Destabilizing Us Is Their Goal. Here’s How To Resist
Stay Human Weekly #5: This week’s news cycle is especially punishing. These tiny moves help protect our focus and stay human under pressure.
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Don’t miss my recent post that has already reached thousands: Stay Sane: 80 Tiny Moves to Resist Digital Despair and News Overwhelm in the Trump Era. Tiny moves live in the terrain between hypervigilance and retreat. They keep us agile and motivated.
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This week, staying human feels like a full-time job.
Trump's signature bill — yes, they're actually calling it The One Big, Beautiful Bill — is a brazen, late-night legislative ambush. It’s ‘beautiful’ if you’re a voraciously greedy billionaire. For the rest of us, it’s a ‘steal from the poor and give to the rich’ super scam. The bill redistributes wealth from the poorest Americans to the richest, guts food and healthcare programs, and includes a hidden clause to gut the power of federal courts to enforce their own rulings. As a feature in the New York Times recently declared, this is authoritarianism in action.
At the same time, Trump's Oval Office ambush of South African President Cyril Ramaphosa — playing a video full of false claims about anti-white "genocide" — shows how willing this regime is to inject white supremacist propaganda directly into foreign policy. This also panders to the base and serves to strengthen and amplify systemic racism in the U.S.
And then there's the $400 million private jet funneled from Qatar to Trump for post-presidency personal use. Brazen corruption now happens in broad daylight — and we're all just supposed to scroll past it.
This unrelenting avalanche of authoritarian aggression is designed to overwhelm us and exhaust our will to act. Meanwhile, the media ecosystem inflames our outrage and anxiety for profit — because anger and panic keep us clicking, scrolling, refreshing
I start my day with one headline. Then I check another. And another. My stomach clenches. My breathing gets shallow. I click again. Eventually I switch to Wordle, then feel guilty for "checking out." Then I click again.
What starts as vigilance turns into helplessness. What begins as civic concern turns into strategic paralysis.
But I refuse to let them win by making me freeze.
So I'm experimenting with something else. Here are two tactics from my recent post Stay Sane: 80 Tiny Moves to Resist Digital Despair and News Overwhelm in the Trump Era.
Write down: "I'm not failing for feeling overwhelmed. I'm responding to engineered chaos." Tape it somewhere visible.
I wrote that down and stuck it near my screen. Yes, I realize it doesn't solve the harm. But it gives me a bit of agency and interrupts the shame spiral.
The goal isn't to stop paying attention. It's to stop blaming yourself for the physiological impact of a system that profits from keeping you emotionally destabilized.
When you feel guilt for not reading the latest news, ask: "Would more doom make me more effective?" How much doom is enough?
I've started asking this out loud. I'm protecting my capacity to discern and act.
Reading another 14 takes about the tax bill won't give me a better plan. It'll just eat another hour I could spend regrounding, connecting, or choosing one next move that actually builds power and shapes tomorrow.
Strategic Realignment.
Tiny moves like these help preserve what the blitz is designed to destroy: clarity, energy, discernment, strategic coherence. These moves protect rather than shrink your agency.
So this week, if your vigilance has tipped into numbness, or your care has collapsed into scrolling despair — try one of these moves. Tape it somewhere. Say it out loud. Interrupt the spiral.
You're not failing. You're responding to a system built to destabilize you. What you do next still belongs to you.
Remember: Stay human. Stay strategic. Shape tomorrow.
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Strategies for Staying Human in the Face of Authoritarianism
If you’re looking for practices, tools, and deeper reading to help you stay grounded under pressure, this growing list is for you. It includes some of my previous posts and a section for other resources. These are starting points for staying human in hard times.
My Posts
Stay Human: 80 Tiny Moves for Everyday Resistance in the Authoritarian Harm Complex. What if staying human is one of the most powerful and most unappreciated forms of resistance? Shaping tomorrow and defeating tyranny takes more than big protest events and macro strategies.
Stay Sane: 80 Tiny Moves to Resist Digital Despair and News Overwhelm in the Trump Era. Tiny moves live in the terrain between hypervigilance and retreat. They keep us agile and motivated.
Staying Human Now #1: Start Where You Are. Authoritarian harm is real. So is your capacity to respond. These three tiny moves help you pace yourself with purpose.
Staying Human Now #2: Define Your Waypoints. Confusion is the tactic. Navigation is the countermeasure. This tiny move helps you plan your own path.
Staying Human Now #3: The Connection You Forgot You Needed. Authoritarian chaos thrives on disconnection. This tiny move helps you rebuild the ties that keep you human.
What It Means to Stay Human in the Trump Era. Staying Human Now #4 - Trump’s actions are engineered to grind us down. Staying human is a key resistance strategy.
From Authoritarian Harm to Clarity of Purpose. Looking Beyond Resistance: What if Our Collective Pain is Pointing to the Better Future Worth Fighting For?
Befriend Yourself: A Strategy for Staying Whole While They Dismantle Everything That Matters. Trump and Musk want to disappear you into a cell of despair. Kindness to yourself is how you stay human—and begin your escape.
When They Gut Your Mission: Start Here…. You’re still standing. That means you get to choose where to go next.
Blogs I recommend and have subscriptions to
Invisible Threads. Veteran journalist Kate Woodsome is pioneering coverage at the intersection of democracy and mental health.
The American Pamphleteer. “Because freedom won’t fight for itself—but together, we sure as hell can. Subscribe for bold, unfiltered takes on resisting fascism, building real community, and living with guts in chaotic times.“
How To Resist. Great blog about sustainable ways to remain engaged in activism and mutual aid.
Chop Wood, Carry Water. This blog is full of daily advice to take action and stay motivated.
Your Time Starts NOW. If you like my content then you’ll love these posts by Lori Corbet Mann. Their tag line “Practical tools and strategies to help you stay steady in turbulent times” reminds me of my own “Tools, insight, and inspiration for people doing good work in hard times.”
Other Resources
ACT for Moral Distress, online course by Dr. Jaimie Lusk. “Navigate moral distress with Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, a powerful evidence-based treatment that allows us to hold our pain while taking valued actions.”
In Tumultuous Times, Think Like a Hostage. “Guidance given to hostages can foster psychological flexibility in tough times.” Very clever article by Dr. Jaimie Lusk.
Please drop additional suggestions for resources in Comments
My Consulting Services
Need a new strategic plan that protects your mission and your funding during hard times? I help mission-driven professionals and progressive organizations cultivate agility and resilience to navigate moral injury, authoritarian drift, and institutional harm without losing their purpose or humanity. Service include:
Strategic plan revisions to meet the moment.
Fundraising and communications.
Developing resilient data systems to track unmet needs and the downstream harms resulting from authoritarian aggression.
Let’s talk. Direct message me to start the conversation. Or request a consultation using my website’s contact form: Progressive Strategy Now website
***From Progressive Strategy Now, a publication of Paul T Shattuck LLC. The views expressed here reflect my personal analysis as a researcher and consultant, and do not represent the positions of any employer, clients, or affiliated organizations.
“ Kindness to yourself is how you stay human.” Taking this seriously , I’m off for a journey to a beautiful, remote British Columbia Retreat Center. Thanks Paul, for all of your 80 suggestions to help us keep balanced ( & sane)