The Threat of Trumpism Is Real. So Is the Need for Rest.

I don’t presume to have the best advice for political leaders working now to set guardrails in place. But I feel pretty certain I want them to be well rested and eating healthily while they still can—you know, before RFK guts food safety laws. Yes, I wish there were more durable guardrails in place, but here we are.

I need the leaders who will counter Trumpism to take self-care seriously, along with the rest of us. Panic and trauma reduce our capacity to process information and narrow the spectrum of emotions we can experience. We make bad decisions under these conditions. The work of the anti-Trump coalition now is to expand our ability to take in data—especially data that’s uncomfortable—and to broaden our emotional range beyond pain, sorrow, regret, and fear. If we don’t seek out pleasure, comfort, companionship, and laughter, numbness becomes our only protection. And fascism thrives when we are dead inside.

And it should be said, nothing deadens the soul more than the feeling that you have done something to deserve this. Banish these feelings. Take the advice of Anthony Hopkins’s character from the 1997 movie The Edge, about three men who end up stranded in the Alaskan wilderness after a plane crash, helpfully summarized here so you do not actually have to watch the whole movie.