Nobody thought to pause the emails.

Waking up Wednesday morning to “📣 60 months interest-free on select Samsung TVs” and “Every kitchen needs a signature color” and all the other regularly scheduled programming.

Nothing’s the same; everything’s the same. Metabolize the horror, move on.

Trying to check in on folks you care about while avoiding the shit-eating grins of the worst people in the world taking a victory lap. Stumbling across elated business ghouls who’ve been hiding in plain sight – it’s safe to take the masks off now and those tongues are hungry for boot.

There’s no space this time for “this isn’t who we are.” Nothing to be surprised by. “Everyone knows and nobody cares”.

If I’m wishcasting, I cling to the idea that they still have no idea what they’re doing. Each individual monster has their own pet project, sure, but none of these guys are team players. The cartoonish demise of each bromance can’t come soon enough.

But obviously things will get worse. There was no effort to hide the playbook. The pain will be unevenly distributed, the consequences cheered on by the jackals. Conditions will decline, whether through malice towards some subset of our neighbors it’s become tasteful to vilify, or through gross incompetence, playing Chesterton’s fence with the entirety of the administrative state until the millions of little balls quietly juggled by civil servants start falling out of the air.

Even if we’re overwhelmingly lucky and nobody’s learned a thing about enacting policy, daily life still feels bound to get infinitely stupider. The full-scale institutionalization of AI slop. “Do your own research” on the glowing ooze we decided it’s cheaper to let leach into your pipes. A federal fiefdom for each and every one of the dumbest fucking nephews alive. From Twilight of the Elites to triumph of the small-business tyrant.

I let the clown show dictate the shape and tenor of so many of my days last time around, and I know I can’t do that again. None of this to say I stick my head in the sand, but watching the returns come in last night, I couldn’t get over the galling lack of seriousness in so much of the coverage. Palace intrigue. The horserace. Sports for nerds.

I don’t really have the appetite for “who fucked up” yet, but I am fairly confident that doing more politics at them is not the next step. We’re not voting our way out of this anytime soon. And no won’t somebody please think of the norms?! kayfabe either. It’s just gonna have to be looking out for each other. Being the sand you wish to see in the gears. Giving time, giving money, giving voice without sucking all the air out of the room or reinventing the wheel:

Look for the people already doing the work. You probably do not need to invent your own new organization or group. Find the people already doing it and join them, listen to them, learn from them.

There are already abortion funds, resistance orgs, abolitionists, mutual aid groups, people who have been fighting for years, decades even. Join the fight. It has existed for a while, and it is time to honor that expertise and community.

I don’t think we really learned anything we didn’t already know.

The cavalry isn’t coming; we keep each other safe.