Thread by @AlexandraErin

It's been more than a year since Access Hollywood and it's coming up on the anniversary of the election. Let's do a check-in thread.

I feel like right now things are hard. Easly stated goals like "stop TrumpCare" have given way to more nebulous long-term tasks.

And each new day, each fresh shock, revelation, and outrage, just underscores how little power we have as individuals to stop this.

We have GOP pols admitting what we've always known - that they will risk nuclear war to get a tax break at this point. It changes nothing.

One man with a gun murders dozens and wounds hundreds in Las Vegas. It changes nothing.

Trump golfs while Puerto Rico drowns, the Virgin Islands go dark, and California burns. It changes nothing.

The investigations are ongoing, but they lack the power to bring swift and drastic change.

It's hard, babies. It's hard. These are hard times. They aren't the worst times we'll face, but they're part of the process of getting there

Being demoralized and scattered now, when we're not actually powerless as a people, helps them rob of us of the power we do have.

So let's do some affirmations.

It's okay to be tired.

It's okay to be scared.

It's okay to be angry.

It's okay to feel what you feel, because it has to be. It's what you feel. You can't change how you feel without dealing with how you feel.

It's okay to have been focused on your own stuff. It's okay to have been focused on Weinstein. On keeping your own family safe and fed.

It's okay to come up for air. It's necessary. It's also okay. Necessity is not weakness or impurity or imperfection. It's necessity.

A marathon is different than a sprint. So, for that matter, is a long-distance relay race, which is what we're in.

No one person has to (or can) go the whole distance alone. We are all in this together.

Maybe we've been misled by a culture that values performative action into what action looks like. Listening and learning can be actions.

Immersing yourself in the news of the day can be even more exhausting if your response to every story is "But what am I supposed to do?"

Listening to your fellow humans describe their experiences can feel a lot more demanding if you think it's always a call for action.

Simply being better informed is going to affect your future actions. It doesn't have to result in an immediate obvious action now.

No one person can do everything. No one person can be everything. Give yourself permission to absorb, to reflect, to mull over.

Listen. It's still weeks away, but November 8th is going to be a hard day for a lot of us. It might sandbag you when you're not expecting it

Give yourself space to mourn, to process.

We are in the middle of an ongoing national trauma. For some, this was already the case. Spare a thought for them as you find space to heal.

If you want a clear call to easy action, here it is. Tell your Senators to reject "reform" that slashes Medicare/aid

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Cutting Medicare used to be a political third rail. They used to be afraid to touch it. They need to be afraid again. We can do that.

You want a bright spot? Here it is. Right now, the Republicans in power are just as confused and demoralized as we are.

They're not giving up, if only because they know they can't afford to. Debts to be paid, masters to please, nowhere to go if they fail.

But if we don't give up, we can stymie them. Make them break faster than we break.

Tell your Senators no on the tax reform bill. No cutting Medicare, no cutting Medicaid, no increasing the deficit to cut taxes.

These are easy messages for crossing the political aisle. You don't have to tell a Republican Senator's staffer you don't vote Republican.

They won't ask, and they're your Senators even if you'd never vote for them.

This is our next victory and their next defeat. A chance for us to come together and them to scatter and break.

It's a little less visceral than "Don't Pass Trumpcare!" but a lot of the stakes are the same.

And I have faith that we can do it, because we've done it before.

We've just got to pick ourselves up, pull ourselves together, get up the gumption to do it, and do it.

Cry havoc, babies.

Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of civic participation.

They won't know what hit them.

Light up the switchboards to protect Medicare and Medicaid from "tax reform".

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They're expecting to sneak this one through since it's not Trumpcare. They will not be prepared for a massive backlash.

Which means the impact if we can deliver one will be all the stronger, all the more demoralizing, destabilizing to them.

Wouldn't that be a heck of a morale boost?

Give yourself time to breathe and space to heal. Give yourself permission to process and reflect. Take what you need to move on.

AND FIGHT.

Fight, fight back, because we are in the fight of our lives, whether it feels like it at the moment or not.

And we're winning the overall battle, whether it feels like it at the moment or not.

But we lose everything if we can't keep fighting.

That doesn't mean everybody fights all-out all the time. Fighting on means fighting smart. Forming ranks. Fire a volley, fall back, reload.

Trust yourself to know when it's time to reload. You don't need a leader to tell you that.

But if you need to hear someone else giving you permission to fall back, here it is: do what you need to do to fight on.

We are not going to get a time out to process our ongoing trauma and if we wait until all this is over to do so it'll be too late.

So give yourself permission to grieve, to hurt, to heal, to whatever. Whatever you need to do is whatever you need to do.

Listen to each other and support one another. Be there for each other. See each other. Witness each other.

Because we can do this. We. Can. Do. This. No one can do it alone but we can do this together. #WeGotThis

If you got anything from this thread, please give something back. paypal.me/alexandraerin