How Writers Can Oppose Trump's Bad Policies
The ace of hearts.
I’m not going to avoid politics. No longer.
I have dear friends, family members, book customers, and writing colleagues who are conservative while I am decidedly progressive. Dodging conversations about how to vote has seemed like a good plan. Until now.
My mission is to improve the quality of life itself, which means that I dedicate my life to community-building for humans and wild species. I support candidates and platforms that protect life.
Community-Building
The desire to build community, restore the web of life, and enjoy a better world means we need to promote a few things:
generosity
care
love
neighborliness
frugality
the gift economy
the free exchange of information
gratitude
empathy.
Community-building requires that these behaviors get modeled and upheld and lauded and promoted.
Empathy
Of all the life-giving behaviors, empathy is most needed. Let me explain.
I receive a newsletter called “FrameLab” in which Gil Duran writes about how to implement the progressive ideas of linguist George Lakoff. A recent post from Duran was called “How to deal with Trump supporters at the family holiday gathering.”
A young person had asked Lakoff how they should deal with their very conservative grandfather at holiday gatherings.
“Don’t argue with your grandfather,” Dr. Lakoff answered. “Instead, ask him to tell you a story about a time he did something good for someone else. Listen, and then ask him to tell you another one.”
What Lakoff asserts is that empathy is the antidote to conservative thought.
Even by stimulating a memory of empathy, you can help activate empathy in the brain. Through repetition, this can help change people for the better.
—Gil Duran
Not So Funny
Yesterday a young woman wanted me to see a YouTube video she considered hilarious. In the video a person trying to call their dog was hit (and luckily not hurt) by an oncoming car. When the impact happened, I felt the tear-ducts at the corners of my eyes spring open. I felt as if tears flew out of my eyes. The feeling was so real that I checked my face to see if I were crying.
I was entirely at cross purposes with the situation—I witnessed something horrible and others were laughing. My body told me to cry.
One important emotion was missing on the part of my young friend, and that emotion was empathy.
Turns out, now we need empathy more than ever. Why? Because we are watching conservative thought creeping up on us.
How Empathy Works
Years ago a fan sent me a copy of an article by Joel Achenbach that appeared in The Washington Post. Achenbach was interested in why people still read long-form narrative when it competes against minimalist forms such as mobile phone novels, Twitter posts, or flash essays.
Story isn't just cultural, Achenbach said. It's biological. "Narrative isn't merely a technique for communicating; it's how we make sense of the world."
Then Achenbach explained.
As babies we are concerned with our own immediate needs and wants. Around age four we develop something called "theory of mind," when we begin to understand that other people have feelings and thoughts too. This development allows us to feel the emotions of and imagine the thoughts of others. We can learn. We can get inside another's head. We can empathize.
And we do.
It's a giant leap, from our own world into another's. In the gap between our psyche and another’s psyche is the place where stories are born and live and never die. Hearing their stories, we have sympathy for the other—for Anne Frank, Huckleberry Finn, George Washington Carver, Harriet Tubman, Laura Ingalls Wilder, Abraham Lincoln, Varina Davis, Kurt Vonnegut, the Lorax.
What we learn from others informs our own lives, our own world.
When we empathize with the other, we think well of them.
When we empathize, we feel common ground with them.
When we empathize, we want another’s life to go well.
When we empathize, we want to help another.
May I Suggest
One way for progressive, world-change, better-world writers to address the Trump/Vance presidency is to focus relentlessly on empathy. Collect stories of empathy. Converse about empathy. Write stories of empathy. Remind people of stories of empathy. Empathize. Tell about your own empathy.
Forget facts. Forget statistics.
Write from the heart and let your writing be an arrow of love that pierces another’s heart.
Rebuild the world through story.
Writing Prompt
Tell about a time you did something good for someone else.
or
Write about a time someone else did something good for another.
Journal The Way Forward
JOURNALING SCHOOL | REBUILD is a 5-week journaling mini-course I am offering online. Sessions will take place from 5-6 pm Eastern Time on Sundays starting Jan. 2025.
HOW TO REGISTER
Registration is via Eventbrite, and the link is here. You set the price you want to pay.
WHAT YOU GET
Turn your confusion over the national election into greater clarity and a path for moving forward. Join with others who are struggling to understand. Get more clear on your role.
You get 5 sessions. The Zoom link is the same for all. Pay once by registering here, come to all 5 sessions.
Choose how much you pay. Journaling School is by donation.
ONE-HOUR FOCUS
Every Sunday afternoon for five weeks during January and February 2025 I offer you a space to process your emotions on current events, the state of democracy, and the future, as well as envision the world and the life we want.
These are the popular Sunday Sessions, 1 hour on Sunday evening devoted to you and your journal. Many of the exercises are directed toward self-exploration, inspiration, and personal evolution.
When you sign up, you're signing up for all 5 sessions, although that's not clear on Eventbrite. Jan. 12, 2025 is the first session.
The Zoom link you receive will be the same for all 5 sessions.
DATES
Jan. 12
Jan. 19
Jan. 26
Feb. 9
Feb. 16.
There will be no session on Feb. 2.
Remember, you can come for one session or all five. Register once & keep the link & show up every Sunday evening for 5 weeks if you can. Pay what you can afford.
WHY DO IT
The best part is that you get an hour set aside in your busy life to process ideas and feelings, let your creativity flow, and maintain a centering practice. Every exercise can be funneled into whatever larger project you are working on.
The second best part is that a lot of us are doing it together.
The third is that you determine the price you pay. These journaling sessions are completely by donation, based on the class's value to you. Pay what you can.
The fourth is that amazing work always comes out of these sessions.
The fifth is that people in this community are unbelievably creative, and that rubs off.
Show up Sunday afternoons at 5 pm Eastern Time for an hour directed toward your emotional wellbeing, toward greater clarity, toward peace, and toward a place of hopefulness and action.
DETAILS
Each session will have a general topic—Courage, Liberty, Lovingkindness, and Future, for example.
HOW WE SPEND OUR TIME
The hour consists of
flow-writes
journaling exercises
tiny PowerPoint presentations
short meditations
breathing
readings
visioning.
This is not a time for sharing. This is a powerful hour that you use for yourself, with me as your guide. You will be welcome to turn off your video. The level of participation is your decision, and participation is always optional.
THE VIBE
Loving, inclusive, upbeat, and hopeful.
WHAT YOU NEED
You will need your journal and your sharpened pencils. Bring your colored pencils or pens if you own some. That's it. A quiet space would be nice for you, but not necessary, and a cup of tea might work wonders.
RECORDINGS
Yes. Recordings will be available afterward, so no worries about missing a session.
MY BIOGRAPHY
Janisse Ray is a writer and author of many books about the community of life. These include Ecology of a Cracker Childhood, The Seed Underground, and Wild Spectacle. Her Substack, Trackless Wild, has over 5K subscribers and her essays have appeared in more than 40 anthologies, most recently Solastalgia: An Anthology of Emotion in a Disappearing World (edited by Paul Bogard). She is a national speaker on issues of environmental wholeness and a better world. She lives on an organic farm in the south where she's passionate about trees, books, and exploration of the self.
COMMUNITY GUIDELINES
We honor the inherent dignity and beauty of all persons regardless of identity, nationality, ethnicity, belief, age, or any other divides. We agree to create a safe, inclusive, and welcoming space for all. We especially welcome members of historically underserved or excluded communities, understanding that in order to end the fragmentation of the earth's systems, we need every voice of every person to be as elevated and functional and unencumbered by oppressions as humanly possible. This is a safe space where all are welcome.
Note: This course does not in any way substitute for or replace counseling with a certified mental health coach or therapist.
As always, you write the wisdom we need. When I was a young person in my 20s, I moved away from home, and becoming aware of the world (and reading books!), I went through a painful process from a deeply conservative person to a progressive person. It all started with my love of nature and sense of stewardship, which came from my little country church upbringing. I went through a phase of pulling away from my family-of-origin because I had the desire to convert them to my new way of thinking and they wanted to bring me back into their fold. I had the impulse that we see so much of today of "cutting people out." I've come to believe that, except in extreme cases, it's possible to honor one's own boundaries, yet be in relationship. That cutting people out is often not the answer- for me anyway, I just can't. Over the years I've learned that people are complicated (duh!), despite what social media tells us; that people who think intolerable thoughts and can even be abusive, are also capable of the deepest empathy and love. And we can find common ground there. ...I could write a book on this (I think I am writing a book about this actually, ha!). Yes, those of us writers and artists in a position to do so can appeal to people's better angels.
Janisse, I love this. I love the idea of focusing on empathy as a way to go forward, and I love the way you have reminded us about the importance of story for evoking empathy and building human relationships.