm isn’t incidental. It’s the point.

We must not let him succeed.

Staying Steady in Chaos Designed to Break Us

I don’t have a single approach for dealing with all this. I have tools that help me stay upright and oriented strategically to keep fighting.

I’m sharing some of the practices I reach for when I need footholds. Start anywhere. Share with others. Subscribe to learn about more tools.

Shift from reactivity to strategic steadiness

You're being systematically destabilized by a regime that profits from your reactivity. MAGA needs you spinning - overwhelmed, detached, or burning out. That sick feeling when you realize you’re bouncing between these states? You have not failed, it’s exactly what Trump and his enablers intend with their strategy of engineered chaos.

And you know what? Fuck their strategy.

Here’s what they don’t want you to know: once you see how this cycle works, you can start steering instead of being dragged around.

Trump’s Goal Is to Break You. Here’s How to Stay Whole and Effective is one of my most popular posts that’s been read, liked, and shared by tens of thousands. Cycling between overwhelm, cynicism, and scattered activism is exactly what Trump wants you to do. Here’s how to recognize you’re stuck and then move from reactivity to strategic engagement.

Give yourself mercy and compassion

Authoritarian chaos works by keeping people in a cycle of reactivity — spinning between overwhelm, cynicism, and frantic over-commitment — and then making us believe it’s our own fault. These states aren’t personal weaknesses. They’re predictable responses to an environment engineered to produce them.

In this brief guided practice, I walk you through three of the most common reactive states I see in my work with experienced, committed social change leaders:

• Collapsed Overwhelm – The shutdown place where there’s too much coming at you, and your system freezes.

• Scattered Activism – The “do everything” place that leaves you burned out and less effective.

• Numb Cynicism – The “why bother” place where detachment feels safer than hope.

We’ll slow down, notice each state, and replace self-judgment with self-mercy — not as indulgence, but as a strategic refusal to carry out the inner punishment authoritarianism is counting on.

Listen here:

I Refuse to Shame Myself: Meeting Engineered Chaos With Self-Mercy. When your nervous system is under constant assault, shame and self-judgment only make you more vulnerable. Learn to name what you’re experiencing and respond with self-mercy

The Defiance Prayer

When total avoidance and checking out starts sounding reasonable, I have a prayer that interrupts the spiral.

Please grant me audacity to choose values and goals worth fighting for;
Persistence in the face of failed attempts;
And the wisdom to know the difference between acceptance and giving up.

Audacity to choose means defining what you’re building, not just what you’re resisting. Persistence means measuring yourself by showing up, not by winning every round. The wisdom to know the difference—not between what you can and can’t change, but between acceptance and giving up. You can accept the fact of how hard this is and still choose your next move. Giving up is when you let the fear make that choice for you. Acceptance is maintaining a clear-eyed reckoning with reality that keeps you moving

This is what I reach for when I’m trying to stay human and not give up.

Acknowledge the new skills and strengths you’ve earned resisting Trump

Here’s what no pundits are asking: What have we learned now that we’ve survived a year designed to break us? And how will that prepare us for 2026?

We’ve learned to navigate dangerous terrain because we’ve been forced to survive it. We paid brutal tuition for an education none of us asked for.

And the result? We’ve built skills and determination we’re only beginning to recognize. We earned new muscles we’re learning to flex.

We’re still here. We didn’t quit. And now we know things we didn’t know a year ago—about how fast things can turn, about who shows up and who disappears, about where our own lines held and where they didn’t — and about our own strengths and limits.

That’s not just pain. That’s hard-earned intelligence. Use it.

The Skills We Built While Trump Tried to Break Us. We didn’t just endure this year. We learned skills, clarity and resolve they didn’t mean to teach us – and these are things they can’t take from us.

Keep building new skills

We have a long fight ahead of us. We need to continue building new skills, new connections, greater endurance.

My workbook Staying Steady gives you practical tools for interrupting overwhelm and building capacity under authoritarian pressure. It’s designed for moments when you’re too depleted for theory — short practices you can use in five minutes when shame, paralysis, or fog take hold. And it helps you strengthen your relationships and build resilience for the fight ahead.

Pay what you want pricing keeps it affordable. And buying version 1.0 now gets you a free copy of version 2.0 coming out this spring. I’m using reader feedback to add more practices and tools to help you stay steady and get stronger.

You Don’t Have to Carry This Alone

When you carry this alone, shame grows and capacity shrinks. Isolation is their strategy. Connection is ours.

You don’t have to have answers today. You just have to not be alone with this.

In solidarity,

Paul

Remember: Stay human. Stay strategic. Shape tomorrow.

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New Here?

I’m Paul Shattuck—MSW, PhD, 40+ years integrating contemplative practice, community organizing, and systems analysis. Former superstar college professor and policy researcher. Current consultant to nonprofits and foundations struggling to survive Trump’s attacks.

I was fired three weeks before Christmas 2024 for refusing to shut up about Trump targeting federal workers. I launched this blog soon after to pitch in and help build a progressive future worth fighting for.

I help people stay steady so they can keep showing up without losing their effectiveness or humanity. I draw on decades of organizing, deep expertise in participatory research and problem-solving, and what I’ve learned from thousands of readers in 73 countries navigating authoritarian aggression and systemic manipulation.

I don’t have all the answers. I’m just relentlessly good at muddling through, chewing on problems until they crack, and bringing people together to learn from what’s actually working.

What you get here:

• Free: Weekly posts, Strategic Mindfulness audio practices, live video commentaries

• Paid: Monthly group Zoom calls with me, Substack group discussions, commenting on posts and videos

Support This Work

This work exists because readers fund it directly. No institutional backing, no sponsors. This is how I make my living.

40% off annual subscription — through February 15, 2026

Paid subscribers make it possible for me to keep writing, building tools, offering free group sessions, and reaching people who need this work.

If these Tiny Moves helped you see more clearly or gave you footholds you didn’t have before, upgrade to a paid subscription . Or leave a tip on Ko-fi.

If you want to build your capacity and skills:

My workbook Staying Steady: Practical Tools to Interrupt Overwhelm and Build Resilience Under Authoritarian Assault, gives you 60 pages of practical tools for facing authoritarian assault. Pay what you want pricing to stay accessible. Short practices you can use in five minutes when shame, paralysis, or fog take hold. Buy version 1.0 now, get the updated and expanded version 2.0 for free when it’s published this Spring.

Free Group Strategy Sessions

For the next month, I’m offering free, onetime 60-minute Zoom sessions for activist groups, Indivisible chapters, faith communities, therapist teams—any group that wants to use this work to build capacity for sustained activism and cope with reactivity to current events.

No charge. Just solidarity and mutual learning. Contact me on my website if this would be useful for your group.