August 8 Friday roundup

In this week’s podcast episode, I talked to Oliver Merino of the Immigrant Legal Resource Center about ways to find out what partnerships ICE has in your community and end or limit them. You can watch the episode on YouTube or listen to it via Apple, Spotify, and anywhere else you get your podcasts. If you want to read it instead of watching or listening, or if you’d like to explore links to people and events mentioned in the episode, you can find them in this week’s Tuesday post.

I’ve been thinking lately about the ways those in power are not only savaging our current way of life but damaging the country and the world for generations to come. Then Mariame Kaba posted yesterday on Bluesky: “Work to become the ancestor that you respect today. Don't be an embarrassment or disappointment to those who come after you.”

Her line can serve as a thought to keep in mind for ourselves, and also as a way to speak to and rein in people in our families or communities who are furthering, lifting up, or celebrating the violence being inflicted on so many people right now.

Mariame’s words made me think of two particular events I want to tell you about. In one, the person I know was braver than most of us will ever need to be, and in the other, my acquaintance was more deliberately cruel and selfish than I hope most of us would allow ourselves to be.

The first exchange took place in 2022 after Moscow’s February attempt to seize Kyiv, along with the rest of Ukraine. A Russian friend of mine had been going to anti-war demonstrations that spring, just as he had been demonstrating against Putin’s rule for years. He’d been arrested several times and been fortunate that during those arrests, he himself had not been beaten, though others often were. Generally, he was arrested and detained for a few hours before being sent home with a court date. He routinely ended up with a fine in an amount that was distinctly unpleasant but not devastating.

After February 2022, that bad situation became worse (though not nearly as bad as it had become for Ukrainians). After my friend was detained once again, he went home with a court date looming. But this time, someone came unannounced to his home to pay him a visit. A young FSB agent asked to talk with him. He went outside in the cold, where the two spoke. The agent suggested that he should quit his extracurricular activities unless he was looking for trouble.

But instead of letting the conversation continue down that path, my friend pointed out that the agent was very young and just starting out in his career. What did he plan to do when Putin died? What if this monstrous government one day ended? Did the FSB man believe things would go well for him? What kind of future was he making for himself?

Those words have stayed with me these last few years, and especially since the 2024 election. I want to ask those who are carrying water for President Trump’s agenda—giving women my age heart attacks, arresting the father of three U.S. Marines, detaining people in conditions of neglect and worse—what world they are making here, for themselves and for others?

***

On the other end of the spectrum is a conversation I had with a neighbor before the 2016 presidential election. It happened after Trump had declared his candidacy but before he’d won the Republican primary. This neighbor lived a few blocks away, but our children were friends. A lawyer at a big DC firm, he’d never really spoken with me before.

He came to pick up his child from a playdate early one evening. We were standing in my backyard watching our kids. He asked who I hoped would win for president, then said he assumed I would vote for Clinton.

I asked him who he planned to vote for. He mentioned that his first choice was a non-Trump candidate. If I recall correctly, he was most interested in Rubio winning but said he knew that was unlikely to happen.

If Trump took the nomination, he volunteered that he would vote for Trump. He was so eager to say this at the time that it still seems strange in retrospect.

He followed up quickly to say that he understood voting for Trump might well mean that he would one day have to explain that vote to his grandchildren. But it would be worth it, he said, to keep Clinton from being able to appoint any Supreme Court judges.

My neighbor is a good reminder that people do exist who are willing to embrace what’s happening now, if the other choice is having to accept a pluralistic democracy. But I don’t think they’re the majority, or anywhere close to it. I think more people are alarmed by the damage being inflicted on the country, and some are now regretful about their role in voting to help it happen.

These are good questions to ask ourselves, those we love, and even those we don’t know: “What kind of world are you calling into existence? What kind of future are you imagining coming from this? Are you becoming an ancestor your descendants will be able to respect, or are you a disgrace?”

I look around today and see an administration led by a person whose decisions have already directly led to hundreds of thousands of dead civilians, an administration that’s threatening American families nationwide, whose goons are assaulting even U.S. citizens, despite claims to the contrary.

I think it’s good and healthy to discuss all that harm with other everyday people now, because a lot of them aren’t aware of it, either because they’ve checked out entirely from the news or because they only see propaganda about the Trump administration.

And it’s especially worth it to say exactly what’s going on to the administration’s lackeys, those directly carrying out its mission. We can let them know face to face on an ongoing basis that we’re aware what’s happening and the damage that’s being done.

They can choose either side, but we can make clear that in doing so, they’ll have to live with the consequences of their decisions. We can point out that one day, though no one yet knows when, people will be held accountable for these abuses. And we can remind them it’s never too late to walk away from serving a vile cause, to begin imagining a different future for the country and for themselves.

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