My 12-Step Plan For Surviving The Trump Presidency

Now that the unthinkable has happened, we all need a plan. Here is mine:

1. Read like a motherfucker, to borrow Cheryl Strayed's phrase. Drown myself in words, in books that give me the hope that even though the arc of the moral universe may zigzag, it tends towards justice and goodness.
2. Hit myself in the head with a real newspaper or a thick paperback until I am able to hold the following two contradictory ideas in my head at the same time. One, that technology has made our lives easier and more convenient and two, that we live in increasingly isolated echo chambers of thoughts, ideas, and opinions because of it.
3. Talk to someone who voted for Trump and try to do one thing, and one thing alone - understand. Understand, even when I disagree with every cell in my body.
4. Gin and tonic
5. Think. Think very hard about the media outlets I support and which sources I consume news and opinion from. Do my tiny part in resuscitating journalism.
6. Figure out a way to contribute to the fight against climate change, because our country, our healthcare system, and the economy may survive the Trump presidency, but our warming planet may not.
7. Become more accepting of the idea that doing something about climate change now may not make a meaningful difference, and that it might be too late already. To do this, I will make myself comfortable with the idea that many great civilizations in our relatively short human history have keeled and that we might too - sooner than we think.
8. Nietzsche.
9. Kiss my boyfriend more often, because the world needs more love, and it definitely needs more love of the gay kind.
10. Remind myself every day that commerce is not going to save the world. That a generalized and steady brainwashing through advertising is partly responsible for this mess.
11. Be more open and vocal and loud about the links between patriarchy, global capitalism, racism and xenophobia. And how women's rights, LGBT rights and the fight against racism cannot be won without a direct attack on patriarchy.
12. Realize that shit has been broken for a while now, and it will need courage, grace, rage, self-awareness and compassion to begin to fix it. Cynicism, inaction and ignorant navel-gazing - there is no room for these now.