1. It happened too long ago.

2. Who would even qualify?

3. It’s a nice idea, but it’s not realistic.

The truth is that, as a country, we have already paid reparations for

1. Historical atrocities that happened many decades ago, whose legacies still occur.

2. Populations with complex and controversial eligibility criteria.

3. It’s so realistic that we have already done it!

The United States Government has paid reparations more than twenty separate times, using every tool available: acts of Congress, claims commissions, treaties, and executive action.

Our country actually does know how to do this. We have the statutes, the administrative machinery, the eligibility frameworks, and the appropriations. We have done it for Japanese Americans, for Alaska Natives, for uranium miners, for Filipino veterans, for the men of the Tuskegee syphilis study, and for hundreds of thousands of Native landowners.

We have simply never done it at the federal level for the descendants of the people this country enslaved — the highest crime our country has actually ever committed.

That’s not a gap in capability, it’s a specific choice not to do for Black people with regard to slavery what we’ve done for other populations for other harms. Once you see the receipts laid out end to end, it becomes very hard to unsee.

Reparations for slavery are inevitable for the future wellbeing of all of us who make up the United States of America. The question is how much longer we will collectively suffer while we wait — because no one is free until everyone is free — and the lack of repair hurts every single one of us, no matter our color (see James Baldwin, Audre Lorde, Fannie Lou Hamer, Martin Luther King, Jr. who were all very clear on this point of our collective liberation).

Shout out to Dorothy A. Brown and her book Getting to Reparations: How Building a Different America Requires a Reckoning with our Past, which lit a fire under me about this topic.

The receipts: examples of reparations paid by the U.S. Government for harm caused or enabled by the U.S. Government:

Japanese American incarceration — about $1.6 billion. In 1988, Congress passed the Civil Liberties Act and Ronald Reagan signed it. Every surviving person incarcerated under Executive Order 9066 received $20,000 and a formal presidential apology. 82,219 people were paid. The path was almost boringly procedural: Congress created a commission, the commission held hearings in twenty cities and heard from more than 750 witnesses, it issued a report titled Personal Justice Denied, and Congress legislated. Study, then apology, then cash.

That is the exact sequence H.R. 40 has been asking for since 1989.

Black farmers — about $2.3 billion. This is the one to lead with when someone tells you it all happened too long ago. Pigford v. Glickman and its successor compensated Black farmers for the USDA systematically denying them loans and then burying their complaints between 1981 and 1996. The federal government has already paid Black Americans reparations for racial discrimination on a much smaller scale than the discriminatory crime of enabling slavery.

Native trust mismanagement — $3.4 billion. Cobell v. Salazar, ratified by Congress in 2010, for a century of the Interior Department mishandling money owed to hundreds of thousands of individual Native landowners.

Radiation exposure — more than $2.6 billion. Downwinders, uranium workers, and test-site participants have been compensated since 1990 under a no-fault program. Congress didn’t make claimants prove negligence. It simply accepted responsibility.

And it keeps going:

• Nearly $1 billion and forty-four million acres to Alaska Natives, in the largest land-claims settlement in American history (1971).

• $818 million through the Indian Claims Commission — a dedicated federal reparations tribunal that operated for thirty-two years across 176 tribes and bands.

• Up to $760 million to Native American farmers for the same USDA discrimination (Keepseagle, 2010), and $1.33 billion made available to Hispanic and women farmers on top of that.

• $226 million to Filipino World War II veterans, redressing benefits stripped from them in 1946 — paid out sixty-three years later.

• $81.5 million to three Maine tribes, including money to buy back land (1980).

• $34 million to the Chamorro people of Guam — signed in 2016, which is to say recently.

• $10 million plus lifetime medical care and a presidential apology to the men of the Tuskegee syphilis study.

• About $5.4 million plus community trusts to Unangax̂ (Aleut) survivors forcibly relocated during World War II — paid under the very same 1988 statute as Japanese American redress.

In terms of administrative possibility, look no further than the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund: roughly $7 billion to 5,560 families, with a Special Master, an eligibility framework, and a claims process, all built from scratch and moving money within months. The machinery exists and we have used it repeatedly.

A note on states and cities: there is real, important work happening below the federal level — Rosewood, Florida (1994) was the first time an American legislature paid Black citizens for racial violence; Chicago paid survivors of police torture in 2015; Evanston, Illinois became the first city to actually pay individuals for housing discrimination in 2021 (which Trump’s DOJ is now suing to shut down); Palm Springs paid $5.9 million in 2024 to families it burned out of the Section 14 neighborhood; Los Angeles County returned Bruce’s Beach to the Bruce family; and North Carolina, Virginia, and California have all compensated victims of forced sterilization. That work matters enormously and I’ll write about it, but it is not and never will be a substitute for federal action.

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But, there is one time when the American Government cut checks connected to American slavery…

In April 1862, Congress passed the District of Columbia Compensated Emancipation Act. Abraham Lincoln signed it. It freed roughly 2,989 enslaved people in Washington, D.C.

It paid the slaveholders. Up to $300 for each person they had to release. Nine hundred and thirty petitions were approved. Somewhere north of $900,000 went out.

The people who had been enslaved received nothing — unless they agreed to leave the country, in which case the government offered $100 to help them emigrate.

Reparations for slavery isn’t unprecedented at all. We already ran the program. We just sent the money to the wrong side of the ledger.

Three years later came the other half of the story. In January 1865, Special Field Order No. 15 set aside four hundred thousand acres for roughly forty thousand freed people — the promise that became “forty acres and a mule.” Within months, President Andrew Johnson reversed it and handed the land back to former Confederates.

Reparations for slavery were the official policy of the United States for about eight months. Then they were revoked, and they have never been restored.

That is why the bill is numbered H.R. 40.

It is precedented, doable, and necessary.

The federal government has paid reparations for wartime incarceration, for stolen land, for broken treaties, for medical experimentation, for radiation poisoning, for benefits stripped from veterans, and for lending discrimination against Black farmers in the 1990s.

The objection was never really “it can’t be done.” We’ve done it in dozens of forms. The objection is about who is owed and for what — and that is a question about political will, not feasibility.

Every argument against reparations for the descendants of American slavery would have applied just as neatly to every case above. It was too long ago. The recordkeeping is too hard. It’s too expensive. It’ll be divisive. We did it anyway, over and over, and the republic survived.

It is completely precedented, completely doable, and completely necessary.

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This is the first issue of the Reparations One-Stop. If you know someone who says reparations are unrealistic, forward them this one. The receipts do the arguing.

— Stacy

In that vein, I just read the book Die with Zero: Getting All You Can From Your Money and Your Life by Bill Perkins, and I can’t stop thinking about it.

https://diewithzerobook.com/

The overarching question it inspired me to think about is: What am I optimizing for? In this one wild and precious life, what am I actually solving for? Am I solving for experiences? Or for meeting cultural norms and expectations? For being “the best” at miscellaneous life things like my Enneagram number 3 says? For making an impact? And/or what combination of these?

Am I living my life with any intentionality with regard to what I’m solving for? Or am I just a culturally-programmed zombie wandering through it? (The answer is both - but I’m working on getting more intentional!).

[Note: This book is geared toward people who are not living paycheck-to-paycheck, and was written by someone with astronomically more wealth than I have - or anyone I know has! I still think there are a LOT of ways to apply the lessons, but if you are distracted by his level of wealth and privilege, or if you are living paycheck to paycheck, it may be a “yuck” and not a “yes” for you].

I had Claude help generate some questions specific to me about the book. The underlined ones are the ones that really blew my mind. Sharing here in case any of these are helpful to you and your journey.

Would LOVE to discuss the book/concepts with you if you are as interested as I am!

1. The Big Picture — Am I Actually Living?

• If I died six months from now, what would I most regret not doing?

• What experience have I been “saving for later” that I could realistically do this year?

• Am I optimizing for a future version of my life that may never arrive, at the cost of the life I have right now?

• What would my 80-year-old self wish I had done during this exact season of my life?

• If money weren’t a factor at all, how would next month look different from this one?

• Am I accumulating money faster than I’m accumulating memories?

• What’s the most alive I’ve felt in the last year, and why haven’t I done more of that?

• When I picture myself at the end of my life, what stories do I want to be able to tell?

• Am I living according to my own values, or am I living according to what I think I should be doing?

• What would I do differently if I treated my time as my most non-renewable resource?

2. Time Buckets — Am I Doing the Right Things at the Right Time?

• What can I do at my current age and health level that I literally won’t be able to do in 10 years?

• Which experiences require my kids to be the ages they are right now?

• What adventures require a level of physical energy I might not always have?

• Am I front-loading the physically demanding experiences, or am I assuming I’ll “get to them eventually”?

• What would I put in my 40s time bucket that doesn’t belong in my 50s or 60s?

• Are there relationships in my life that have a limited window — people I could connect with now who won’t be around forever?

• What experiences have already expired that I wish I’d prioritized?

• Am I planning my life in decades, or am I just drifting year to year?

• What does the 6-year-old and 7-year-old version of my kids need from me that the 15-year-old version won’t?

• What does my body allow me to do today that I’m taking for granted?

3. Memory Dividends — Am I Investing in Experiences That Pay Out Over Time?

• Which experiences from my past still bring me joy when I think about them — and what do they have in common?

• Am I creating enough “first times” — new places, new skills, new challenges — or am I mostly repeating what’s comfortable?

• What experience would give me the most stories to tell, the most growth, and the most lasting happiness per dollar spent?

• What’s a small experience I could have this week that would create an outsized memory?

• What traditions am I building that my children will carry forward?

• When was the last time I did something that genuinely surprised me?

• Am I investing in experiences that compound — ones that open the door to even richer ones later?

• What shared experience could I have with someone I love this month that we’d both remember for years?

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4. Money and Spending — Am I Using Money as a Tool for Living?

• What am I saving money for, specifically — and is that reason real, or is it fear?

• Am I spending money on things that bring me fleeting comfort but no lasting joy?

• What experience have I avoided because of cost that I could actually afford if I were honest about my finances?

• If I calculated the memory dividend per dollar, what would be the best investment I could make right now?

• Am I confusing financial security with financial hoarding?

• What would change if I gave myself a dedicated annual “experience budget” that I was required to spend?

• Am I spending on status symbols that don’t actually make my life richer?

• What’s the cheapest experience that’s brought me the most happiness?

• Would I rather have $5,000 more in savings or a week in another country with my family?

• Am I using money to buy time — or am I trading time to buy things I don’t need?

5. Kids and Family — Am I Maximizing the Time I Have With the People I Love Most?

• What does each of my kids love doing right now that they might outgrow soon?

• Am I present enough during the ordinary moments, or am I only showing up for the big events?

• What one-on-one tradition could I start with each child this year?

• What do I want my kids to remember about their childhood when they’re 30?

• Am I modeling a life of joy and purpose, or a life of obligation and exhaustion?

• What stories from my own life have I not yet shared with my kids?

• How am I nurturing my relationship with my 25-year-old as a fellow adult, not just as a parent?

• What experience could I share with all three of my kids — across their different ages — that would bond them to each other?

• Am I teaching my kids to value experiences over things, or am I accidentally teaching the opposite?

• What would my kids say is their favorite thing we do together — and am I doing it enough?

• If my little ones leave for college in 11-13 years, how many summers is that? Am I treating each one as precious?

• What spiritual or philosophical ideas do I want to pass on, and am I finding ways to live them out together rather than just talk about them?

6. Partnership — Am I Investing in the Relationship That Anchors Everything?

• When was the last time Scott and I did something together that was purely for fun — no logistics, no kids, no work?

• What adventure have we been talking about that we keep pushing off?

• Are we building shared memories at the same rate we’re building shared responsibilities?

• What did we love doing together before kids — and is any of that still accessible?

• As Scott builds his consulting firm and I experience retirement Part I are we making space to dream together about what this new season looks like?

• What experience would feel like a reset for us — a reminder of who we are outside of parenting and work?

• Are we carving out enough space for spontaneity, or has everything become scheduled?

• What would a “golden year” look like for us as a couple — and what would need to be true to make it happen?

7. Purpose and Legacy — Am I Building Something That Matters?

• What is the work only I can do — and am I doing it?

• If I had five more years of peak energy and influence, what would I pour it into?

• Am I spending my time in alignment with my deepest values — Black liberation, anti-racism, anti-authoritarianism — or am I settling for proximity to those values?

• What would it look like to lead from a place of abundance rather than scarcity?

• Who am I mentoring, and who is mentoring me?

• What do I want people to say about my impact when I’m gone?

• Am I building something that will outlast me, or am I spending all my energy on things that end when I stop?

• What does the intersection of eastern philosophy and social justice look like as a life’s work — and am I living inside that intersection?

• After a decade leading WLA, what wisdom do I carry that the world still needs — and how am I sharing it?

• What would I do if I weren’t afraid of failing?

8. Health and Energy — Am I Protecting My Ability to Experience Life?

• Am I taking care of my body as if it’s the vehicle that carries me to every future experience — or am I neglecting it?

• What am I doing today to make sure I’m physically capable of adventure in my 60s and 70s?

• Am I sleeping, eating, and moving in ways that give me energy for the life I want?

• What health habit, if I started now, would pay the biggest dividends in 20 years?

• Am I managing stress, or is stress managing me?

• When was the last time I felt truly rested — not just “caught up,” but restored?

• Is my spiritual practice nourishing me, or has it become another obligation?

• What would it look like to treat my health as the foundation of every experience I want to have?

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9. Generosity and Giving — Am I Sharing While It Matters Most?

• If I’m going to give money, time, or resources away, when will they have the most impact — now or after I’m gone?

• Am I giving to causes and people while I can see the impact, or am I hoarding generosity for a future that isn’t guaranteed?

• What could I give my kids now — financially, experientially, educationally — that would be more valuable than an inheritance later?

• Who in my community could benefit from what I know, and am I making myself available?

• Am I giving in ways that align with my values around Black liberation and justice, or am I giving out of guilt or habit?

• What would radical generosity look like in my current season of life?

• If I wrote a “giving plan” for the next decade, what would be on it?

10. Fear, Risk, and the Unlived Life — What Am I Avoiding?

• What am I not doing because I’m afraid of judgment?

• What risk feels scary but exciting — the kind of thing I’d be proud of myself for trying, regardless of the outcome?

• Am I using “responsibility” as a shield against living more boldly?

• What would I attempt if I knew I couldn’t fail?

• What’s the cost of not taking the leap — in regret, in stagnation, in what-ifs?

• Is there a version of my life I keep imagining but never acting on? What’s one step toward it?

• What story am I telling myself about why “now isn’t the right time” — and is it true?

• Am I more afraid of failing or of never having tried?

• What’s the worst that could realistically happen if I pursued the thing I most want — and could I survive that?

• What has fear already cost me that I can’t get back?

11. The Endgame — Am I Prepared to Look Back Without Regret?

• If I imagine myself at 85, looking back, what would make me say “I lived fully”?

• Am I on track to die with zero regrets, or am I accumulating them?

• What would I need to do in the next five years to feel at peace with my life if it ended suddenly?

• Am I spending my days on things that will matter to me at the end, or things that feel urgent but aren’t important?

• Have I told the people I love what they mean to me — not just in passing, but in ways they’ll carry?

• Am I living a life that honors the ancestors and the future at the same time?

• What does a good death look like to me — and am I building the life that leads there?

Are there any questions that changed the way you are thinking about the rest of your life? Reach out and let’s connect and talk about it!

Not what would a wise mentor tell you. Not what does the culture say, or what does your mother expect, or what would look good from the outside. What would you tell the person you love most in this world if she were standing right where you are standing, carrying exactly what you are carrying or weighing the exact same decision?

I think about how differently most of us treat ourselves compared to how we treat the people we care about. When a dear friend is struggling, we show up with patience and compassion and clarity. We tell her that she is enough, that she deserves good things, that her feelings make sense, that she should trust what she already knows to be true. We say all of this without hesitation, without condition. And then we go home and spend the next three hours mentally tearing ourselves apart for the exact same situation we just offered her so much grace over.

It is one of the stranger contradictions of being human. We contain so much wisdom and so much love, and we direct almost all of it outward.

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The inner voice we’ve learned to ignore

Most of us came up being taught, in one way or another, that our own inner voice was not entirely trustworthy. Maybe it was a parent who told us that what we wanted wasn’t realistic, or this culture that values performance and productivity over intuition and rest (when neither of those is inherently better! Think about that!). Maybe it was just the accumulated weight of everyone else’s opinions, piling up over years until our own knowing got buried underneath it all.

Over time, a lot of us learned to outsource our understanding of ourselves. We check with other people before we trust what we feel. We run our instincts through the filter of what’s reasonable, or what’s responsible, or what will be understood by the people around us. And by the time we’re done filtering, we’ve often talked ourselves right out of the thing we knew from the beginning.

I have a friend who is one of the most thoughtful, perceptive people I know. She has a career she has worked hard to build, and by every external measure, things look good. But for a while now, she has had this quiet, persistent feeling that she needs to slow down. She wants to be home more. She wants to be truly present with her kids in a way that her current pace doesn’t really allow. Her inner voice has been telling her this clearly and consistently, and she has been pushing it aside.

Not because she doesn’t hear it. She hears it fine. She pushes it aside because of the story she has been telling herself about what listening would mean. What would people think? What about the money?!?

(Boy oh boy, the things our culture tells us about money! Try out all these beliefs, none of which are inherently true. Which ones have you fully internalized? All of them? 1) we must always make more money than we did before; 2) if we aren’t making money, something is wrong with us; 3) our savings always has to be going up instead of down; 4) we can only retire at the end of our life (when we might be dead anyway!)

What would it say about her ambition, her identity, all the years she has put into building her professional life? Will she ever get a good job again afterward?! The inner voice speaks and the fear answers back, and for a long time the fear has been winning, as it tends to do when we don’t look directly at it and face it.

When she told me all of this, I asked her something. I said: what would you tell your sister if your sister came to you with this exact feeling? What would you tell your daughter?

She got very quiet. And then, without any hesitation at all, she said: I’d tell her to listen to herself and quit the job… immediately.

She already knew. She had known the whole time. The wisdom was right there, fully formed, just waiting for her to turn it toward herself instead of away from it.

Why you can see so clearly when it’s for someone else

There’s a reason we can give such clear, loving advice when someone we care about is struggling, and such muddled, fearful advice to ourselves. It is not because we’re wiser about other people’s lives than our own, it’s because when we’re thinking about someone we love, we are not afraid. We are not managing our own ego, protecting our sense of identity, our fear of being wrong, or looking foolish, or stepping out of the story we’ve told about who we are. We are just focused on what is actually true and what is actually good for this person.

When we turn that same question inward, the noise rushes back. The fear, the conditioning, the voice that sounds like responsibility but is often just anxiety wearing a sensible outfit. We stop listening to what we know and start performing what we think will be acceptable.

The practice of asking “what would I tell my best friend?” works because it lets you step outside all of that for just a moment. It gives you access to your own wisdom by routing it through love instead of fear. You already have the answer. You almost always do. The question just helps you hear it.

This is not about ignoring the hard stuff

I want to be clear that this practice is not about bypassing real considerations or making impulsive choices and calling it self-compassion. When you think about what you’d tell someone you love, you don’t tell her to throw caution to the wind and go with chaos and disaster. You think carefully, and take the real concerns seriously. You bring both your heart and your head to the conversation.

But you do not bully her or speak to her the way so many of us speak to ourselves, with contempt and impatience and a relentless sense of not enough. You hold her with tenderness while you think it through together. You trust her capacity to figure it out. You remind her that she has navigated hard things before and she will navigate this one too.

Try it next time you face a sticky decision for yourself

The next time you are facing something difficult and you notice that the fear is louder than your own knowing, try this:

• Find a quiet moment and let yourself settle. Bring to mind someone you love completely and without condition. Your best friend. Your mother. Your child. Whoever that person is for you, someone whose wellbeing you would protect without question.

• Now put them in your situation exactly. Same circumstances, same stakes, same feelings pulling in different directions. And listen for what rises in you when you think of them there.

  • What do you want for them? What do you already know, when you’re looking at this through the eyes of love rather than fear? What would you tell them, clearly and without hesitation?

• Write it down if you can. And then sit with what it means that this is the advice you have been withholding from yourself.

Your inner voice is not the problem. For most of us, it has rarely been the problem. The problem is that we were never really taught to trust it, and so we learned to dress our fear up as wisdom and follow that instead. But your own knowing is still there, patient and steady, waiting for you to stop treating everyone else’s voice as more authoritative than your own.

You already know what you’d tell her. Now tell yourself.

And this morning, the White House defended it.

I am not going to mince words. I am not going to couch this in careful political language or offer “both sides.” This is absolutely disgusting white supremacist hate. This is a crime. This is grounds for impeachment. And if we allow this to be absorbed into the endless scroll of outrage and then forgotten by Monday, we will have surrendered something we cannot get back.

This Is Not a Meme. This Is Dehumanization with a Body Count.

The comparison of Black people to apes is not a joke. It is not an “internet meme.” It is one of the oldest and most violent tools of white supremacy in human history. It was the pseudoscientific foundation for chattel slavery. It was printed on postcards next to photographs of lynchings. It was weaponized to argue that Black people were subhuman, that they did not deserve freedom, that they did not deserve to live.

When the President of the United States invokes that imagery against the first Black president and First Lady, he is not being edgy or provocative. He is reaching into a centuries-deep well of racial terror and pulling that poison into the present. He is telling every Black person in America — every Black child — that the most powerful man in the world sees them as less than human.

And this has consequences. After Trump’s previous attacks on President Obama — including accusing him of “treason” and posting an AI-generated video of his arrest — the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism documented a surge in death threats against Obama. In 2023, after Trump posted what prosecutors say was Obama’s home address on Truth Social, a man with guns and hundreds of rounds of ammunition was arrested near the Obama residence. He had written online: “We got these losers surrounded.”

This is not abstract. This is stochastic terrorism. The president dehumanizes, and his followers act.

This Is a Crime. Here Is the Law.

I want to be very clear: what happened last night is not just morally reprehensible. There are federal and state criminal statutes that directly address this conduct, and prosecutors at both levels have the authority and the obligation to act.

Congress and Prosecutors - Here are the Relevant Federal Criminal Statutes

18 U.S.C. § 245 — Violent Interference with Federally Protected Rights. This statute prohibits using force, intimidation, or threats to interfere with a person’s participation in federally protected activities — including political speech and public participation — because of their race, color, religion, or national origin. The systematic, escalating campaign of dehumanization against President Obama — the birther conspiracy, the AI arrest video, the treason accusations, and now the ape imagery — constitutes a pattern of racially motivated intimidation directed at a public figure exercising his constitutionally protected rights. Prosecutors have used this statute in cases involving cross burnings, noose hangings, and racially motivated home invasions. The principle is the same.

18 U.S.C. § 249 — The Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act. This is the nation’s primary hate crime statute. It criminalizes willfully causing or attempting to cause bodily injury because of a person’s actual or perceived race. While the statute currently requires bodily injury, the documented pattern of death threats and armed confrontations that follow Trump’s anti-Obama posts establishes a direct causal chain between the president’s conduct and physical danger to the Obamas. Federal prosecutors should investigate whether this pattern rises to the level of attempted bodily injury through incitement.

47 U.S.C. § 223 — Federal Cyberstalking and Harassment. This statute prohibits using electronic communications to harass or threaten specific individuals. Trump’s conduct toward President Obama is not a single post — it is a sustained, escalating campaign of racially motivated harassment across multiple platforms over many months, including AI-generated depictions of arrest and imprisonment, accusations of treason, posting of his home address, calls for military tribunals, and now depicting him and his wife as subhuman. This is textbook cyberstalking.

State and District Criminal Statutes

D.C. Code § 22-3701 et seq. — D.C. Bias-Related Crime Act. The Obamas reside in Washington, D.C. The District’s bias-related crimes act covers acts that demonstrate prejudice based on race, including threats, intimidation, and harassment. D.C.’s statute is broader than many federal statutes and does not require bodily injury. The D.C. Attorney General has independent authority to investigate and prosecute this conduct — and should do so immediately.

A Call to Prosecutors

The United States Department of Justice and the D.C. Attorney General must open investigations into the president’s conduct. I am under no illusion about the current DOJ’s willingness to act against the man who appointed them. But the law is the law, and the failure to enforce it is itself a statement — a statement that the dehumanization of Black people by the most powerful person in the country is acceptable. State and local prosecutors have shown courage when federal authorities would not. This is one of those moments.

Trump Is Not Immune From Prosecution for This

Let me anticipate the argument that will be made: that the Supreme Court’s 2024 decision in Trump v. United States shields the president from accountability. It does not — not for this.

The Court’s decision recognized broad immunity for “official acts” — actions taken within the scope of a president’s constitutional duties. But the Court was equally clear that unofficial conduct receives no immunity whatsoever.

Posting a racist AI-generated video depicting a former president and his wife as apes is not an official act of the presidency. It is not within the outer perimeter of presidential duty. It is not related to any constitutional function, any policy objective, any governmental purpose. It is the personal act of a private citizen who happens to hold public office, using a private social media platform he personally owns to broadcast racist content.

There is no colorable argument that the Constitution requires — or even permits — a president to dehumanize citizens based on their race as part of his official duties. The immunity doctrine does not apply, and any court that took this question seriously would reach the same conclusion.

Moreover, the D.C. Bias-Related Crime Act operates at the local level, where presidential immunity arguments carry even less weight. State and local prosecutors are not bound by the same separation-of-powers concerns that complicate federal prosecution of a sitting president.

Congress Should Act Now - This Is Impeachable

The Constitution provides that a president may be impeached for “high Crimes and Misdemeanors.” The framers understood this phrase to encompass not just statutory crimes, but abuses of power and conduct that fundamentally undermines the office and the republic.

What happened last night is both.

It is a statutory crime — or at minimum, conduct that falls squarely within the scope of multiple criminal statutes. And it is an abuse of the office so profound, so degrading to the dignity of the presidency and the nation, that the framers would have recognized it instantly as grounds for removal.

A president who uses his platform to broadcast that Black Americans are subhuman has violated his oath to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution” — a Constitution whose Fourteenth Amendment guarantees equal protection under the law and whose Thirteenth Amendment abolished the very system of dehumanization this imagery was designed to sustain.

Members of Congress — every single one of them — must be asked: Is this acceptable? Is this the presidency? Is this America?

If the answer is no, there is only one constitutional remedy: impeachment.

Do Not Let This Be Normalized

I know what will happen if we let it. By this afternoon, there will be a new outrage. By tomorrow, the algorithm will have moved on. By next week, this will be folded into the long list of things we’ve absorbed and accepted and survived.

That is exactly what they are counting on.

Every time we absorb something like this without consequence, the floor drops. Every time we say “well, that’s Trump” and keep scrolling, we are participating in the normalization of white supremacy at the highest level of American government. We are telling our children — our Black children, all our children — that this is just how it is.

It does not have to be how it is.

We have laws. We have a Constitution. We have a mechanism — impeachment — designed precisely for this moment. And we have our voices, our communities, our movements, and our refusal to accept the unacceptable.

I spent the last decade fighting for educational equity, for the belief that every child — every child — deserves to be seen exactly as they are - fully human, fully capable, fully worthy of dignity and investment. I co-founded a school built on that belief. I have watched young peoples’ lives change when people in power acknowledge their complete and full humanity.

And I watched the President of the United States tell those same children last night that the most accomplished Black family in American history is less than human.

No. Enough.

This is not a meme. This is not politics. This is the dehumanization of our Black brothers and sisters by the person who swore an oath to protect them. This is a crime against the dignity of every American.

This is not who we are. And if it is not who we are, then we must act like it.

Demand impeachment. Demand prosecution. Demand accountability. And do not stop until you get it.

This is not America. Not the one we are building. Not the one our children deserve.

The response from many has been swift and correct: outrage, horror, demands for accountability. Influencers are posting, media outlets are covering it, and people who rarely talk about immigration and/or American State-sponsored violence are talking about it now.

Good! Be outraged and stay outraged.

But I need white people, and particularly white influencers and media figures, to do something that may make you uncomfortable as you cover this story, as you post about it, as you demand justice for Renee Good:

Remember who else this happens to and has happened to for hundreds of years in America, and name them, too, in all demands for something better.

Because here’s what I know: This type of violence - unprompted, without pretext, state agents forcing their way into someone’s space and killing them - happens to Black and brown people in America all the time. Not occasionally. Not rarely. All the time.

I don’t know if people actually realize the fundamental truth - George Flloyd murder moments really do happen in America all the time. His murder went viral because it was a particular moment in the pandemic when people had the capacity to pay attention, and to physically express outrage. Before George Flloyd and after George Flloyd, there have been thousands of others that fall under the collective radar.

Breonna Taylor was murdered in her bed by police executing a no-knock warrant. She was 26 years old.

Atatiana Jefferson was murdered through her bedroom window by a police officer responding to a wellness check. She was 28 years old. Her eight year old nephew was in the room with her.

Botham Jean was murdered in his own apartment by an off-duty police officer who claimed she thought it was her home. He was 26 years old.

Amir Locke was murdered by police executing a no-knock warrant while he slept on his cousin’s couch. He was 22 years old.

I could keep going. The list is very long and it is devastating and most of America has learned to continue with their lives anyway.

So yes, be outraged about Renee Good. Absolutely be outraged. Demand investigations. Demand accountability. Demand that ICE be abolished. Demand that no agent of the state should have the power to shoot someone through their car window and kill them without consequence.

But please remember all the Black and brown people who came before her, and include them, too.

State-sponsored violence IS the American norm for Black and brown people. It’s just that we have allowed it to become so normalized that in most cases it happens without even making the news.

What I’m Not Saying

I’m also not saying this is all the same, that ICE violence and police violence are identical, that Renee Good’s murder is exactly like Breonna Taylor’s. The specifics matter. The systems matter. The particular machinery of violence matters.

What I’m saying is this: The mechanism is the same. Armed agents of the state. Killing people who posed no threat. Facing no consequences. And a public that has been trained, over and over, to find reasons why this was somehow justified, somehow the victim’s fault, somehow not worth sustained outrage.

Let’s make this time different - let’s make Renee Good’s murder the catalyst for universal care and concern about all state-sponsored violence. Let’s include our Black and brown neighbors’ deaths in our outrage indefinitely, and let’s demand better for all of us, always.

What Should Happen Now

This should radicalize all of us against ALL state violence. Not just the state violence that finally reached people who look like us or live in our neighborhoods. All of it.

If you’re outraged that ICE agents can kill someone in her car, you should be equally outraged that police officers can do the same thing and have been doing it for generations.

If you believe no agent should have the power to kill without consequence, that belief can’t stop at ICE. It has to extend to every form of state violence, every militarized agency, every system that gives some people the legal authority to end other people’s lives.

What is Coming

And here’s the thing we need to really internalize: It’s going to get worse for everyone. What’s happening to immigrants now, what’s been happening to Black and brown people for centuries - the Trump administration is expanding it, emboldening it, celebrating it. They’re not hiding it anymore. They’re proud of it.

So the question isn’t “do we care now that it’s happening to people we identify with?” The question is: Are we ready to fight for the end of American State-sponsored violence in all its forms?

What This Requires

This requires white people, and particularly white people with platforms, to do something you’re not used to doing: Every single time you post about Renee Good, every single time you demand justice for her, name the Black and brown people who have been murdered the same way.

Not as an afterthought. Not as a footnote. Not as a defensive “I care about everyone equally” disclaimer.

As the context. As the pattern. As the proof that this is not an aberration but an escalation of how America operates.

Say: “Renee Good was murdered by ICE the same way our Black and brown neighbors have been murdered by police.”

Say: “This is what state violence looks like, and it’s been happening to Black communities for generations. We have to stop it all, once and for all, right now.”

Say: “I should have been this outraged all along. This situation helps me feel what they must have felt like all along.”

And then - and this is crucial - match that outrage with action that addresses ALL of it. Not just the violence that scares you personally. All of it.

Support abolition movements. Support organizers who have been fighting police violence for years. Support the groups who have been sounding the alarm about ICE since long before you felt personally threatened. Put your money, your platform, your body on the line for the people who’ve been experiencing this violence all along. If for no other reason, do it because you can see now that it is coming for all of us during the Trump Administration.

What I’m Asking

If you have a platform, use it to connect these dots. Don’t just report on Renee Good’s murder in isolation. Don’t let people treat it as a shocking one-off. Name it for what it is - an escalation of State-sponsored violence by a new arm of the State toward a new population. Demand systemic change, not just individual accountability.

If you’re organizing, make sure your organizing centers the people who’ve been targeted longest. The abolitionist movements, the Black-led resistance, the immigrant justice groups who’ve been doing this work for decades - they know what we’re up against. They know how to fight it. Follow their lead.

If you’re scared, that’s so reasonable. Use that fear. Let it push you toward solidarity instead of self-protection. Let it make you braver, not more defensive. Let it mobilize you toward non-violent resistance until we replace this authoritarian regime with one grounded in empathy, morality, and love.

Because the only way we survive this is together. The only way we dismantle these systems is by refusing to let them divide us. The only way we get free is if all of us get free.

Renee Good should be alive. Breonna Taylor should be alive. Atatiana Jefferson should be alive. Botham Jean should be alive. Amir Locke should be alive.

They’re not, because we’ve built a country where armed agents of the state can kill people in their homes and in their cars and generally face no consequences.

That has to end. Not just for the people each of us personally identify with. For everyone.

The work to end State-sponsored violence started a long time ago, but if you’re just joining, we need you. We’ve always needed you, and we are happy you are here.

If you want to do something to help right this very moment, please donate to Harriet’s Wildest Dreams, an abolition organization doing amazing work here in Washington, DC.

We’re all in this together.

In solidarity,

Stacy

This weekend, nine of us stood outside the Chantilly ICE facility dressed in ridiculous inflatable costumes, dancing for an hour and a half. It looked absurd because it was absurd, just like the totally absurd behavior of our government right now when it comes to immigration.

Most Americans, across party lines, are comfortable with the idea that undocumented immigrants who commit serious harm like assault, robbery, or endangering others, should 1) be removed from the country via 2) a reasonable and humane process. When Donald Trump campaigned on mass deportations of criminals, many took him at his word, and also assumed that, in doing so, surely we would remain a nation that understood proportionality, humanity, and due process.

Instead, Trump has authorized the indiscriminate shoving of non-criminal non-white minors, mothers, and more into unmarked vans, taking them to unknown locations, and deporting them to countries unknown to them with zero due process. WHAT?! This is totally ABSURD.

• It is absurd that representatives of the U.S. government are arresting people based on race—deciding someone “looks undocumented” because they are brown or not speaking English at the moment.

• It is absurd that masked men are shoving human beings into unmarked vehicles and taking them to undisclosed locations.

• It is absurd that families are having to wait for days or weeks to figure out where their loved ones are because the government is not updating its own basic systems.

• It is absurd that the United States is deporting people from Latin America to jails in entirely different countries or even continents - places where they have zero connection.

• It is absurd that the government is deporting people from around the world to a notorious El Salvadoran prison where the expectation is that no one, literally no one, ever comes out alive.

• It is absurd that our President is openly glorifying inhumanity.

This is not border policy. This is not national security. This is not “law and order.” This is state violence - racialized, chaotic, and proudly inhumane.

And so, to highlight the absurdity of the America in which we find ourselves, we aimed to protest in an absurd manner. We dressed up in inflatables as a unicorn, chicken, giraffe, wolf, pokemon ball, and more, and danced outside of the Chantilly ICE facility.

We danced with the hope that the absurdity of our reality will once again become absurd instead of our reality.

We danced because joy is resistance in the face of such horror.

We danced because silence is consent - and joyful dancing outside of ICE is about as loudly non-consenting as we could think to get.

Our immediate demands are incredibly simple and yet still not happening:

• Basic humane conditions for the people who are detained - food, water, basic safety.

• The ability for detainees to contact… literally anyone.

But our longer-term intention is to fight to bring back the America we know - one where everything that is happening with regard to immigration policy right now is universally known to be totally absurd, and is therefore no longer at all acceptable.

Until the absurd isn’t our reality anymore, we will be out there on a regular basis being absurd. DM us to come join us.

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This is from the protest we did before the inflatable protest - a dance party with lots of sequins and bubbles… absurd!

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TL:DR: We’re up for a 10-20 year period of American fascism and social and economic collapse, but there ARE things we can do! Scroll to the end for those.

Democracy is based on norms and trust and each branch executing on its role in accordance with the Constitution. The legislative and judicial branches have almost completely abdicated their roles. As long as Trump is president, there is no foreseeable way for them to claw power back that they have already given up.

I, like most humans, dislike uncertainty. The current political situation creates an unbelievable amount of uncertainty. Layer on top of that the inevitable AI explosion we’re facing in the next few short years, and the incoming climate change disaster (timing less clear on that one) and you’ve got a trifecta of doomsday scenarios merging into one. There’s no sugarcoating this nightmare.

So what happens next? America’s fascist age.

Most likely, if we continue to follow the current trajectory, Trump behaves like all fascists behave, and the U.S. descends deeper into a darker and more dangerous period of fascism. Over the next decade, the U.S. begins to look much like every other authoritarian nation in the world:

• Federal law enforcement presence in cities across the U.S. is the norm.

• Eventually protests are curbed with violence from this federal law enforcement.

• Whistleblowers and dissidents go to jail. It starts with people like Bolton and moves down the line to leaders of organizations, institutions, or attorneys who have defied Trump.

• Eventually, there are no more public protests. Instead, dissenting activity has to be totally underground.

• The media is controlled, and dissenting voices are silenced, discredited, and/or jailed.

• Education is re-written to reflect the fascist ideology. Violators are jailed.

• The economy is re-structured to benefit the ruling elite and suppress any opposition.

• The concentration camps that Trump has already created are filled with populations beyond the immigrants currently housed there (and people continue to disappear in vans). Trump most likely moves on to add otherwise unhoused American citizens, then maybe Black and Brown criminals (with the removal of any/ all due process as we know it), and eventually dissidents of any kind.

People are adaptable. The majority of us will simply adapt - just as we already have. We walk around the law enforcement on the sidewalk. We spend a few minutes viewing videos of immigrants being shoved into vans bound for El Salvador or Uganda, and then we get back to cooking dinner for our families, and planning the next child’s birthday party.

We might have imagined living in Hitler’s Germany or Putin’s Russia or Xi’s China would look and feel wildly different from the America we knew last year, but now we know that we mostly adapt to the new reality each day and our lives go on. (Isn’t it strange?).

“But what about the elections? All we have to do is wait until [insert ‘26 or ‘28 here]!”

There is no scenario in which elections (‘26 or ‘28) will save us from this for several reasons:

1. There is no scenario in which Trump allows us to have free and fair elections.

   1. He has already appointed an election denier to a top position in election protection in the U.S.!

   2. He will flood blue/ Democratic states and jurisdictions with law enforcement officers to scare people away from the polls.

   3. He will use the $5 billion in corrupt dollars and bitcoin that he has grifted during his Presidency to date to buy whatever seats he needs to win and/or flood the zone with enough lies to tip the balance.

   4. He will flood the zone with lies to scare people from going to the polls.

   5. His friend Putin will continue to help him with bomb threats or whatever other cybercrime he needs on election day (see last election).

   6. He will just straight up cheat. He will find a way to straight-up rig the election.

   7. No one will call him on any of this because they will continue to behave just like they are right now - Congress is too afraid or too busy grifting to stop it and same with the judiciary.

2. Even if Democrats somehow did win Congress in ‘26 via an actual election, they can’t/ won’t do anything with it.

   1. Evidence: they’re not doing a thing right now.

   2. Trump won’t care about subpoenas and investigations. He will just delay, ignore, distract, invade another city, start a war, etc.

   3. They won’t have enough of the Senate to own the whole Congress.

   4. Even if Democrats had the entire Congress, Trump just won’t follow whatever laws, rules, investigations, etc. that they try.

   5. But he will never let it get there anyway. He will threaten their children and grandchildren first, and silence all of them accordingly.

3. There is no scenario in which Trump is not President in 2029 except that he has died (of natural causes because he is older than the age of life expectancy in the U.S.).

   1. He has already told us over and over and over that this is his plan.

   2. See above for how he will win/ rig any elections that are held.

   3. See above for how no one will stop him because why would they.

   4. He will start a war and indefinitely postpone the elections in 2028 if all else fails.

This is not special. All authoritarians do this. There is an easy playbook. He is good at following it in all of the other ways so far. There is no reason to believe he will suddenly not follow it when it comes to elections.

“But there has to be a way to stop it. It can’t be that far gone,” you may say.

There are two viable scenarios I can see that might slow the fascist onslaught we’re facing, but neither will be able to end or reverse it.

1. Trump dies (of natural causes because he is older than the age of life expectancy in the U.S.).

   1. Vance can’t hold a candle to Trump’s popularity and won’t even come close to wielding the level of power and influence Trump possesses.

   2. However, this would/ will be a very dark time for America, as well, because MAGA will not go quietly into the night. There will be some period of turmoil and chaos, but eventually an adult could come into the room and start following systems and norms to some degree (because they won’t have the same level of power/ ability not to) and some of Congress and the judiciary would find their spinal cords again.

2. The Democratic Governors save us (great article here).

   1. Our last hope is that the Democratic Governors align, unify, make a comprehensive strategy, and execute on it perfectly.

   2. The governors need to withhold tax money, create a list of demands, threaten soft- and hard- succession, and otherwise refuse to obey.

   3. The Democratic Governors are the only people in the system who have any actual leverage left.

Assuming those two fail, what will America look like 10-20 years from now? (I tend to say ten because it hurts my soul less than 20 or more).

Scenario 1: The Total Social Collapse

This is the most likely scenario, where the trends we’ve been exploring continue to their logical and devastating conclusion. Trump (and/or his successors’) death leaves a power vacuum. The federal government, hollowed out and centralized around a single person, lacks the institutional strength to govern. Power devolves to regional strongmen which could include Governors, but also private militias, wealthy oligarchs, or even charismatic military figures. The country splinters into a patchwork of competing fiefdoms. Infrastructure collapses as there is no central authority to maintain it. There is generally chaos, crime, unemployment, and zero-sum- oriented destruction.

Scenario 2: The New Non-United States

This scenario looks like a world where the United States is no longer a single, unified entity. It's a collection of "separate silos," as one analysis has termed it, each with its own internal governance, economy, and even foreign policy. Some states might align with other global powers. For example, a "left coast" bloc might form closer ties with the European Union, while a "heartland" bloc operates as a de facto Christian nationalist state, and a "south-western" bloc might be a militarized border zone. Eventually there could be a return to some peace and prosperity as the smaller zones stabilize, but the period in between will certainly be chaotic and is likely to be bloody.

Scenario 3: The Awakening

This is the most optimistic, but also the most difficult, path. It would require a deep and painful reckoning. The death of Trump, or a very major misstep that shatters MAGA trust, could lead to a popular uprising against the fascist regime. But this wouldn't be a peaceful, orderly return to the past. It would likely involve violence, civil disobedience, and a fierce battle over the new political landscape. It would be a renaissance that is born out of fire. The new system might be more decentralized, with more power given to states and local communities, and a renewed emphasis on civic education and media literacy.

WHAT SHOULD MUST WE DO RIGHT NOW?

We can and we must understand how incredibly likely scenarios 1 and 2 are, and work relentlessly toward Scenario 3, even if it doesn’t come to pass for twenty years.

For the average person like me and you, there are many things that we can do! Do as many of these as you can. Remember - if you ever wondered what you would have done in Hitler’s Germany, wonder no more because you are doing it now.

• SUPPORT AND PUSH THE DEM GOVERNORS.

  • Because they are our last hope for any slowing of fascism in the short term, we must do everything we can to push the Democratic Governors to organize and hold the line against Trump.

  • Call them and leave them messages.

  • Send them money.

  • Talk about the possibility of the Democratic Governor Wall with everyone you know. Speak it into existence. Give them courage by giving them backing.

  • Keep pretending there will be a 2028 election so that the Governors think they are running for national office and behave accordingly against Trump.

• ORGANIZE EVERYONE, EVERYWHERE.

  • Join whatever resistance organizations you can find: Indivisible, FREE DC, MoveOn, etc.

  • Create networks and communities absolutely wherever you can. Make a whatsapp group for your street, for your neighborhood. Start discussions on it. Host a community potluck. Get to know as many people around you as possible and have as many connections as possible. If/ when the time for the uprising comes, this is how we’ll do it.

• PROTEST WHENEVER POSSIBLE.

  • If you are comfortable and feel safe, get in the streets whenever you can. Protesting achieves so many ends: continues to show that this is not normal; continues to show others that they are not alone in knowing this is not normal; showing Congress and the judges that we are still here, etc.

• HOLD THEM ACCOUNTABLE.

  • Take videos of anything/everything you see them doing. You never know which event will be the one that will finally tip more of the population away from the fascist nightmare and back toward normalcy and proper humanity. What if it’s the video that you took the time to take?

• TAKE CARE OF EACH OTHER.

  • Create and join mutual aid networks anywhere and everywhere. As we descend farther into fascism, we will need them more and more.

• SUPPORT THE FREE PRESS AND THE DISSENTERS.

  • Pay for news from dissenters if you can. My favorites: Miles Taylor, The Bulwark, Pod Save America, Anne Applebaum.

  • Spread news written/ produced by dissenters.

• TALK ABOUT THE CRIMINAL TRIALS.

  • Let’s openly fantasize about the day when we get to use due process and the justice system the way they were intended - to hold all of these leaders accountable for the crimes they have committed against our country and against humanity.

• TALK ABOUT THE AWAKENING.

  • When it’s time to rebuild our social, political, and economic system in a decade or two, what should we build? Let’s start thinking and planning now so that it’s something much, much better than what we had before.

• TALK GOOD CARE OF YOURSELF.

  • This is going to be long, sad, and awful. We’re going to lose a lot of institutions, norms, ideals, organizations, and even people that we love. We’re going to feel scared and unsafe, even moreso than before. Take good care of yourself when and how you can.

Sorry for all of the bad news, but we need to accept the reality we’re in sooner rather than later so that we can fight what we’re actually up against instead of pretending this is just a dark period in between a couple of elections.

In solidarity and hoping I’m incredibly wrong,

Stacy

1. PRESIDENT MUSK HAS STOLEN THE OFFICE FROM TRUMP

   1. Purpose - Create the conditions for Trump to get Musk out as soon as possible

   2. More follow-on talking points:

      1. Trump has no control of what Musk is doing

      2. Musk tweets Presidential decisions without consulting Trump

      3. Musk accessed the Treasury database without consulting Trump

      4. Musk shut down USAID without consulting Trump

2. TRUMP IS TRYING TO BE KING, NOT PRESIDENT OF OUR UNITED STATES

   1. Purpose - Explain in the simplest possible terms that he is breaking Democracy

   2. More follow-on talking points:

      1. Kings enrich themselves and leave everyone else behind - that's what he's doing

      2. Kings investigate and jail their enemies - that’s what he’s doing

      3. Kings fire everyone who disagrees - that’s what he’s doing

      4. Kings threaten people, even civilians, who disagree - that’s what he’s doing

      5. Kings hurt regular people and help their friends - that’s what he’s doing

      6. Kings arbitrarily create conflicts and chaos - that’s what he’s doing

      7. Kings think the rules apply to everyone else but not to them - that’s what he’s doing

3. TRUMP IS GETTING RICHER WHILE WE ALL GET POORER

   1. Purpose - Apparently people only care about their wallets, so talk about it

   2. More follow-on talking points:

      1. Trump hasn’t done a single thing since he has been elected to make eggs cheaper

      2. Trump has made eggs more expensive

      3. Trump has made everything more expensive

      4. Trump’s friends have all gotten billions richer while we can’t buy eggs!

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