Anger Is Great. Anger Is Also the Worst.
Some thoughts on the mess we’re in and how to climb out of it
As soon as it was morning on the East Coast, I texted my brother.
He quickly texted back: ‘I lived through it once, I saw it coming, and yet I still feel unprepared for what’s to come.’
My brother and his partner are both immigrants living in Florida. They are also both scientists. The decision that many Americans made last week directly impacts their lives, careers, and, most importantly, futures. Donald Trump’s presidency could mean suspended work visas, stricter green card requirements, and severe cuts in science research funding. And that’s just the things off the top of my head.
I feel his anger. Just like I feel the anger and the avalanche of other negative emotions — shock, pain, fear, despair, anxiety — surging through everyone else whose lives will be upended by this outcome. Especially women and trans people. Many of us here, in Europe, share that anger, too. Trump’s return is terrible news for Ukraine and for nearby countries like Poland, where I have family, too. We’re merely outsiders looking in, and yet our futures — and those of countless others around the world — are being shaped by a choice we had no voice in. I don’t even want to talk about how absurd this is. Not right now, at…
