I’d politely decline wedding invites for which the destination was inconvenient. Perhaps I’d ride horseback at some point. I’d limit my travels, carving out imaginary calendar blocks for the things that inevitably come up in life.

You know? Funerals. Baby showers. Harry Styles residencies in foreign lands.

Well, my tragic little ghost has been locked in a closet for the past nine months. And me? I’m existing in a state of near-constant frenzy.

Everything’s fine, really.

I’m here, there, everywhere, all at once… a different type of ghost, only one with zero boundaries and a hankering for a cigarette.

I remind myself it’s a futile effort to try and force the changing of seasons. But still I try to rip the leaves off the tree, one by one.

But no, I’m not in the restful harvest. Not in the reflective winter.

I’m in my late 20s and everyone is forgetting they’re Atheist and believing in marriage again, and I’m on fire.

Happy Summer!

I hold these tensions together: the desire to burn up but not to burn out.

I love having a full life and certainly would prefer it to the alternative, but there's a cost to it. Monetarily, but also to my personhood.

I’ve traded the soul-enriching benefits of self-attuned boredom for the soul-crushing airport security line. But, alas, I hear everyone’s going to Japan now, so to TSA I go.

Let’s make a deal, America. I’ll work on slowing down when you work on not being too much, too fast, and too Republican.

And Gen-Zer’s, maybe we can work on our late-capitalist malaise disguised as wanderlust, because really I’m not convinced the Japanese are happy with the influx of white folk. And maybe we can all collectively decide if marriage is oppressive or not.

So, have we got a deal? Or should I keep my ghost locked up a little longer?

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As it turned out, worshipping any man was too difficult for me. For a while, I compromised and started calling God she/they, summoning a figure that looked like 2000s Lady Gaga.

I could’ve been Conservative, because I’m white and blonde and somewhat conventionally attractive. My identity salad has all of the standard fix-ins.

All it took was the realization that hard work is fake and all that matters is money and—oh yeah—I kind of hate men.

Okaaay, I don’t hate men. I love a lot of men! My boyfriend and uncle and Obama. Maybe I just say I hate men as a proxy for hating things that are unfair. Because, really, men are graded on a gigantic curve.

They’re allowed to be unkempt and unserious and unapologetically selfish, and they get to stick their hands in their pants and straight into the communal popcorn. Maybe I want to do that too, but I can’t, because I’m a woman and I’m supposed to giggle like a fairy and pop more popcorn.

No, I don’t hate men. I hate unfairness.

As a child, it enraged me when my sister and I were recruited from the dinner table to clean up, snatching the men’s dirty forks as they savored their third slice of pie. I wanted a second or third slice too, but knew instinctively that my chromosomal package did not come with that privilege.

At church, I would look around as if I were being Punk’d when I’d hear that men were divinely chosen to be the heads of household. Most men I knew couldn’t be trusted to flip an egg unsupervised.

It all felt like an upside-down-world contradiction. The women I knew—matriarchs, strong-willed forces of nature—forced to steward the ideas of insecure men of millennia past.

The teachings of feminism later popped my ideological bubble, and in its place I found a framework that just made sense. Broke divorcees who had stayed home with their kids and ended up with nothing. Ex-husbands with hidden gambling addictions. Malala and the plight of young women fighting to get educated far, far away.

These warnings engendered a sense of paranoia in me, but also a steadfast commitment:

I would never be manipulated by a man, so help me God (she/they).

First step? Become financially literate.

Second step? Make as much money as possible; passions be damned.

Third step? Waaaay later on when I was near death, I would figure out what I actually wanted to do with my life and do it.

All of that sounds empowering, albeit depressing in the way that late-stage capitalism is, right?

“WRONG!”, according to one She-E-O who had all of her kids post-35 and now runs a multi-million-dollar organization.

No, I’m not referring to Sheryl Sandberg. I’m referring to Erika Kirk at the recent Turning Point USA Women’s Leadership Summit.

According to Kirk, modern feminism is a con that leaves women less happy, more lonely, and chronically unfulfilled.

The young women in the crowd nodded along as she spoke, their hair bows bouncing in unison.

Of course, I rejected these claims outright, but then began to wonder if my knee-jerk defensiveness exposed a grain of truth under the surface.

Have I been sending nature’s call to voicemail?

Have I innocently overcomplicated fulfillment?

Are all of life’s answers indeed waiting for me in a perfectly golden sourdough?

Just as quickly, I snapped out of that thought process when I remembered that I surround myself with the most feminist women imaginable and I never stop hearing about their fucking sourdough.

These women have long-term partners and husbands, some have kids, some are Christian. They crochet, cook, and garden. They are family-oriented, community-minded, and charitable. They’re great neighbors and citizens and aunts and mothers. They love children and non-racist old people.

But despite the fact that the feminist boogeyman created by the right is just a caricature, these Conservative White Women (CCWs) insist their lives are soooo much better without the chains of feminism.

So, because I’m tired of hearing this from female CEOs and women who purchased their passes for an anti-feminist summit with their own credit cards, let me share 5 ways in which feminism has unquestionably improved my life.

1. Feminism gives me autonomy

If there’s one thing I have to hand to the CCWs, I would guess that I’m more neurotic than them on average.

That’s because I try to make decisions from a place of alignment, rather than a framework that I don’t fit in. This has made my life more open-ended and thus, more confusing, but also more fulfilling as I know that my life is wholly mine—for better or for worse.

2. I’m less judgmental

Because I do not believe life choices are inherently good or bad, I don’t judge others (as much). I see less in black and white, and more in full-spectrum color.

3. I don’t view selflessness as a gendered obligation

I don’t think being selfish is good. I also don’t think selflessness is a feminine obligation.

I instinctually sense when I’m being more self-centered and I choose to invest in my friends, family, and community. I do this not to be a better woman, but to be less of an asshole.

4. My views on partnership are pretty simple

Within partnership, I keep it simple and expect equal division of all labor. There is no chromosomal trait for good vacuuming skills.

5. I am genuinely eyes wide open on the nuance of life decisions that are prescribed to women as the answer to everything

Women are told, implicitly and explicitly, that marriage and kids will fulfill them more than anything. I know the reality is more nuanced, and therefore am not waiting on marriage or kids to fill a void. And also, life just feels void-y sometimes, and I don’t deem that a problem for me or God (she/they) or future family to solve.

I could’ve been a Conservative woman. My life would probably be simpler and more painless. But feminism found me at just the right time and, while I may’ve over-indexed on it at times, I can’t imagine a reality without its benefits and protections, which also would be a reality in which I’m lobotomized and burnt at the stake.

Feminism has afforded me a life that is my own—one where I might feel unfulfilled, lonely, and unhappy on some days—but one in which I’m safer, more autonomous, and free than the women before me could’ve ever dreamt of.

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“How would you describe ‘the unknown’ in one word?”

DESTABILIZING-TO-THE-POINT-THAT-I’M-APPROACHING-100-HOURS-OF-THERAPY-AND-I’VE-TAKEN-UP-PERMANENT-RESIDENCY-IN-A-NEVERENDING-THOUGHT-SPIRAL.

TERRIFYING.

That was the prompt at my writing workshop yesterday, and my response was uncomplicated. We’ve been over this: I don’t like the unknown and I’m pissed off that the meaning of life is unanswerable, etc., et al.

Would you answer differently?

EXCITING? MYSTERIOUS? NEUTRAL?

(Btw - if you said exciting, please smash the Unsubscribe button at the bottom of this email)

As I wrote it, I began to feel the philosophical weight of the question and played the world’s tiniest violin for my internal struggles —

And then,

Without even realizing, I glanced again and had mindlessly scribbled another word:

“Hilarious.”

Hilarious?? How invalidating to my lived experience!

A demented madman has the nuclear football and I could be framed for a crime I didn’t commit and my cat is going to die in the next 15 years and colon cancer is on the rise amongst young people and what if my child is a furry and the husband I don’t have has already cheated and therefore I will die alone in a house of mortal cats.

That’s hilarious to you?

But no, there was no condescension in my scribble, but instead a recognition of the adorable irony. It was like I was viewing my cute little overheated human brain from above, and wrapping a cold towel around its neck.

“Hey, friend.” I whispered to it.

“You seem like you’re working really hard today. I’d like to suggest very gently that you’re actually living in a previously unknown reality right now. Ok, love you, bye.”

My brain was desperate to rattle off all of the ways that I was mistaken, but even she had to admit that I was right.

I am living in a Previously-Unknown-Now-Known (PUNK) reality right now.

I’ve graduated college. I’ve moved across the country. I’ve moved in with my boyfriend. I’ve adopted a pet.

Is it terrifying to occupy that PUNK? No, but I guess that’s just it: the PUNK is less terrifying because it’s now known. Better or worse, it’s not abstract.

This leads me to an official Livi Rae principle of life (see: philosophical ideas that have been known throughout human history but that I’m packaging as my own intellectual property)

Principle #1: we, humans, are really good at living in what is. But my cute little human brain insists that it, too, can be really really good at living in what isn’t. It cannot. :(

Unknown futures are scary because we project a permanence and binary nature to them that is just principally impossible.

1. We envision ourselves living in a 2D world collapsing in on itself under the weight of catastrophe, failure, regret, etc.

2. Or, we believe it’s going to be all one thing: an ER waiting room or a firework explosion of love and joy and promise.

What is the PUNK really like?

We can all look no further than ourselves to deliver an eye witness account.

What’s it like from where you’re sitting? On the other side of a new kid or a divorce or a death?

ER waiting room or firework explosion of love?

Neither? It’s complicated?

Cute little human brain do not comprehend.

For me, I’d say I’m Firework-leaning, like I’m leaking a dull stream of expired sparklers that could run out at any moment.

I guess it’s true that unknowns don’t exist anywhere but in our head. We’re never living in them, because the present is known and therefore usually not terrifying.

Unknowns are sepia tone and Knowns are full spectrum color.

So… “How would you describe ‘the unknown’ in one word?”

A-FICTIONAL-CONSTRUCT-DESIGNED-TO-GIVE-US-THE-ILLUSION-OF-CONTROL?

HILARIOUS

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It was to be a perfect day, because I was alone with 24 hours to myself in San Diego. But then, on cue, my brain began to pulsate like this:

Shiiit, it had escaped me that in my geriatric state—27, but chronically tired from fascism—I am only allowed a mere half-glass of non-sugary wine.

The night prior, though, I had gone a little WiLd at a hotel rooftop bar, featuring:

• one Prosecco so carbonated it tasted like TV static.

• one extra chilly Rose that gave me brain freeze.

• one hour perched at a corner table people-watching, interrupted only by the insecurity that I was starting to seem vaguely threatening.

So back into the Uber I went.

Oh, and this somehow ran me $55.00, for which I’m choosing to blame Gavin Newsome. No wonder all of the rich people are fleeing California, am I right?!

= 2 aspirin

My cranial collapse the morning after, though, picked the wrong girl. Because I had found a new pep in my step and, if I were to be hungover, then I would make like Zach Galifianakis and create a plot line out of it.

Because in San Diego, the possibilities were endless! Between the intermittent fearing for my life as a woman alone, I was determined to make the most of it.

Might I find a friendly seal to share lunch with? Might I taste the best frozen margarita I’ve ever had? Might I take a sunrise dip in the sparkling ocean and ride aboard a glistening dolphin to the neighboring islands?

Shit, 9am. Sunrise has come & gone, turns out the beach was unswimmable due to sewage runoff, and I remembered that seals are kind of dicks actually.

Frozen margarita, it is.

Solo travel is sometimes more fun conceptually. For one, there is literally no one to talk to, if you don’t like striking up conversation with strangers.

Really, solo travel is just an expensive personal branding exercise.

The mystique, the autonomy, the feminism of it all!

In actuality, it’s me charging my phone in a filthy public bathroom so I can FaceTime another living/breathing human. It’s Ubering 20 min to a park and back just to wander a rose garden for 5 min. It’s recording a voice memo in the Uber in case I get kidnapped and murdered and they need evidence. It’s barricading my door with a mini fridge. It’s looking up if my particular inn is haunted and then pleading with the ghosts/demons to spare me from possession. It’s eating a Cava bowl with my hands because no one’s there to see it. It’s forgetting to tip the housekeepers because my mom used to do that for me. I did cry at the beach after being humbled by the power of the ocean, though, so there’s that.

If you are an actual badass solo traveling woman, please just smile and nod. For example, if you’ve backpacked through Sri Lanka or something, keep it moving. It’s not that kinda rodeo here, partner.

I was in Coronado, to be exact. Filthy rich and suburban to the point that I probably could’ve walked around at 3 a.m. naked, with zero troubles.

But, six months ago or so, I spent some solo time in New York and suspected that being institutionalized was in my near future. So, a win is a win, as far as I’m concerned!

And what’s the lesson here, class??

For me, the lesson is that each experience can be fresh & new. I may have cursed solo travel a few months back, but now I just feel decidedly neutral and bored by it! I once had a panic attack camping and swore I would not do it again, and now I do it — begrudgingly — and only sometimes complain about sleeping on the ground!

Our perception, even about perception itself, is constantly changing. So we can just allow bad experiences to swim off like a glistening dolphin, making room for different and, maybe, better! Making room for the best frozen margarita you’ve ever had, or the lunch with a seal whose kind of a dick… all of which you will never get the chance to experience if you never try again.

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Can you blame me? A raving lunatic madman has the Nuclear Football and robots are threatening humanity’s existence. This is literally the Super Bowl for anyone who thinks the world is going to end.

This fear was first decided for me at a Christian Bible Camp, on a dark stormy night, as my elementary-aged peers and I huddled in an old white chapel. I remember thinking how eerie it was to be in the middle of nowhere like we were.

The sermon of the night was entitled, “I Fly Away”—an ode to the creepy hymn about the rapture. They told tales of Jesus flying in on a winged horse, slaying all nonbelievers, and ushering Christians off to a promised eternity of bliss with our (believing) friends and family.

I don’t know which genius thought this would be age-appropriate for a room of ten-year-olds but, nevertheless, it was a bone-chilling violation of my life plans.

What if I wanted to believe in Jesus, but didn’t want to fly away anytime soon? See, I was kinda looking forward to the kickball tournament and popsicles, and I’m still unclear on whether my cats are invited to this whole rapture thing…

Is it okay if I extend my earthly residence for a little bit longer or is it, like, rapture or eternal damnation?

Ok—the second one—gotcha.

Afterward, we all hustled back to our cabins, keeping one eye on the sky — certain we saw a winged horse or the shadow of a long-haired man in a skirt.

I barely slept that night, the pit growing in my stomach until its weight threatened to collapse on my — apparently, perfect Christian — bunkmate, who slumbered peacefully below me.

There were three distinct problems swirling in my brain, all competing for my urgent attention, which were as follows:

1. I wasn’t certain that my belief was enough and, thus, I could be subject to eternal damnation as soon as tonight, if the rapture happened.

2. If my belief were enough to be raptured, I wasn’t thrilled about that option either. In fact, the thought of ‘eternity’ started to enclose the walls of the cabin around me.

3. There was a secret third problem, which was the remote possibility that everything I’d been taught was complete bullshit, in which case, there was no point of being alive other than kickball and frozen Red Dye 40 on a stick?

My ten-year-old self had been exposed to age-old questions, which had been left unanswered by all previous generations, and would surely die with me too. Fantastic.

This was a real bummer as I prepared to transition to middle school, with my thoughts now under siege from existentialism (i.e., a real leap from One Direction).

Until then, I guess I had waltzed through childhood believing the mysteries of life were rather small and insignificant—like whether Miley would end up with Jesse or Jake, if Hannah Montana were real life.

Adults in my life were utterly useless, often repeating the cliche that I needed to “have faith in things I could not see”.

They made it sound so easy to stop caring that the biggest question in all of life was unanswerable!

So ever the dutiful student, I worked at answering it anyway — with prayers that I was certain I wasn’t doing right; with mechanically raising my hands in performative worship.

Later still, I was completely thrown by the prophecy of the world ending in 2012.

Seriously, the Mayans are a part of this now? How many different ancient groups with apocalyptic calendars do I need to keep track of?

I guess I was too young to know that humans have been predicting earth’s end since its beginning.

Nearly a decade later, I no longer feel the need to answer the unanswerable question, and it now feels like a massive waste of my precious time on earth. But I do have other questions that have snuck in the backdoor while I wasn’t looking, such as:

1. Is it worth it to instill fear in children if it leads to obedience?

2. Is it worth it to pretend you have the answer to life’s unanswerable question, simply as a means to control?

3. Can a belief system be fundamentally good if it requires some level of manipulation, and if it asks its followers to abandon their own natural humility and curiosity about the world?

I used to think the world was going to end any minute, and maybe I still do.

I used to think all questions had their answers, and maybe now I don’t.

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This was the question I asked, while out on a winter hike a few months ago with my partner and his parents.

They all piped up, almost in unison, in a chorus of “yes!”

I believe them, too. These are real salt of the earth people. The type of people who make you believe in love and the nuclear family and the American Dream.

When it was time for me to answer, though, I paused. This was a question of my making, but also one of my demise, because it unveils a character flaw that I work pretty hard to mask.

“Of course! The arc of the universe always bends toward progress!”

Ok, that’s what I wanted to say. But in earnest, I only believe that about 30% of the time so, being the heroic truth-teller that I am, I decided against it. But how could I divulge my secret pessimism?

“I’m a realist.”, was the answer I settled on.

Neutral, safe, less buzzkill-y.

Pessimism — or realism, depending on the day — dawned on me at a young age, right around the time I found out Santa wasn’t real and pregnancy was optional. And, I feared the more recent events of 2024 were a nail in the pessimist coffin. After all, hope and optimism are risky when so much of the population is this disappointing.

But since then, I’ve studied optimists like they’re extraterrestrial beings. How is it that they keep getting up and believing in better, brighter futures — when there is so much evidence to the contrary?

Sometimes I catch a glimpse of what they’re seeing, in the Artemis II mission and when I watch female Olympians and when Mayor Mamdani was elected and when my neighbor insists on helping me get my cat out of a tree.

But then I reorient to reality, all realist systems are a go, and I’m back to the very real conditions that are worsening. Climate change, poverty, the AI actors that are now being cast in Hollywood movies. Buzzzzkill.

The Optimists’ telling of the American story is technically true, in that things have gotten better over time. I don’t think many of us, especially the non-white-male “us”, would choose to time travel back to the 50s.

It’s also true that those of us who have been coming of age in the past decade have largely just been floating in a great black expanse of dystopian backlash.

Sure, there have been momentary shooting stars of progress. But America’s past, like gravity, just keeps pulling us down.

If there really is a universal arc of progress, it certainly doesn’t feel like we’ve been riding it. Yes, progress has occasionally pierced its way through the atmosphere, but it’s seemed to do so in spite of us all.

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I also reject the bumper-stickerfication of Hope, and its application as nothing more than an empty mantra. Hope itself is not a strategy, and it does not improve anything on its own.

But, while hope is not sufficient for progress, I must admit that it is a prerequisite. Optimists: 1.

Because if we don’t have Hope, then we might as well drift off in a lazy river of plastic straws, become obese, and binge post-apocalyptic Hulu shows.

I might get there; give me a few years and a JD Vance presidency. But, as I joined a volunteer call today for Julie Gonzalez — a progressive U.S. Senate candidate running to unseat John Hickenlooper here in Colorado— I must admit my internal stars were aligning (against my will) to something that resembled… optimism. These humans… they just keep getting back up!

One of my favorite summer traditions is sitting on the dock at my cabin watching the stars. Itching the constellation of mosquito bites forming on my ankle, cozying up under a checkered blanket that hasn’t been washed in a decade, mistaking satellites for airplanes. On the nights we’ve been most lucky, we’ve seen shooting stars every few minutes.

It’s always comforting to me that those stars exist always, everywhere, even when you’re in the city and can’t see them.

Most nights we don’t see any shooting stars at all. They are stubborn that way — gluing themselves to their own cosmic territory. But despite the irregularity of shooting stars, we still watch for them. We always keep hoping.

And so I guess we do the same for the betterment of our world.

We stubbornly wait for the shooting stars of progress. We prepare the way for them. We make sure we are in the right place to catch them.

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We, The People, are victims of collective abuse by our president.

Provocative? Yes. True? Unquestionably.

And by we, I mean The American Left — or, “the enemy within”, as our abuser so disparagingly calls us — but also the poor and sick and marginalized.

I don’t say this to trivialize physical or emotional abuse by partners or family members or anyone else. Abuse is a spectrum in its severity and impact, but it’s clear that our supposed leaders are exercising widespread abuse at the highest levels. Let’s consider the common features of abuse:

1. Criticism and belittling

2. Isolation

3. Gaslighting and reality distortion

4. Manipulation

5. Lack of accountability

Need I go on?

We are often made to feel hysterical and, even, dErAnGed for stating the obvious, but I think it’s past time for us to use the correct language to describe our reality. This craziness we feel is not a coincidence or overreaction; it is systemic and by design. We are completely and utterly trapped.

That’s why it often feels like we’re tangled in a fat spider’s web — our souls crushed while he feasts on our morals, humanity, and whatever else he can siphon from us.

This collective abuse is layered:

• Economic/financial: deliberate withholding of basic goods and services from the poorest among us

• Emotional: brazen threats, divide & conquer tactics, and malignant narcissism

  • See: the stability of our entire nation dying on the alter of his arrogance and petty grievances

• Sexual: multiple alleged but credible accusations that we are routinely demanded to ignore

• Physical: murdering 175 Iranian schoolgirls and two Minnesotan citizens and countless ICE detainees and who even knows who else?

They often tell you in therapy that the first step to moving forward, past hard memories and into a healthier future, is to speak truthfully about what you’ve experienced. They tell you to own what’s yours, and hold others accountable too. But on the national scale, we refuse to do so. We hide Racism behind The Economy’s door. We pretend Misogyny is just a side effect of Misunderstood Male Loneliness.

For some reason, we cannot seem to accept that a not insignificant portion of our country is hateful and that’s kind of all there is to it.

It’s true that we are collateral damage in an explosion of second-order effects: a working class left behind, a government bought by bad men with yachts, a far-right siege of our media, a black president, survivors who dared to say the words Me Too.

It’s also true that rich white men get violent when their power is questioned, and that a lot of men really hate women and kinda wouldn’t mind them dead, and a lot a lot of white folks really hate people of color.

Until we reckon with these uncomfortable truths as a nation, we will continue sailing off into fictional sunsets of progress — only to find ourselves here again, but next time with a President Fuentes. Shivers.

Another painful aspect of the abuse is that people we love, and have assumed to be good, don’t know about it… or know and don’t care, or don’t care to know, or know and don’t believe us. So when speaking truth about the situation, you also find yourself shining an uncomfortable light on their complicity. They don’t like that much usually.

But once we can accurately place where we are, we can work to get to a different place. Maybe, just maybe, a place that looks more like a functioning society and less like a candy shop for billionaires.

The brave people who escape abusive situations usually follow some version of these steps:

1. They go no-contact with their abuser.

   1. Unfortunately for us, our president is plastered on every TV screen and our phones are built to show us the things we hate most until we go insane.

2. They seek help.

3. They care for themselves; they find outlets of self-expression to move through their pain productively.

4. They find community.

   1. Remember: isolation is a tool of the oppressor.

In that state of boundaried, focused, community-organized homeostasis, we can imagine what better looks like. We can author futures that serve people over profits. We can think creatively and expansively about solutions to the pressing crises of our time.

Sounds dreamy, doesn’t it?

There’s only one problem: aggression tends to beget responses of its kind. In fact, this is also a tactic of the abuser. Living in nonstop vitriol doesn’t exactly inspire one to wake up and make the world a better place.

It’s a lot easier to wake up and resign to rage and nihilism and name-calling. I love that shit. It feels good to my human brain. And there are just so many names to be called, I can hardly find time in my schedule.

But, in a more grounded state, I recognize that this is the final demand of an abuser. They want you to lose your humanity and end up like them. So, if out of spite only, we will resist that urge. We will believe our eyes and ears. We will speak truth to power in ways big and small. We will help ourselves and others. We will build community. We can curse those morally-bankrupt Republicans each morning, but we must always return to our humanity by night. Or something like that.

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Me? I’ve been good… my summer plans are shaping up nicely and Harry Styles is really pushing himself artistically and … what was that? We are entering World War III?

That about sums up my internal dialogue lately, as if I’m preparing to audition for a role in Don’t Look Up 2.

I mean, I want to keep up with current events but, in an effort to clear my head and — I don’t know — enjoy my life before our imminent nuking, I have tapered my news consumption and, thus, lost sight of my Genderwashing subjects: Usha, Karoline, Kristi, Pam, and Katie.

You won’t be surprised to learn, though, that I haven’t missed much over the past few weeks. These women — the Bratz Dolls from Hell — continue to be predictably dreadful and endlessly boring.

I.e., if I wanted an anthropological study in toxic Republican women, I’d rather just rent my brain to the new season of The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives.

However, something happened on March 5th that stopped me dead in my tracks: Kristi Noem, Genderwasher in Chief, was fired. Of course, my first reaction was delight. After all, this woman oozes evil almost as much as she does migrated botox. And unless she’s sitting on another memoir in which she executes a kitten or duckling, her career is over.

See, she fell victim to the classic shortsightedness trap, like so many in Trump’s orbit. She sold every last principle, moral, and shred of her dignity down the river for her chance to ascend to power. But they all seem to forget the deal in the end.

Sure, you get momentary power but you must also pledge your allegiance to a Dementia-ridden egomaniac who will sic his supporters on you at the first whiff of disloyalty.

See: 0% of Trump 1.0 cabinet officials were reinstated in 2.0.

Trump dumping his staffers, though, is neither new nor inherently gendered. He literally got famous from those two words: “you’re fired”. Still, call it confirmation bias, but firing Noem felt a little on the nose for me — especially after one full year of, shockingly, retaining his entire cabinet.1

And the announcement itself was even more un-Trumpian. No laundry list of capital letter GRIEVANCES!!! He just quietly shipped her back to the Florida swamps from which so many of these creatures were spawned.

But what was the death blow in the curious case of Kristi Noem’s firing?

Some sources claim it was her .. ahem, loose appropriation of taxpayer funds. The $220M ad of her riding horseback.2 The $200M private jet. The $143M award to a contractor who doesn't have an HQ or website.3

Others claim it was her handling of Operation Metro Surge in Minneapolis, and the ICE executions that took place therein.

If you ask me, I would say that none of those things are remotely disqualifying to be a Trump official. In fact, they are prerequisites for the job.

Narcissism, violence, looting the public dollar for your own enrichment.

You’re hired.

No, I think it was the display of weakness in her Congressional hearing. Sure, she spit out the talking points of the regime, but she also ceded some crucial ground.

She backed down ever so slightly on calling Good and Pretti domestic terrorists. She insisted that her ICE troops had been following the fourth amendment.

Kristi, Kristi, Kristi… that may have worked in South Dakota, but not here. Not in the world of alternative facts. You’re supposed to reinforce the rules of the regime:

• You can call anyone a domestic terrorist with zero evidence

• The constitution only applies when it serves our particular project

To engage with these questions, then, with any nuance whatsoever is to actually disqualify yourself. Pam Bondi understood that in her hearing and, well, she still has her job. It’s all a game of power and optics, and Kristi failed to play it.

This will be the final installment of my Genderwashed series, because I’m ready to talk about good women, and there are so many. Women with ironclad conviction. Women who are leading the resistance with empathy and moral clarity.

But, make no mistake: Genderwashing is not reserved for the highest levels of leadership. Personally, I have many Genderwashers-in-training in my own life. Women who complain that feminism has gone too far. Women who wear their emotionally-detached logic like a gold star.

I don’t care that he said he grabs women by the pussy. I’m a serious adult who cares about foreign policy and rule of law!!

Well, forgive me for my estrogen-induced hysteria, but I don’t think it’s illogical for women to give the world’s largest middle finger to a party that openly hates us. But for whatever reason, these women will continue to do the bidding of the men who despise them.

I don’t understand these women, but I don’t think they understand themselves either. They probably never will.

So I’ll just be here, reminding them that the brave feminists before them fought for their right to have shitty opinions. They fought for their right to vote against their own interests. They fought for their right to suck at their jobs and, ultimately, to be swiftly discarded when powerful men decide their use has expired.

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A readership just shy of 100 people, many of which are friends and family. A top post with a whopping 12 likes. One subscriber lost last week after I called Pam Bondi an insufferable bitch.

(Sure, it wasn’t Pulitzer Prize winning journalism, but it’s endlessly cathartic to pound the B I T C H keys on my laptop.)

Where was I? Oh, right. My stagnant blog. In my defense, I’ve done many of the things that the smug successful Substackers say to do. You know, the secrets they package and sell in a $39.99 ebook? Well, I’m not buying your stupid ebook, but I’ve checked off the basics and have not expanded on the small (but engaged) readership I had before.

This grinds my high-achieving gears from time to time. I’m a business school grad, after all, and those habits die hard.

Upward charts fill my heart; lines going down make me frown.

But when my anti-capitalist-better-angels prevail, I find myself becoming something of an evangelist for the following concept: everyone should do something — creative project or otherwise — entirely for their enjoyment and nothing else.

I was recently reminded of this by one of the best athletes in the world: Alysa Liu. Ironically, her ascent to the top of the figure-skating world seemed to be in spite of her dedication to a particular outcome.

She remained completely relaxed throughout her Olympic journey, and mentioned several times in interviews that her only priority was to create art and leave her audience feeling an emotion, good or bad.

This lightness would (literally) propel her to new heights, as she soared through effortless jumps and spins. And ultimately, this landed her on top of the Olympic podium with a gold medal around her neck. Her competitors, who had been wracked with nerves and seriousness, would not achieve this same feat.

My weeks-long fixation with Liu got me thinking about what I could do—and then, what the world could do—if more of us operated this way. If more of us practiced de-centering the outcome of our work.

There would be more messy, half-baked ideas floating around in the world, but that means there would be more ideas. More incomplete art, but that means there would be more art. More imperfect action, but that means there would be more action.

Ideas. Art. Action. I don’t know about you, but I think our world desperately needs more of those things.

Even as I hold this belief, though, its application is not glamorous. Writing, for example, is less whimsical than its marketing would suggest. Detaching from the outcome of posting your innermost thoughts on the internet requires one to live in a state of perpetual ego death. It simultaneously takes the vulnerability of a newborn and the confidence of a drag queen.

The vulnerability, in particular, often jars me awake — as if I’ve awoken from a nightmare where I’m dialing 911 but the numbers have been replaced with Mandarin. In fact, that about perfectly sums up the experience of doing something for no defined outcome: your Ego is frantically calling 911 from inside a burning house, while Creativity/Passion/Soul lounges on a lawn chair out front, matches in hand.

In this way, working on something just for fun is a capsule for your human experience. It is undefined, nonlinear, and expansive in ways that hurt or heal depending on the day. So, I don’t care am working on not caring about the outcome of my creativity in a late-stage capitalist society, and you should too. Because the world does not need more perfection, power, or prestige. The world needs us to show up—imperfectly and honestly—with our ideas, art, and action. How’s that for the premise of a $39.99 ebook?

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Ladies and gentlemen, please give it up for Attorney General Pam Bondi.

I’ll admit: Bondi—who I will occasionally refer to as Pam—flew somewhat under my radar for the past year. It’s not because she wasn’t dreadful, but because I’ve been out-repulsed by the likes of Karoline Leavitt and Kristi Noem.

Well, all of that changed this past week, when Bondi testified in front of the House Judiciary Committee. Yes—she was depraved, incompetent, and downright nasty—but I’ve since learned she is so much more than that.

She is corruption, personified. She is a faithful keeper of elite power. She is a hypocrite of the highest order.

In other words, she is Trump’s perfect little pet lawyer.

Bondi’s Early Days

For brevity sake, I will spare you the details of her unremarkable upbringing. Let’s just say, her childhood was exactly as you’d imagine.

Tampa-raised, sorority sister, spoiled brat.

She was a prosecutor for many years, though, before becoming the first female attorney general of Florida on the heels of an endorsement from Sarah freaking Palin.1 Fitting.

Suffice to say, in her tenure as Florida AG, she did a lot of awful things (even by Florida standards):

• First, “she defended the state’s law banning same-sex marriage.”2

  • Note: ever the fierce warrior for the sanctity of marriage, she would later go on to divorce twice and maintain a perpetual situationship with John Wakefield.3

• She also bravely advocated for the rights of insurance companies to bankrupt cancer patients. No, really.

“In 2018, Bondi joined with 19 other Republican-led states in a lawsuit to overturn the ACA's bans on health insurance companies charging people with pre-existing conditions higher premiums or denying them coverage outright.”4

• And, perhaps most controversially, she dropped fraud charges against Trump University, after Trump’s family foundation donated $25,000 to her Political Action Committee (PAC) in 2013.5

It wasn’t all bad though. She also helped to stand up the Florida Statewide Council for… checks notes … oh, right … human. trafficking.6 What a pivot for her to later go on to run cover for the most prominent human trafficking ring in our nation’s history.

Hypocrite of the highest order, remember?

Little did Bondi know, though, that her time as Florida AG was actually an audition for the highest law office in the land, and she was destined for the role:

1. She had a clear orientation toward defending the powerful over everyday people.

2. She could easily be bought, for a relatively low cost of $25K.

3. She had zero issue lying through her teeth.

4. She was a textbook Genderwasher—toting her career woman prestige, human trafficking work, and prosecutorial efforts against sexual perpetrators.

Bondi’s Brief Detour

Bondi briefly detoured to become a corporate lobbyist, serving clients like Uber and Amazon, and then a lobbyist and registered foreign agent working (again) on anti-human trafficking efforts for Qatar (though I wouldn’t be surprised if this was a cover for something sus).7

Naturally, though, she returned home to the Mecca of elite corruption, when she became a Special Advisor for Trump during the 2019 Impeachment Proceedings.8 She’d go on to perpetuate the 2020 voter fraud conspiracies9—once again performing her brazen and undying loyalty to Trump.

But it was not for nothing, because on February 4, 2025, she would be confirmed as the 87th Attorney General of the United States.10 Her years-long audition had paid off. Scene.

Bondi’s Disastrous First Year

Now, here we find ourselves, a year into her term, and the entitlement and sheer incompetence with which Bondi’s DOJ operates is staggering.

See, despite claiming in her Senate Confirmation Hearings that she would “not politicize the office”11, she has swiftly turned the Justice Department into a Make a Wish foundation for political retribution and elite favors.

Leak highly classified war plans in a Signal chat? We’ll look the other way.

Lose your temper and execute an American citizen? Don’t worry, we’ll hide the evidence and investigate her widow instead.

Oh no, you’re part of an elite pedophile human trafficking ring? All good, we’ll just redact your name from the file and instead leak the names and nude photos of the victims!

12

And though she is failing miserably by the standards of most American people, Trump has basically pulled out the pom poms, posting on Truth Social that she was doing “a FANTASTIC JOB” with the handling of the Epstein files.13

He’s not wrong, though, because when it comes to following the Trump creed, she is doing a FANTASTIC JOB. That creed is simple: anyone in the elite club can commit crimes with impunity, but anyone who dares hold them accountable is actually committing a crime because they’re impeding the greatest President of all time and that’s kinda domestic terrorism and oh have you seen the Dow, by the way??

Beyond that, there is not one thread of principle holding the whole shitshow together. What might that thread be?

Certainly not respect for law enforcement, as she literally hired a man charged with assaulting cops on January 6th.14 Certainly not accountability, as she couldn’t look the Epstein survivors in the eye and explain why none of them have been able to get in touch with the DOJ.15 Certainly not fairness, as she’s gone after countless opponents of Trump with investigations that even Susie Wiles admitted were politically-motivated.16

In fact, Bondi was asked about one of these investigations into Brennan and 2016 Russian interference, and she simply stated “no one is above the law.”17

Pam, exactly how dumb do you think the American people are?

That is the extent of your current job description, and the only pathetic legacy you will leave on this earth: you protected the powerful and demonized the vulnerable. You defended perpetrators and attacked victims. You stood for nothing.

You were the perfect Genderwasher, through and through.

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Ever since New Year’s Eve in 2019, I now assume complete indifference regarding calendar events. After all, it was on that day that I was looking ahead to a semester abroad in Barcelona—only to find myself, on the following New Years, in my parent’s basement shoving an extra-long q-tip up my nostril.

So yeah, I’m a little jaded when it comes to grand proclamations. I no longer attempt to foreshadow events, and instead observe New Years only as a reminder to purchase my new planner and car insurance renewal.

So, why did I feel the need to get down on my “spiritual not religious” knees and pray for a shift in my next year of life? Well, simply put, it was as if my psyche was sore from straddling a divide.

On one side of that divide, a young and bubbly girl — bouncing out of bed for 8am pre-calc on nothing but last night’s Smirnoff Ice and a prayer. On the other, a woman I wanted to be but couldn’t quite become.

In the middle, a developmental purgatory in which I was a renter doing a black mold test in her shower, a young professional feigning competence, a retired partier whose cranium was cracking from one glass of house red.

As my feet were pulled further apart, one on either side of the divide, I desperately reached for both the girl and the woman, but found I couldn’t grasp either.

Neither girl nor woman — that was 26.

Although I’ve grown to meet calendar transitions with complete detachment—like a stuffy accountant—it does feel good to turn the page.

For example, I reveled in the opportunity to place 26 in a neat little suitcase and hurl it over the edge of the proverbial cliff. It didn’t matter anyway. Surely, it had exceeded the weight limit for my flight to 27.

As I watched the oversized suitcase plummet, though, it was decided: I was now in my late 20s. And I know, fellow 27 year-olds will insist we’re still mid, but I was done being mid. I wanted to escape to my late 20s for that very reason; I was weary of the perpetual “in-betweenness”.

I don’t think I’m alone in that. Us humans innately despise the in-between.

My 27 year old friend? Not old enough to be late 20s. Not young enough to be early 20s.

My 29 year old friend? Too old to be 20s. Too young to be 30s.

My 64 year old mom? Too old to be young. Too young to die.

So, yeah, we hate the in-between. What a shame, then, that we all find ourselves inescapably in-between our human experience.

But alas, I was ready to leap to the other side of the divide—giving the middle finger to the middle in my rear view.

Much to my dismay, though, I would find out soon after my forced landing that there was another great expanse ahead of me.

I seemed to have thought that repositioning myself on this age continuum would bring me cosmic confidence and clarity. Instead, I still would consider myself a child bride if I got married today, and I’m still halfway hospitalized from a house red. Go figure.

Uh-oh. What if life is just a chasm of not yet and too late and not enough and too much and you suck and you’re great and you’re too young and you’re old as shit?

Maybe I kinda liked that in-between, after all. There’s a comfort in placing all of your grievances at the feet of an imagined limitation.

Not happy with me? Take it up with “Mid-20s.” She’s a real bitch.

But in doing so, we give these periods—and the versions of ourselves who inhabit them—undue significance.

With the help of a new job and some other key life changes, 27 is feeling better already, but I’m under no illusion that it’ll stay that way.

Life will get better, and then it’ll get worse. I will get more confident, and then I’ll shrink in the face of a challenge I can’t yet imagine. Some days I’ll feel early, others I’ll feel late. Most, I’ll feel in-between.

If I’m lucky, though, I’ll begin catching on to the fact that—oh, yeah—I’m never going to arrive. That’s not really the point. The goal, then, should be to find peace existing in that reality.

A reality where I’m neither girl nor woman. A reality where I’m not splitting myself open straddling a divide, but having a picnic in its meadow.

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To illustrate this concept, I first profiled Katie Miller — wife of top presidential advisor Stephen Miller, a deeply ideological white nationalist.

As Trump once said, “Stephen, if you had it your way, everyone would look exactly like you.”

Well, Stephen, I hate to break it to you, but you might be the only person interested in a world full of people who look this tragic:

Where was I? Oh right, the Genderwashers. Well, I was planning to profile a different Genderwasher in each part, but then something funny happened: almost all of my profile subjects announced their pregnancies, in what Fox News is calling the White House Baby Boom.

And though I would love to brush off the simultaneous pregnancies of three key White House Women — Karoline Leavitt, Katie Miller, and Usha Vance — as nothing more than a family planning coincidence, that’s not how these women operate.

I believe they’ve devoted every last piece of themselves, uterus included, to furthering the aims of this regime.

So in Part Two, we will unpack how these pregnancies are being used as a pro-family PR campaign, at the very same time the regime is actively working against the American family.

First, a reality check:

Pregnancy, across the board, is becoming more dangerous and deadly for women. In fact, the US has the highest maternal mortality rate of any developed nation.1

The danger is worse in red states, but it is not contained there. It is also not contained to women seeking abortions. No, the data is clear: "women in states with abortion bans are nearly twice as likely to die from pregnancy-related causes as women in states with legal access.”2

Becoming a parent is also increasingly out of reach for most Americans, with the average annual cost of raising a small child at nearly $30K (up 35% since 2023).3

Please recall Trump’s response, though, when asked about his tariffs ballooning the price of children’s toys:

“I'm just saying they don't need to have 30 dolls. They can have three. They don't need to have 250 pencils. They can have five.”4

Well, I’m just saying, if there really is a War on Christmas, then Trump is Ebenezer Scrooge.

Our country’s social safety nets are pitiful, but that’s not the whole birth rate story. Countries like Norway, for example, have excellent social safety nets and have still seen a marked decline in their birth rate.5

And though the MAHA beef tallow brigade would love to do away with birth control, that doesn’t appear to be the cause either — as countries with limited contraception, like Iran, are also seeing a decline.6

Putting my Armchair Economist hat on for a second, I would implore these geniuses to consider the following:

• Some women don’t want children at all, or don’t want multiple. Is it supposed to be a bad thing for members of society to exercise preferences?

• The perceived birth rate crisis is mostly predicated on the fact that Social Security is a pyramid scheme — something the government could solve for via alternate funding sources.

• Maybe chastising pregnant women who take Tylenol and use formula and vaccines is not the right strategy for a supposedly pro-natalist movement. Just spitballing.

Still, the White House — under the thumbs of pronatalist billionaires like Elon Musk and Peter Thiel — are insisting that women should be having more babies.

Wants and needs and poorly-constructed programs, be damned.

And, in the pronatalist project, the Genderwashers’ commands are clear:

• Juxtapose yourselves against the villainous Childless Cat Lady Party

• Preach the divine calling of motherhood

• Perform shameless PR for the limited and inconsequential family policies enacted by Trump

• Proclaim how pRo FaMiLy the Trump White House work environment is

Case in point: we have Karoline Leavitt — a woman for whom my disdain knows no bounds — completing her regime assignment all in one cheugy Instagram post. Gold star!

Or — look no further than Katie Miller “out-Tradding” Karoline and Usha with this proclamation:

“I would have five, six, seven and eight (kids),” she said. “I think Stephen might cut me off at some point.”

Of course, she, too, couldn’t pass up the opportunity to suck up to Trump in her profile with MSN:

“On most nights, we (The Millers) embrace Trump’s Make America Healthy Again mantra and avoid processed sugar—dessert is strawberries, blueberries or cheese and olives”7

To that I say, these kids already have to live with you as their parents. Can they at least have some Red Dye 40?

And finally, we have Usha Vance — a woman who is most definitely lurking in an anti-JD Reddit thread — announcing her fourth pregnancy.

In typical Usha fashion, she has been less outspoken and political than her Genderwasher counterparts. Don’t worry, though, loyal lapdog JD Vance has her covered, claiming:

“When Usha and I were having the debate about the fourth kid, I said, ‘Honey, we’ve got the expanded child tax credit and we’ve got the Trump accounts, we’ve got to take advantage of this stuff.”8

Their announcement also comes on the heels of much speculation about their marriage.

So, are they having a baby to save their marriage — or the public perception of their marriage? Certainly wouldn’t put it past the VP who’s reporting to a man he previously called “America’s Hitler”.9

Yep. It’s alllll about preserving male power, and the Genderwashers are down for the cause.

But there’s a bigger picture question at hand: what have Republicans done to earn their spot on the Pro-Family pedestal, and how do we claim that spot that we rightfully deserve?

Sure, there are some indications that Republicans are having slightly more children than Democrats, but what does that really mean for these families’ quality of life?10

They may be the party of parents, but are they for parents? I would say, decisively, hell no.

In year one of Trump 2.0 alone, the regime:

• Cut SNAP benefits for poor children11

• Expanded Medicaid exclusion criteria as part of the OBB, putting coverage at risk for one in five (mostly poor and disabled) children12

• Funded the continued genocide of Palestinian women and children13

• “Booked about 3,800 minors into immigrant family detention from January to October 2025, including children as young as one and two years old.”14

• Froze federal funds for critical family public health measures, such as childhood cancer research, housing and food assistance, domestic violence and homeless shelters, and suicide hotlines15

I might be a Childless Cat Lady, but I’m sincerely pro-family — and that track record is not pro-family in the slightest — or, at least not pro working family.

And, might I also add that all 13 states providing mandatory statewide paid parental leave, are blue.16

In a way, though, the Genderwashing campaign here is a microcosm of the conservative ideology, which is that individual choice and outcomes are more important than those of the collective.

Who cares that the U.S. healthcare system is profoundly failing the average American family, and is more expensive than ever? Usha Vance is getting great taxpayer-funded healthcare.17

Who cares that childcare costs are through the roof? Katie Miller has a super awesome nanny while she records her insufferable podcast!

Who cares that we’re the only developed nation that doesn’t have universal paid parental leave18? Karoline Leavitt will peacefully enjoy her taxpayer-funded paid leave. Heaven on Earth!

Here’s the insulting and false pretense here: because Trump is allegedly fostering a pro-family environment for his (already wealthy) White House employees, his agenda must also be pro-family. That could not be further from the truth.

The Genderwashers couldn’t care less, though. They are singularly focused on performing whatever needs to be performed: frilly and feminine at the White House Easter Party, pitbull at the Press Conference, barefoot and pregnant, CEO of Turning Point USA, blah blah blah.

But I have bad news for these women: they may think women are dumb enough to fall for it, but I don’t think so.

Modern women are, with exceptions, enjoying economic agency for the first time in history. Women have options. Women have wants and needs. Women contain multitudes — artists, entrepreneurs, moms, aunts, friends.

The irony is, this group of modern women also includes The Genderwashers. These women are highly educated, career-oriented, working moms.

But shamefully, in a move I will never understand, they took that agency and squandered it — leaving all women less safe and respected in the process.

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And although she’s not yet aware of much more than the taste of her toes, I have already found myself hyperaware in her presence.

For one, I’ve learned that you’re not supposed to curse around babies, since they start absorbing language from the minute they’re born. I’m sitting at about a 50% compliance rate there — dutifully trying to swap my F bombs with “fricks”, like an edgy Mormon.

Yet, I find myself less concerned—and maybe even a bit tickled—by the prospect of her first word being “bitch”.

No, there’s another outcome that concerns me: will she grow up to be someone she’s not? Will she be made to feel bad for who she is? That fear is the cause of my hyperawareness.

I’ve noticed, having welcomed several babies into my life in the past year, that the descriptors start to fly immediately after birth. Everyone is desperate, it seems, to tie up their essence in a neat little bow. What is their temperament? Are they well-mannered, fussy, easy, difficult?

On one hand, it makes sense to do so, since infant temperament can be predictive of future personality.1 On the other hand, I worry about the child—as they get older—feeling stuck in a persona that doesn’t fit.

Even well-intentioned characterizations can be sticky, when they’re made about a child. Children who were known to be “helpful” may later find themselves stuck in a people-pleasing trap. Children who were applauded for their obedience may later find themselves blindly trusting bad people. Children who were known to be difficult may later extinguish their fiery flame, in order to be digestible to others.

It seems the only option, then, is to practice complete neutrality when it comes to the description of children. She is helpful. She is obedient. She is. That’s better.

In my case, I came into the world kicking and screaming. Knowing what I know now, this response seems perfectly appropriate. I think adults should kick and scream more. Plus, can you imagine swimming in cozy, warm darkness when, suddenly, you’re assaulted by translucent hospital lighting?

Still, my entrance would foretell what was to come for my caretakers. Surprise! They had welcomed a “difficult child”.

As my Grandma loves to recall, she could say the sky was blue and I’d argue that it wasn’t. The adults in my life would tell me I’d make a great lawyer someday — a compliment I now recognize as back-handed.

In hindsight, I think any young girl with an opinion is ascribed difficulty, even when they’re objectively less so than their male siblings and peers. But regardless, difficulty was to be my designation.

Opinionated. Anti-authority. Strong-willed. God forbid!

I always sensed, from particular caregivers, that the platitudes about “being yourself” were merely lip service. In fact, being yourself was only a good idea if that you happened to be polite, courteous, obedient, and mostly silent.

But, in a society that celebrates compliance above all else, what does it really mean to be difficult?

It means you were outspoken in your needs and beliefs. It means your first instinct was not to obey without good cause. It means you didn’t blindly accept what you were being told by people who claimed to know more than you.

I don’t know about you, but I think our country needs more, not less, of that. Those skills—pushing back, questioning authority, and even disobedience—should be cultivated in our country’s young people.

Being an adult now, I get it. Difficult children are inconvenient at times; they don’t provide for a storybook parenting experience. If I’m being honest, my first instinct would be to hope for an easygoing kid.

My second instinct, though, would be to recognize that difficult children grow up to be adults who refuse to be walked all over. Adults who challenge harmful systems and ideas. Adults who speak the words that others are swallowing.

So, if an infant’s temperament is truly predictive, then my niece may grow up to be incredibly good-natured and kind — someone the world desperately needs but will likely devalue. I kinda hope she’s a bit difficult too. I hope she has some fight in her, that she’ll kick a creepy old man in the balls or something. But mostly, I want her to be her — deeply complicated, beautifully simple, spitfire, peacemaker, social butterfly, cocooning introvert, easy, difficult…

I hope she is. I hope I am too.

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I’m from Minnesota, so this comes as no surprise to me. But, for anyone who might not know, now you know. Minnesota Niceness should never be mistaken for weakness—not when it comes to the protection of a Minnesotan’s neighbor.

Yet, in addition to supplying multi-angle footage of agents busting their asses on the ice, Minnesota is also putting on a Resistance Master Class. The entire country needs to take notes.

As Robert Hubbell wrote, “Through street protests, targeted boycotts, general economic strikes, and civil disobedience, Minnesotans are showing that there can be no government, no economy, and no civil framework upon which society depends if the people withdraw their consent to be governed.”

Minnesotans, simply put, are refusing to be governed.

In this essay, I will synthesize available reporting on how they’ve been ungovernable, and I will add some color from my Minnesotan friends and family on the ground.

1. They’re rapidly organizing in their communities.

Minnesotans have rapidly, efficiently organized in their neighborhoods and communities. One of my connections shared that she is in a Signal chat with 85+ people, all coordinating to meet the basic needs of their neighbors who may be at risk.

And as Margaret Killjoy wrote in her article on the Minnesota resistance, “There just isn’t a central leader, nor some central cadre. There is no vanguard leading the resistance.”

This type of decentralized community organizing is not only wildly impressive, but immensely difficult for anyone trying to stifle it.

These groups are coordinating grocery deliveries, school pickups/drop-offs, and even rent assistance for community members who need help. And, if they weren’t busy enough, Minnesotans have also found the time to put on an Anti-ICE Art Sled Rally.

As one commenter put it:

2. They are making the lives of ICE agents a living hell.

Minnesotans are also bringing it with the civil disobedience.

Killjoy reported seeing, first thing upon her arrival to Minnesota: “A line of cars drove down the residential street we’re on, honking their horns. It was, as we guessed and later had confirmed for us, ICE watchers tailing an ICE vehicle, laying on the horns to keep the federal occupation from operating in secrecy.”

This disobedience is evident when you watch any footage of an ICE encounter. In the background of the video, you hear cars honking, whistles blowing, and heckling by concerned onlookers.

And for any ICE apologists who suggest that protests should be, like, super polite and chill—I want to remind you that idea is very un-American. I’ll admit: this is something I had to be educated on during the George Floyd protests in Minneapolis. I’ve since learned that the country, as we know it, was built on civil disobedience. Meaningful protest has always been noisy, disruptive, and impossible to ignore.

Oh, and speaking of noise… they are literally bringing full drum sets outside of the hotels lodging ICE agents.

3. They understand the power of a protest.

Finally, Minnesotans are exercising their right to assembly in jawdropping fashion. CBS reported that, on January 23rd, “dozens of faith leaders were arrested while protesting at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, organizers say, as part of an effort to call for an end to Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrests in the area.”1

On the same day, 50,000+ protesters took to the streets of Minneapolis to march in subzero temps. My friends and family who were there suspect the actual turnout was much higher, as additional swarms of protestors were warming up in nearby buildings and the overlooking skyway.

The march was part of a broader event, deemed The Day of Truth and Freedom, which was organized by over 2,000 clergy members from around the country.2

This day would include a General Strike, in which participants were discouraged from working, going to school, and shopping.3

Though Fox Propaganda News would have it that these were a bunch of violent Trans-tifa agitators, all available reporting shows that these protests were overwhelmingly peaceful.

In fact, there has only been one incident in which Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara claimed that demonstrators threw ice, rock, and snow at officers. It is unclear if this was done by external agitators.4

What I choose to focus on is the kindness.

My friend who attended the march shared that fellow protestors were handing out whistles, hot chocolate, and hand warmers.

On the day of the General Strike, “some coffee shops planned to open without doing business to provide spaces for march attendees and ICE observers to warm up, offering free coffee and sign-making materials. One brewery planned to provide free hot dogs all day.”5

One protestor, who came in from Wisconsin for the march, said simply: “it feels festive, but angry.”6

That is the Minnesota way.

I’m not sure what ICE expected when they invaded Minnesota, in the dead of winter, to terrorize their neighbors—citizens and non-citizens alike.

Did they think the state with strong Native American presence, descendants of Vikings, and a thriving immigrant community would sit back and take it?

I don’t know what they were expecting, but I’m guessing it wasn’t this.

And I have to wonder, in spite of their macho arrogance, if they’re a little nervous right now. I wonder if they’re a little scared of what Minnesota is showing the rest of the country.

What they’re showing is that compliance is optional when you have large enough numbers. And, as Heather Cox Richardson said in her January 13th Politics Chat, “the administration does not have the personnel power to impose its will on a country that is not compliant”.

I don't know if this caliber of resistance would be possible in all American cities. After all, Minnesota is uniquely collectivist—with an insular and tight-knit culture. Minnesota also has exceptionally high rates of civic engagement — routinely leading the country in voter turnout.7

Finally, Minnesota is a Midwestern political anomaly, as a strong blue state in a sea of purple and red. As University of Wisconsin Madison Professor Mike Wagner wrote, “Minnesota has a unique combination of being more urban, more racially diverse, having more job opportunities, and a history of progressivism that positions the state different than the rest of the upper Midwest.”8

Yet, as ICE agents find new cities to target—as they are already doing—we have our blueprint going forward. And we don’t have to wait for them to come to get started. We must:

• Organize at the community level. This means getting to know our neighbors, joining mutual aid networks, etc.

• Practice disruptive civil disobedience.

• Protest in numbers they cannot ignore.

• Organize a National General Strike NOW

In the time I’ve been writing this, ICE has shot and killed another person in Minneapolis. Trump’s threat of invoking the Insurrection Act is still very much looming.

So, the fight is only just beginning. Still, we all owe a great debt to Minnesota, for their bravery and for giving us a plan for the fight.

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I find niches a little reductive, though. My experience as a human being, a twenty-something, and a citizen of the United States has been all over the place. It’s been disjointed and messy. That’s what I share in my little corner of the internet—the unfiltered musings of a sensitive, fiery young woman coming into her own as the sociopolitical tectonic plates shift rapidly beneath her feet.

Equal Parts is free, and all tips will be matched and donated to Run For Something.

Tip!

—Livi Rae

Well, well, well… 6 months into writing Equal Parts and I’ve quit my job, we’re going to war, and Harry Styles still hasn’t started touring again.

In this time, my writing has spanned personal, societal, and political—but most of it has centered around women.

In fact, I rarely write about men, except the worst among us. As a woman, it’s difficult to write from any other frame of reference. Yet, I also feel called to write about women because I believe they’re leading the resistance against Trump. Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of men fighting the good fight. Still, it is women—and especially women of color—who have been instilled with moral clarity from a young age, as a result of being treated like they’re less.

I’ve seen this clarity at protest after protest. It’s the women—mothers, aunts, sisters, and friends—fiercely leading the fight.

There’s only one wrinkle in my theory of the women-led resistance, though, and it’s a big one: white women continue to be profoundly disappointing at the national level.

Per the Center for American Women and Politics, “black women, Latinas, college-educated white women, and young women supported Harris at the highest levels, while non-college-educated white women continued to provide a loyal base of support for Trump.” In particular, ~80% of white Evangelical women backed Trump in 2024.1

Today I’ll be focusing my analysis not on the voters, but on the women at the helm of the movement. In this series, I will be profiling the women—The Genderwashers—of the regime.

📔 Genderwashing in Authoritarian Regimes

The concept of “Genderwashing” was first raised in relation to women in the workplace. In that context, “Genderwashing is an organizational tool that presents the myth of gender equality in organizations through discourse and text."2

According to Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a historian who specializes in fascism, placing women in positions of leadership is also a tactic used by authoritarian regimes to create the illusion of gender equality and human rights. She further explores the role of gender in authoritarianism in her article: “The Republican War on Women is Straight Out of the Authoritarian Playbook”.

Trump’s Genderwashers—women like Karoline Leavitt, Kristi Noem, Pam Bondi, Susie Wiles, Usha Vance, and Katie Miller— are the insidious few propping up patriarchy at the highest level.

They are the women who have climbed the rungs of the professional ladder, one placed there by generations of brave women before them, only to kick it down and spit in their face. The women who have sold their souls for a fleeting and false proximity to power. The women who disparage gender-affirming care from the mouths of their botched plastic faces. The women who shamelessly lie through their fake teeth. The women who run cover for some of the worst cruelty in our nation’s history — all from their shaded Christian high ground.

💬 Who is Katie Miller?

Today, I will be profiling the wife of top presidential advisor, Stephen Miller.

Elon Musk’s DEI hire. Allergic to compassion. Worst podcaster on the planet. Chronically sexually unsatisfied, I presume.

You know her, you hate her: Katie Miller.

Katie Rose Waldman Miller hails from Fort Lauderdale, Florida3 — which explains her natural ascension to being the Chief Press Secretary of The Swamp.

Most of her upbringing, though, took place in the affluent city of Weston, Florida—of which the majority of its residents are Hispanic.4 Miller, herself, is Jewish, an identity that she shamelessly conflates with Zionist, but more on that later.

Miller is also highly educated—first earning her BA in Political Science from the University of Florida, and then her Masters in Public Policy from George Washington University. During her undergrad, she was actively involved with student government—an early tell of her political ambitions.

In Trump’s first term, she served as the Deputy Press Secretary for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) from 2017-2019. She then became Press Secretary and, later, Communications Director for Mike Pence.5

Note: In an act of brave loyalty, she would later return to work for the man who expressed support for her ex-boss’s public hanging.6

Katie and Stephen met, in 2017, while working on a shared immigration project in the first Trump administration. It was love—or rather, shared hatred—at first sight.

To quote Katie at the time, “DHS sent me to the border to see the separations for myself, to try to make me more compassionate, but it didn’t work.”7 I can just picture Stephen’s swooning.

Not only had he found the one woman on earth who’d agree to sleep with him, but he’d also found a mate of equal psychopathy and moral depravity. In 2020, they married at the Trump International Hotel, and now have three children—for whom our tax dollars should subsidize trauma therapy.8

That brings us to present day, where Katie’s role in the second Trump administration is quite ambiguous. As wife to top Presidential Advisor Stephen Miller, she has taken it upon herself to play dress-up as his pseudo-press secretary—an impossible role, even for the one person on this planet who claims to love him.

She also temporarily served as an advisor and spokesperson for DOGE. After this, she was briefly poached to work in communications for Tesla and SpaceX, which was a DEI hire if I’ve ever seen one. Because as we will discuss next, this woman has the eloquence of an injured parakeet. So, naturally, she’s moved on from the private sector and taken up residence on The Island of Misfit Racists: the conservative podcast industry.

🎙️ The Katie Miller Show

I don’t say this lightly, but The Katie Miller Show might be the worst podcast I’ve ever listened to. I committed to listening to at least one full episode to get the gist, ready to come away with ideological fodder for discussion.

Instead, what I got was a Tiger Beat style interview with JD Vance where the most hard-hitting question was if he’s a “shoes on or off” household. Her interview with Vance was laughably banal, with questions such as: “what’s your Dad Ick?” “What do you make for your kids’ breakfast?” and “What do you like to bake?”

To be fair, I rage quit the interview about halfway through because Equal Parts is an unpaid endeavor, and if I’m going to listen to the overcompensations of white men, I’d prefer it be on The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives.

And as much as I’d love to hear more about Vance’s #rElAtAbLe Dad Moment when he pulled his kids off Air Force Two in their jammies, I am more concerned with a bigger question here: what role does Katie Miller serve in the administration and conservative movement, writ large?

As Carter Sherman of The Guardian wrote, “the last year has seen a burgeoning “womanosphere”, the universe of rightwing podcasts, YouTube channels and magazines that lace their coverage of lifestyle, beauty and wellness with antifeminist rhetoric.”9

If Katie’s goal is to profit from this “womanosphere”, I’m sure she’s doing a fine enough job—though her viewership is a pittance compared to other rightwing female giants like Candace Owens and Brett Cooper.

No, I believe the intention of this podcast is to provide cover for the atrocities of her guests by asking zero substantive questions and instead giving them The Goofy Dad Edit.

🤬 Other Public Meltdowns

Katie, like Stephen, routinely has hissy fits on air.

Most notably, we have her woke meltdown on Piers Morgan, in which she accuses Cenk Uygur of being “bigoted” and “racist” toward her for calling out her support of Netanyahu’s Israel.

More recently, Katie Miller has graced the news cycle, yet again, to run cover for her husband’s flagrant overreaches in Minneapolis vis-à-vis the killing of Renee Good.

First, Katie has another billionaire bootlicking crash out in response to ChatGPT accurately describing the shooting of Renee Good. “ChatGPT is dangerously woke,” Miller posted on X. “An AI that wrongly judges an outcome is a threat to the future of nation and world. xAI is the only truth-seeking AI.”10 Yes, this is the xAI that was founded by her former boss whose $288M donation bought her husband a job.11

She also made news calling Renee Good’s wife “another sad Liberal angry at the World because daddy didn’t love her enough.”12 Seems like a super emotionally healthy, well-adjusted adult response to a grieving widow!

So, what’s the point of profiling Katie and other disappointments of her kind? Well, apart from studying for the MAGA-themed Trivia Parties that I will be hosting once this shitshow is over, I think it’s important to spotlight their unique viciousness.

Women are often presumed to be a check on the worst impulses of male power. How could anything truly horrific be happening when these women—mothers to young children—are on board?

The answer, of course, is that women are not immune from the corrupting influences of power. The other reality is that they each suffer from a mind-boggling sense of self-entitlement.

They want to prop up patriarchy and traditional gender roles whilst pursuing their own professional ambitions.

They want undue compassion extended to them by the likes of Cenk Uygur, while actively denying compassion to the children and families they’re brutalizing.

They want jobs for which they’re patently unqualified, while browbeating DEI.

They want to cosplay powerful people, while subjugating all of their real power to very bad men.

The most ironic part of all of it is they will be promptly discarded once the regime has drained them of their utility—once they’ve been thoroughly humiliated.

And all of us normal women? We’ll just be here, washed away in their quest for perceived importance.

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It’s in this detachment that I realize modern America is a split screen: on one side, half the country is blissfully unaware of current events, concerned with nothing more than their next Amazon order. To the extent that they’re aware, they seem to be pretty happy with what’s going on.

And then there’s us—the perceived hysterical—desperately begging anyone to care that our country is circling a toilet bowl engulfed in flames. It makes me feel insane, being forced to downplay my alarm in what is, decidedly, objectively, historically, a CODE RED moment.

But sometimes I wonder: do I need to touch grass, or does the happy uninformed crowd need to touch a history book?

It’s a fools errand, though, convincing these people to care about anything beyond their nuclear family interests.

And honestly, If I set aside that pesky nationalism instilled in me through decades of institutional learning, I can’t help but wonder if it’s even worthwhile to patch our shredded national fabric. Does it really make sense to keep the “U” in the USA?

The idea of an indivisible nation is sweet and all, but I’m a pragmatist. I see the writing on the wall quite clearly. The right and the left effectively live in two parallel realities, constructed and reinforced by our algorithms.

The right’s reality is that things have never been better: borders closed, world peace achieved, and no more men in women’s volleyball. The left’s reality—one based in fact and affirmed by nearly everyone else on the planet—is that we’re descending into fascism and oligarchy: the ultra-rich get richer while everyone else’s quality of life deteriorates.

I wonder then, as our worlds continue to diverge, why secession hasn’t been seriously considered in over 150 years. Is it just too logistically difficult? Would it really be that hard to host two separate Super Bowls?

Maybe I should be careful what I wish for. In reality, the left would not fare well in a civil war scenario. If the No Kings protests were any indication, the only thing our side could win is a costume contest. And yet, there’s a certain je ne sais quoi to the idea of blue states seceding and forming our own woke commie factions.

On nights when I’m particularly dreadful about our timeline, I visit WokeWorld in my dreams—a land of metropolitan, well-dressed people with great music taste and overly verbose yard signs. Why stop at universal healthcare? We could have a universal iced latte system. Every barista queer; every latte the perfect color.

Then I wake up—another unsuccessful attempt to exorcize Trump from my psyche. No, we’re not in WokeWorld. We’re in a burning toilet in the bed of a dump truck headed straight for hell.

Drama aside, I think civil war might be worth the administrative headache. I enjoy driving up to Wyoming or Montana to revel in their natural wonders, but at this point, I’d be fine flashing my WokeWorld passport to do so. See, I crave the privilege of being an outsider—amused and horrified by the state of the U.S., smug that I don’t have to deal with any of it.

And of course, those on the right would be happy to oblige—until they realize blue states are subsidizing their quality of life. It might even add some exoticism to family holidays—we could enlighten our MAGA relatives with the latest cultural phenomena, since, presumably, most artists and entertainers would be residents of WokeWorld. In return, they could regale us with their megachurch lore and tell us how great it is living under late-stage capitalism, with even less of a social safety net than they had before. I’m sure everything will be going just swimmingly for them.

Alright, I’m being a little facetious. I guess my patience for playing make-believe—pretending there are two equal sides, imperfect but equal in their morality and impact on society—has been depleted, much like our meager social safety net (courtesy of the Big Beautiful Bill).

It’s inconvenient for the “both sides are bad” centrist, but the split screen has never been higher resolution: on one side, we have the right putting on a puppet show, wholly concerned with enriching and emboldening Trump and his billionaire buddies. On the other, we have Democrats—weak, unprincipled, and lost—but whose policy platform is, unequivocally, better for the most vulnerable.

So, for the Americans that are taking cover in their shrouded silence as ICE thugs murder a woman in broad daylight and tear gas babies—well, I just don’t think we’re compatible. I’m not sure reunification is a goal worthy of our time.

It seems the disdain is mutual, so maybe you can just let us retreat quietly in the night? We can split our holidays like an old divorced couple. You can send us your Tylenol and we’ll ship back our beef tallow and raw milk. Is it depressing? Sure. But I’m just not sure what else to do when our split screen is this stark. Maybe it’s just time we change the channel.

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I spent almost all of my waking life by myself, often humming, rambling like a mad woman, and listening to podcasts to fill the dead air. When you’re as alone as I was, life’s “extras” suddenly become central to the plot. I’d find myself smiling and greeting every stranger I walked past, lingering a little too long in conversation with baristas, and attending workout classes almost daily, doing anything I could to soak in human connection — even just through osmosis.

I soon became consumed with knowing more about the neighbors with whom I shared my small apartment complex. None of them were even close to being friends, but putting a face to their names was vaguely comforting.

In hindsight, I did not set myself up for a successful cross-country move. I was working fully remote, which barred me from any chance to meet friends through work. I lived alone, not even with a pet goldfish. I wasn’t enrolled in any school or program through which I could meet other people my age.

Most days, I wouldn’t interact with a single soul, short of the “extras” I mentioned. I’d drive to the store alone, shop alone, cook alone, clean up alone. Day after day, the sun would rise and set on my island of one.

This all sounds quite depressing, doesn’t it? Well, maybe I have my rose-colored glasses on, but I don’t remember minding it much.

For the first time in my life, I had all the time and space in the world to just exist. To do (literally) whatever I wanted to do. To try on different personas with every random person I met. After all, none of them knew anything about me, and I’d never see them again.

I was alone, but I don’t remember feeling particularly lonely. I’m sure I did from time to time but, more than anything, it served as some sort of cosmic fire under my ass. The realization quickly dawned on me that, if I didn’t put myself out there, I’d be destined to remain perpetually alone. And though I was enjoying the perks of my newfound solitude, I clearly realized that it couldn’t last forever.

So I went out and talked to anyone: yoga mat neighbors, hairstylists, drunk snowboard bros on the chairlift. Anyone. Almost all of these interactions yielded no long-term connections. Some fell totally flat.

It was like freshman year of college, minus the college. But I was building some semblance of structure brick by brick. It was kind of addicting, after I realized that the worst possible outcome of these encounters was momentary humiliation. I could always retreat to my one-bedroom palace, where I was blissfully sheltered from others’ perceptions.

By the grace of God, I hit the jackpot in one of these encounters, when I met two girls in line at a local coffee shop. This was a moment I now recognize as pure serendipity. We had a brief chat while waiting to order our overpriced drinks, and then they continued on their walk — oat milk lattes in tow.

The exchange, in and of itself, was exhilarating to me. It was an emblem of the new and improved Livi, a sophisticated adult woman who casually conversed with strangers at the coffee shop she frequented.

But what happened next was even more rewarding: they nervously re-approached me while I remained in line, and asked if I’d like to come to their dinner party that weekend. A dinner party!

Of course, I said yes. After all, when you don’t know one single person in a city, you lose the privilege of saying no.

“Do you want to go hike to a woodland troll statue in the middle of the wilderness?” Sure, what time?

“Do you want to go climb a mountain at 3am to watch the sunrise?” I’ll be there.

So, I went to their dinner party, and found myself in a room of incredible women that would become some of my best friends. I sometimes wonder what would’ve happened, had they decided against inviting me. Luckily, the universe looked kindly on me that day, and threw me a precious lifeline on my solitary journey.

This essay is shaping up to be quite the hero’s arc, right? Well, there’s only one problem: the minute I became comfortably nestled in a friend group and relationship (sans long distance), I promptly discontinued this version of myself. It’s like she was a role I was playing out of necessity and, now that I’ve entered a much different scene, I’ve hung her out to dry like a raggedy costume.

Introvert Livi—the Livi who gets irritated by pleasantries with strangers—has reclaimed her place on the throne. I’ve even lost touch with Alone Time Livi, and instead elect to fill almost every night of my week with a social event, or at least the presence of my partner with whom I cohabitate.

I don’t want to frame this as a personal failing. I’ve come to realize that each season of life calls for a slightly different version of yourself. New City Livi needed to be unabashedly outgoing. Semi-established Livi wants to kick her feet up with a cozy friend group and relationship.

On the other hand, putting yourself out there and enjoying time alone are two sides of an incredibly precious coin, in that they both require confidence and comfort with one’s self. These are both capacities that are generative and expansive, and grow your life in ways that are much-needed.

My boyfriend recently left town, and I’ve found myself jarringly unfamiliar with the aloneness I would’ve considered my other half, three years ago. I don’t want to go back to a life of solitude. But I also miss the many soul-enriching benefits that aloneness provides.

Sometimes, I long for New City Livi, a persona that now feels inaccessible to me. But I’m so grateful for all that she established — a community that sustains me, and a reality where coffee shop conversations are wholly optional.

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Side effects may vary.

The truth is: you can have a pretty great childhood and you’re still going to come out wounded; sometimes the scars just take a while to surface. My therapist insists that no trauma is too small, and that the intention of the offender doesn’t matter. What matters is how it makes me feel now. I giggle at that sentiment, perhaps as a trauma response. Because my “trauma” does feel small. It feels trivial.

It’s like, my mom was 15 minutes late to picking me up from Girl Scouts on a random Tuesday in 2008, and now I have an anxious attachment style. The drama.

Yet, the trivial events of our childhoods have a way of latching on—of stalking us. I think this is true for most people, even if the stalking goes mostly unnoticed. Rest assured—these memories are always in your orbit, circling like Death Eaters.

There’s a book, The Body Keeps the Score, that details the long-term impacts of childhood trauma on the body and brain. I refuse to read it, because I’m certain its findings will annoy me.

It all feels like an assault on my personal liberties. The childhood time period is insignificant, in the grand scheme of one’s life, and it’s almost completely out of your control. Yet, its importance is magnified and disproportionate—creating problems that our adult selves must endlessly tend to like weeds in a garden.

The content of one’s wounding moments are often, retrospectively, meaningless. For example, if I got left at Girl Scouts today, I’d simply inhale a box of Thin Mints and order an Uber—my psyche untouched. But kindergarten Livi felt this was an event worthy of permanent psychological damage.

I’ve come to realize, through years of off and on therapy, that understanding and healing one’s trauma has diminishing marginal returns. Thank you, business school.

It is genuinely useful to invest in some therapy and practice introspection. If you ignore your inner world altogether, you are doomed to become the one traumatizing everyone around you. But in my experience, “over-therapizing” perpetuates a cycle of re-opening wounds—even ones that may have healed on their own if you’d just let them be.

I’m sure the therapist community would love for everyone to be in therapy in perpetuity, for revenue stability purposes. However, I find it’s best not to over-engage. When themes start to feel particularly sticky, when the world feels overwhelming, when I start to get in my own way of feeling well—that’s when I know it’s time. Check, check, check.

I’m in EMDR therapy currently, and I have to say it’s doing something for me—rearranging and cleaning out the synapses in my brain. Still, I’m always riding that edge… when is too much introspection too much? When is it hurting more than it’s helping? If I disengage prematurely, am I leaving too many wounds unhealed—prone to becoming infected again?

Maybe you know it’s time to take a break when you start to think of your problems with a little levity. When you see things for what they actually were. When things stop feeling so serious. When you spend a little more time in the pink bubble.

Though it would violate every therapist norm and best practice, I do sometimes wish my therapist would call an audible, mid-session: “Livi, your mom was late to Girl Scouts; you were not a prisoner of war.” She might want to say it, but she never does. So I keep tapping, ingesting validation like a stale Thin Mint.

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Chapter One:

Once upon a cursed time, the “self-help” industry was stolen by rightwing hacks whose intelligence rivaled that of a goldfish. Pull-up bars were installed in every U.S. airport. Easter eggs were dyed with organic beet juice. Vaccine syringes were carefully filled with beef tallow and horse tranquilizer.

These unconventional initiatives were all in service of one simple goal: to Make America Healthy Again (MAHA). It was a noble goal, really, to encourage Americans to live longer and healthier lives. The problem? Well, the MAHA mission was being executed by the most corrupt and incompetent administration in American history.

Oh, and these supposed arbiters of peak human health were, in fact, fatasses whose skin resembled an air-fried raisin. Sorry, I forget you can’t swear in a children’s book.

The “self help” industry, though, was septic long before RFK Jr. dove in. What began as harmless—albeit cringe—advice from Glennon Doyle, Brené Brown, and the like evolved into an all-powerful machine pumping out solutions to class-induced problems.

These solutions were, of course, devoid of scientific evidence and often harmful. Yet, they were also at the caliber of a stoned middle school P.E. teacher. In other words, their lack of systemic intelligence was alarming. Perhaps RFK Jr. should’ve left medical policy to the real adults, and stuck with his distasteful erotic poetry.

It made sense, then, for “self help” to find its proper resting place on the right. After all, it was the perfect scapegoat—a way to place the onus on individuals to “improve themselves” as a flimsy Band-Aid for government-inflicted wounds.

Chapter Two:

For example, MAHA began to claim “personal responsibility” as the solution to a broken healthcare system. It was easier for them to disavow pharmaceuticals and vaccines entirely than to explain why they were so costly compared to the rest of the world.

Actually rooting out the pharmaceutical corruption or establishing universal healthcare — a defining feature of all the world’s healthiest nations — would’ve required them to turn against their corporate Daddies, to whom they were eternally subservient.

In that way, “self-help” was a natural outgrowth of late-stage capitalism—and of a country that framed everything as a personal failing unless, of course, you were a billionaire or corporation. (In that case, you were showered with all the glorious, taxpayer-funded welfare your snowflake soul desired.)

Chapter Three:

And yet, the reality only grew more dire: most Americans were still desperately trying to improve their material conditions, but were crippled—in part—by the rise of absurd healthcare costs. This left them no time or resources to study their food's ingredients or sneak in an upper-body session mid-layover.

Maddeningly, Trump made significant gains with economically-distressed voters in 2024, only for the administration to turn around and drown them with surging ACA premiums, food stamp cuts, and the decimation of Medicaid. The unquestionable (but still questioned) truth was that Trump and his MAHA minions wanted 99% of Americans to be poorer and sicker.

If they had truly sought out to Make America Healthy Again, the roadmap would’ve been clear. In fact, all they would’ve had to do was look to literally any other developed nation for answers. Why was it that the richest country on Earth, and the nation who spent the largest portion of their GDP on healthcare, was performing so pitifully in their health outcomes?

If you would’ve asked me, a passive observer with basic deduction skills and two eyeballs, I would’ve said that it was the uniquely American for-profit health system — a system that, by its very nature, did better when Americans felt worse.

I also would’ve said that our food is pumped with unnecessary garbage and Americans worked too much to go to the gym. And finally, I would’ve said that our politicians were bought out by the private healthcare and food production industries, such that they refused to regulate appropriately. But hey, no one asked me… I’m just the narrator of this shitty children’s book.

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Picture: West Central Tribune