When Our Hearts Are Broken, We Rise

What if?

Dear friends,

I don't know about you, but I'm finding it hard to sleep at night. My brain goes into frenetic overdrive as soon as my head hits the pillow. I don't know how this year is going to unfold (spoiler alert - no one does), but I do know that we all need to seriously step up our game as the wannabe dictator and his evil minions grab desperately for power, even as it is turning to dust in their filthy little hands. We've read the history books (apparently, so have they, but as instruction manuals rather than cautionary warnings), and we know how this turns out when citizens turn away. Yeah, it's really scary and ugly and unfuckingbelievable, but we need to find the courage to fight them on every level with everything we've got. This is our time to say, "Not today, Satan" and activate our humanity, our creativity, our love of community, and our collective determination to stop them from doing too much more irreparable damage.

As the world becomes increasingly destabilized by the actions of just a few truly evil sadists, it is really easy to lose perspective. I feel gut-punched with every new atrocity, and they're coming fast and furious just now. As a means of holding onto my focus of The Big Picture (basically, it never ends well for fascists) I like to play a little game with myself that I call "What if?"

For instance...

What if a few more Canadians had voted Conservative last spring and Poilievre had won and was now our prime minister instead of Carney? This whiny little clown would have sold our Canadian souls and soil to the orange menace on Day One. Now I find myself swooning over the centre-right banker who is an actual fucking grown-up and giving everything he's got to protect our vast nation from an American invasion. Phew!

What if on October 18th, 2025, say, a million or so individuals decided they're just one person and it wouldn't make a difference if they didn't participate in the NO KINGS protest? What made that protest the largest in US history was down to every single individual who grabbed a sign, donned a frog suit, or just went in normal attire and empty handed to their nearest anti-fascism gathering and was a very vital part of the 7+ billion crowd that said NO KINGS. This event may not have shut down the cosplay monarchy, but it empowered the rest of us and gave us the strength, courage, and vision to keep going. If you're not already part of Indivisible, I recommend following them. These folk show you where all the action is.

What if tens of thousands of volunteers hadn't given up a few hours here and there to get Zohran Mamdani elected Mayor of New York? Chances are good that, had these individuals not believed in the change Mamdani promised and just stayed home, the rich old rapist guy would have won. But now, not only New York City faces the possibility of real, positive changes, but, if Mamdani is successful (which I believe he will be), that success will spread as we see the possibility of electing a new kind of leadership wherever we live.

What if we allowed our brokenheartedness to cause us to give up rather than rise up? Plain and simple, THEY WOULD WIN. For ourselves, for our loved ones, and for our neighbours, we absolutely cannot afford to allow them to win. In fact, I believe that they are losing and they know this and that is why they are escalating their insane acts of cruelty. This week we have seen millions of broken hearted people filling the streets across every American town and city to protest the brutal murder of Renee Nicole Brown (perhaps you are one of them). Let our broken hearts be what drive us into action against this violent regime rather than defeating us.

You get the idea. Each of us, in our own way, is required for this movement, for these times. Without you or me showing up to the polls, marching in the streets, making phone calls, sending emails, dropping banners, boycotting the bootlicking corporations (Spotify, Target, Amazon...), donating to good causes (ACLU, Amnesty International, any local support group...) amplifying the truth to drown out the lies, things would be a whole lot worse than they are, with little chance of ever getting better.

By the same token, what if American voters had elected Harris (imperfections and all) rather than the Giant Toddler, the King o' Cruelty, the Wannbe Dictator? I try not to focus on this particular what if, but I find it hard to stifle my fury with the people who didn't bother to vote by choice (not circumstances) and the ones who consciously voted for a government that promised to round up immigrants. I shall continue to try to practice compassion, but for the life of me, I will never understand how anyone found that decision complicated, and I don't know how to not hold them responsible for tipping the world upside down. I know this rage is not helpful to me or anyone else, but I can't shake it. Please let me know if you have any suggestions for how to let this shit go.

When Heather Cox Richardson says that the US has now officially embraced fascism, you know it's time to act.

I listen to HCR's Politics Chats religiously and I was struck this week when she declared that the US now has a fascist government. If you follow her work, you know HCR will not make such a statement unless it's absolutely, irrefutably true. We are now at the point where the clown administration are going deep Orwell while murdering whoever the hell they want and invading wherever the hell they want, lying through their false teeth every step of the way. They aren't even pretending to be a democracy any more. But, the fact that they are now bonafide fascists eschewing anything that resembles democratic process, though utterly terrifying, does not mean it's over with, it's done, and now we curl up and suffer. It means that we take a deep breath, find our people who nourish us, and double down on our resistance in all its many forms. The US administration is fucking around, and they are going to find out because we are going to show up in whatever capacity we have, en masse, on repeat, all over the map, to show them that love is more powerful than hate. Kindness is more powerful than cruelty.

These are terrifying times, but with each new act of terror, we are seeing our friends, our neighbours, our communities, ourselves get up off the couch and going out to make a difference (or, in cases like mine, trying to make a difference from my couch). We are rising up in resistance because they keep breaking our hearts and we refuse to allow this to become the norm. We rise up for all the lives broken and ended, communities disrupted by a regime that is high on hatred and utterly lacking humanity. Resistance is fertile. Kindness is contagious. Art is imperative.

"For Renee Nicole Good Killed by I.C.E. on January 7, 2026."

by Amanda Gorman

They say she is no more, That there her absence roars,

Blood-blown like a rose.

Iced wheels flinched & froze.

Now, bare riot of candles,

Dark fury of flowers,

Pure howling of hymns.

If for us she arose,

Somewhere, in the pitched deep of our grief,

Crouches our power,

The howl where we begin,

Straining upon the edge of the crooked crater

Of the worst of what we’ve been.

Change is only possible, & all the greater,

When the labour & bitter anger of our neighbors

Is moved by the love & better angels of our nature.

What they call death & void,

We know is breath & voice;

In the end, gorgeously,

Endures our enormity.

You could believe departed to be the dawn

When the blank night has so long stood.

But our bright-fled angels will never be fully gone,

When they forever are so fiercely Good.

Wherever you are in this world, I hope you are building community and spreading loving kindness.

Let's do this!

Jessica (she/her)

p.s. In so many posts about the cold blooded murder of Renee Nicole Smith, she was identified as 'an American citizen'. While I understand the implication of this identifier is meant to alert us to the fact that no one is immune from ICE violence now, there is also the subtle (or maybe not so subtle) implication that it isn't so bad when ICE murders non-American citizens. All victims of ICE violence are human beings, world citizens, mothers, fathers, siblings, children, beloveds. Our heartbreak and outrage must include them all.