(17/?) I'm not quite sure what else I need at this point, but I would encourage anyone looking to plug into #activism against rising #fascism right now to think both about what you can contribute and about your needs. This is a fight against #Trump and #ElonMusk and their #coup attempt, but this is also a fight against #oppression that has been going on in the US for far longer than Trump and Musk and their ilk. We need to build a #left that is sustainable, that can care for people, and that offer alternatives to the #fascist dystopia we unfortunately seem to be entering. There are lessons we can learn from the fight against the previous Trump administration.

We also have to meet people where they are. If we're #BurntOut and exhausted, lecturing us to care won't change that. We have to accept that as part of our organizing and build that into our work.

(15/?) Another thing I need is for #leftist to start taking #covid19 seriously again. If you expect me to show up in the streets and risk my life again, the very least you can do is #WearAMask. Yes, I still might get #covid from the cops or #fascists or just random people who don't realize that #CovidIsNotOver, but comrades shouldn't be spreading #covid19 to each other. #BirdFlu is another #pandemic waiting to happen, and regular #flu is surging right now. "We keep us safe" can't just be a nice protest chant. We have to actually do things to help keep each other safe. The #left has been failing here for years now, but we can start taking little actions to protect each other again

(14/?) What I also needed while doing #leftist #activism during the first #Trump term was #EmotionalLabor. I needed cheerleaders. I needed people who could support me emotionally and provide validation and encouragement. I was surrounded by people who were constantly telling me I wasn't enough--that whatever I was doing, it wasn't radical enough or leftist enough or effective enough. I watched people who had been in the #progressive movement for longer than I'd been alive get driven out and treated like garbage over petty infighting. I needed people who would accept and care for me, exactly as I was, without demanding I be something else. I needed people who I could trust. I needed to not feel so alone.

If you know an #activist on the #left right now, offer to listen, deeply listen, to what they're going through. Be a space of affirmation for them. It might also help

(12/?) I was talking with a friend about some of these issues, and she also pointed out to me that part of why #activists are so exhausted is that we've been protesting, to the point of risking our reputations, jobs, health, and even lives, for a long time and haven't seen any change. The #BlackLivesMatter uprisings were quashed and Biden increased police department funding. The backlash to the protests calling for a #CeasefireInGaza has been swift and punitive. A lot of people feel like protesting isn't effective, and that's a conversation that's been happening on the #left for a while now. A lot of people are looking for other ways to foster change

(11/?) As to how we allow for that #rest on the #left and try to take care of our #activists so we don't #BurnOut, I don't have easy answers. I think #MutualAid needs to be part of the answer, but I don't think it's the whole answer. I think consciously and authentically committing ourselves to #care and #compassion is part of the answer, but I don't think it's the whole answer. I think building movements where people can safely ask for what they need and authentically be themselves is part of the answer, but it's not the whole answer. I think the whole answer is, perhaps, something we haven't tried yet, something we haven't quite hit on. If we could find it, though, I think it would be very powerful. And I think trying is worth it. I think we must try because the consequences of not trying -- #fascism, a #coup, #oppression -- are too high for us not to try

(8/?) First, I think we have to understand why things went so wrong for so many #leftist groups in the past and why so many movements that opposed the first #Trump administration weren't sustainable.

I think that's a combination of the toxic culture and of the mindset of many of these groups.

And there's something about that toxic culture. I didn't notice it at the time, but after a 4-year break from Trump, I can see it now more clearly. It's fear. It's fight-or-flight. It's my brain switching into a kind of black-and-white survival mode where I am now assessing everyone, everywhere as potential enemies or friends. I have been very quick to judge people since the inauguration, and I feel like I'm constantly scanning everyone for signs of a potential threat.

I can't be the only one who feels this way

(5/?) At this point, I am only interested in mobilizing with a group able to acknowledge and work with this kind of #trauma that so many #activists on the #left have experienced. And I haven't really found groups that can hold space for that kind of experience. I don't know how we build the kinds of groups needed to hold that space, and ironically, I am too tired and traumatized to try to organize such a group. But I do know that even after a 4-year break from #Trump, I still find a lot of #activism to be triggering.

Also, like many people in the US, I don't have much of a support system. There aren't really people in my life I can rely on. So whatever #activist groups I might be part of, I'm giving to them on top of trying to take care of myself and work a full-time job and take care of people in my life who need me.

We're all stretched too thin already, is what I'm saying

(4/?) After I departed the #toxic #leftist #activist group, I floated around to other groups and saw, perhaps less outright toxicity and infighting, but similar cycles of groups using people up, burning people out, and then replacing them with new people.

This is not only an unsustainable organizing model, but it's cruel. It is mirroring the #disposability mindset of #capitalism in which people have no inherent worth but are instead only valuable in what they can produce. It is not a model that values #care, #compassion, or #community. And yet I see it over and over and over again in so many groups that claim to be on the #left or #progressive.

If you want to know why people are tired, it's because we're past the point of #BurnOut. I wasn't burned out when I stopped doing #activism--I was #traumatized. I had burned out and kept going until I physically could not and I'm still recovering.

(3/?) What other reasons are people too tired to rise up and resist a #coup? For me, personally, it's the #trauma I'm still coping with from the first #Trump administration. Specifically, for me, the trauma that hurt the most wasn't the pain inflicted upon people by the #fascists. I expected that. The pain that cut so deep it created a wound that won't heal came from the #left. It came from the cutthroat infighting between so-called "comrades" and #leftists. It came from "I'm more left than you" posturing, accusing everyone who didn't exactly agree with them of being cops, and being ready, at a moment's notice, to ostracize and harass anyone they didn't like. There was a lot of toxicity in the left during the first Trump admin, and I ended up leaving an #activist group I'd literally given my blood, sweat, and tears to because it felt like an abusive relationship.