Your essay echoes my own sadness. It feels like we are all on hold. We are all delayed. And holding our collective breaths waiting for what may or may not happen.
Dr. Glaude, you are a good man, and you are right to be worried. If my 58 years of life, I've learned that the only thing I can control is how I respond to suffering and evil. There are giant gears turning in our civilization, and even if I chose to throw myself onto them, I don't think much would change. I choose to respond with love, kindness, and peace. That's all I can do. Your words and insights are always most welcome. Be well. God bless.
Having spent all of yesterday waiting to see if a ‘delayed’ flight would ever depart or be cancelled (it was ultimately cancelled), this resonates. The destruction has begun to disrupt even our superficial patterns of consumption, which are a poor substitute for contentment. May this give us collective resolve to begin to turn the tide. Always grateful for your clear-eyed human-centered insights. 🙏
I am with you all the way, and share all the feelings of desperation, but when push comes to shove, I don't know what to do other than what I already do - work on campaigns, send letters and messages to elected officials, go to protests. What does it mean living your lives as usual? Yes, I go to the grocery store and the pharmacy and help make dinner. Jane C.
"How something cracks daily." Yes, it has been happening daily shortly after the Dumpster's inauguration. Trump, MAGA, and the Billionaires are on a mission to destroy this country; and it has been continuous. From the beginning, two desires have driven mankind: GREED and the ETERNAL desire to prove that some humans are profoundly better than others.
The Madison airport was beautiful and quiet when I was there in May. You are right that things are falling apart. Maybe the Empire has to fall, before we can build a real democracy. Don’t forget we the people outnumber the billionaires.
You are such a beautiful writer, Dr. Glaude! A reflection of your beautiful mind and heart. I could see and feel all of this. Grateful for all that you share with all of us. So powerful. So needed. You are one of the great scholars of our times.
I take no pleasure in saying that I knew that destroying the country would be the purpose and end of Trump’s presidency back in 2015. I thought we’d escaped the danger when Biden was elected. Since the 2024 election, I’ve been in what I’ve called “anticipatory grief” over the destruction of our representative Constitutional democracy. And now, the anticipatory is morphing into present-day form. I do my best to remain in resistance mode, rather than acquiesce to what now appears to be Trump’s/MAGA’s/Republicans’ inevitable success in the demolition project. It is a very uncomfortable stance to uphold, but I would not have my integrity if I simply gave up and gave in.
Good afternoon Dr. Glaude, I certainly feel the same eloquent words that you've expressed. Like a brother from a different mother. This heaviness woke me up to remember that we must continue to pray 🙏🏼 while exercising our Faith 🙌🏼 and our rights 🗳️🏋️🏽🗳️🏋️🏽♀️ to vote! We shall get through this and trusting God, that He will not be mocked! ♡
The current federal administration and the airline industry share an unsettling indifference to the people they are supposed to serve. In both cases, the customer—or citizen—experience is treated as an afterthought, corners are cut in the name of profit or political gain, and the consequences can be deadly. What remains most apparent is a focus not on public well-being, but on protecting power and enriching those at the top.
You are not catastrophizing. You are right on target as usual. This part: "For me, the problem is not only the active efforts by anti-democratic forces in the country. It is the silence in the face of those efforts that scares the living daylights out of me—the complicity of people with those who despise them or, at best, view them as cattle chewing cud. As if, they no longer want the responsibility of freedom, or as if their hatreds are so intense they care about nothing else." Just have to reiterate that last bit: the complicity of people with those who despise them. And the possible reasons: they no longer want the responsibility of freedom or their hatreds are so intense that nothing else matters. My only question is: Do they not see that they are cooperating with people who despise them? It surely seems as if they simply don't care.
Your essay echoes my own sadness. It feels like we are all on hold. We are all delayed. And holding our collective breaths waiting for what may or may not happen.
Dr. Glaude, you are a good man, and you are right to be worried. If my 58 years of life, I've learned that the only thing I can control is how I respond to suffering and evil. There are giant gears turning in our civilization, and even if I chose to throw myself onto them, I don't think much would change. I choose to respond with love, kindness, and peace. That's all I can do. Your words and insights are always most welcome. Be well. God bless.
Again thank you for discussing what haunts us. I must believe that we will overcome and correct the damage.
Dr. Eddie,
Thank you for saying what I have been thinking every day since Trump took office.
“ Our lives begin to end when we become SILENT about things that matter!” Dr. M.L.King, jr.
It saddens me that Americans are living their lives like it’s business as usual!
I hope you get out OK.
I knew they were trying to dismantle the US when Musk held that chain saw on high! It continues
ad nauseum.
But the press corps is fighting back. Finally...some unity.
Having spent all of yesterday waiting to see if a ‘delayed’ flight would ever depart or be cancelled (it was ultimately cancelled), this resonates. The destruction has begun to disrupt even our superficial patterns of consumption, which are a poor substitute for contentment. May this give us collective resolve to begin to turn the tide. Always grateful for your clear-eyed human-centered insights. 🙏
I am with you all the way, and share all the feelings of desperation, but when push comes to shove, I don't know what to do other than what I already do - work on campaigns, send letters and messages to elected officials, go to protests. What does it mean living your lives as usual? Yes, I go to the grocery store and the pharmacy and help make dinner. Jane C.
Really sorry to see you scapegoating Frederick Nietzsche.
"How something cracks daily." Yes, it has been happening daily shortly after the Dumpster's inauguration. Trump, MAGA, and the Billionaires are on a mission to destroy this country; and it has been continuous. From the beginning, two desires have driven mankind: GREED and the ETERNAL desire to prove that some humans are profoundly better than others.
The Madison airport was beautiful and quiet when I was there in May. You are right that things are falling apart. Maybe the Empire has to fall, before we can build a real democracy. Don’t forget we the people outnumber the billionaires.
You are such a beautiful writer, Dr. Glaude! A reflection of your beautiful mind and heart. I could see and feel all of this. Grateful for all that you share with all of us. So powerful. So needed. You are one of the great scholars of our times.
I take no pleasure in saying that I knew that destroying the country would be the purpose and end of Trump’s presidency back in 2015. I thought we’d escaped the danger when Biden was elected. Since the 2024 election, I’ve been in what I’ve called “anticipatory grief” over the destruction of our representative Constitutional democracy. And now, the anticipatory is morphing into present-day form. I do my best to remain in resistance mode, rather than acquiesce to what now appears to be Trump’s/MAGA’s/Republicans’ inevitable success in the demolition project. It is a very uncomfortable stance to uphold, but I would not have my integrity if I simply gave up and gave in.
Good afternoon Dr. Glaude, I certainly feel the same eloquent words that you've expressed. Like a brother from a different mother. This heaviness woke me up to remember that we must continue to pray 🙏🏼 while exercising our Faith 🙌🏼 and our rights 🗳️🏋️🏽🗳️🏋️🏽♀️ to vote! We shall get through this and trusting God, that He will not be mocked! ♡
The current federal administration and the airline industry share an unsettling indifference to the people they are supposed to serve. In both cases, the customer—or citizen—experience is treated as an afterthought, corners are cut in the name of profit or political gain, and the consequences can be deadly. What remains most apparent is a focus not on public well-being, but on protecting power and enriching those at the top.
You are not catastrophizing. You are right on target as usual. This part: "For me, the problem is not only the active efforts by anti-democratic forces in the country. It is the silence in the face of those efforts that scares the living daylights out of me—the complicity of people with those who despise them or, at best, view them as cattle chewing cud. As if, they no longer want the responsibility of freedom, or as if their hatreds are so intense they care about nothing else." Just have to reiterate that last bit: the complicity of people with those who despise them. And the possible reasons: they no longer want the responsibility of freedom or their hatreds are so intense that nothing else matters. My only question is: Do they not see that they are cooperating with people who despise them? It surely seems as if they simply don't care.