The impending return of the chaos machine.

And the sugar to jam its gears. (A.K.A. Why 2025 Won't Be Like 2017 We Hope.)

Today is the last day of the objectively successful presidency of Joseph Robinet Biden.

I will always think of him as a genuine public servant who dedicated his precious few years in office to upholding the democratic ideal of making a government that serves the people, and not the other way around.

(By the way, I’ve preserved the Biden-Harris Administration Record linked above as a 103-page PDF that you can access here. I do not trust the incoming administration not to scrub the record, literally and figuratively.)

I’ve always appreciated President Biden’s willingness to grow and learn, and Jonathan Capehart has an excellent column on his gratitude to the President for that very reason.

(EDIT: Gift link graciously provided by reader Tricia! However 9f you’re going to use up your limited free Washington Post articles in the future, Capehart’s op-eds are always worth a click.)

Now, you surely have a running list of things that President Biden didn’t accomplish, policies you didn’t like, appointees he might have replaced, and failures that stick in your craw. Which is, basically, the description of every good president ever.

I refuse to get into “well, he wasn’t perfect but…” because the expectation of perfection is, I believe, what has brought us to the precipice of chaos where we teeter today. YMMV.

Now. About that chaos.

I’d be lying if I said I am not feeling that creeping feeling of doom this weekend that takes me right back to 2016 — and the four terrible years that followed.

I’m getting Memento-style flashbacks about kids in cages, Charlottesville, and January 6. Sleep has not been coming easy.

Last night. Not so hot.

I’ve done a good job keeping live TV news off. (I will take the kudos for that one!) But unless you are truly offline on a beautiful island somewhere, without news alerts or friends and family to text you, it’s hard to miss the signals:

Denmark in a panic (Anne Applebaum.) The “political gift” of TikTok going dark then not dark (Ahmed Baba). The political grift of crypto. (The Nation). The loyalty pledges and public servant purges (Katie Phang). The threat of ICE raids that are forcing school superintendents to issue directives to protect children (Axios). The rise of the Broligarchy (Wonkette) and the increasing complicity of the media (Independent) that’s led to major resignations this past week (Ann Telnaes). The deliberate misinformation around the LA wildfires (Guardian), accompanied by the childish taunts of democratic US leaders and threats toward people in need that sadly, the media has come to normalize.

It’s a lot.

And that’s the point.

Hopefully though, we have learned that lesson now. A.K.A. Why 2025 Won’t Be Like 2017 We Hope.

So where’s the Sugar, Liz? We were promised sugar!

Photo: Immo Wegmann

First: Fight the chaos with your commitment to fight the chaos.

We are not allowed to collapse into despair.

(As I say this, imagine me grabbing you by the shoulders and shaking you — firmly, but with love.)

Despair does nothing good for you, nothing good for the world.

Think about the basic law of energy: it can neither be created nor destroyed. Energy can only be converted into a different kind of energy. So you have a choice of whether to put your energy somewhere paralyzing — or somewhere useful, somewhere productive. Even if that means just taking care of yourself and those around you.

Is fighting your own despondency a scoop of sugar in the gears of an autocrat’s chaos machine? Yes! Bigly!

I would ask you to read (or re-read?) this post about 10 Simple, Specific Habits I’m Bringing into the New Year.

There’s a reason it’s been one of my most popular posts ever (and thank you!), and I think numbers 7-10 are extremely helpful to those of you who want preserve your sanity, save your energy for where it’s most needed, and leave the circus to the clowns.

(I swear I’m not doing a Buzzfeed NUMBER 8 WILL SHOCK YOU! I really do think they’re helpful tips for self-care. And they’re not particularly shocking so there’s that.)

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Second: Fight the chaos with knowledge, hope, and targeted actions

Find, follow, and support the people who will shore up our democratic guardrails in righteous resistance.

Not the rage-baiters and catastrophizers (though I admit to enjoying some of their writing as well), but those individuals who are solution-minded, who activate communities, who aim to show you the good, and who help you make more of that good yourself.

A few inspiring links to get you started:

• Vice President Kamala Harris reading a letter about a single life she changed, that may change millions more

• Timothy Snyder’s proposal for a “People’s Cabinet”

• Kevin Kruse’s suggestions for Martin Luther King Jr. speeches to spur you to action

• George Lakoff and Gil Duran’s tips for keeping democracy alive this year

• Marc Elias and Democracy Docket’s ongoing list of court case victories around voting rights

• Amanda Littman’s Run for Something training 10,000+ progressive millennials and gen z candidates to run for state and local office. Sign up here.

• Heather Cox Richardson’s reminder that a vast majority of Americans oppose Trump’s most draconian policies.

• Finally, Wonkette (in this case, writer Gary Legum) will never fail to make you laugh. We will be needing that.

For more ideas, consider anyone I follow on Substack, Bluesky, or Threads a solid starter pack.

Third: Fight the chaos with community

I hope you’ll stick around here and become a subscriber if you’re not already. I am hoping to dive into Substack Chat at last, because wouldn’t it be so great to talk about all this?

My promise to you in 2025 that I will never just tell you “things are terrible” and leave you here holding the “things are terrible” bag. That is not my style.

In exchange, I hope that you will never just tell yourself “things are terrible” — and they often will be — and leave it at that. I don’t want to build a community around panic.

If you’re here, it’s because you care about action, truth, humor, and glimmers of hope that shine need light into dark corners.

We’re going to do all the good that we can, for as long as we can.

Together.

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